The evening visits of Dr. George Bull to widow Janet Cardmaker have been the topic of conversation for five years in the small New England village of New Winton. Dr. Bull lives with his elderly Aunt Myra, who often leaves the telephone receiver off the hook to the annoyance of Dr. Bull’s many callers, who keep him busy day and night with their complaints, some imagined, as with the hypochondriacal soda jerk Larry Ward, others serious, as with newlywed Joe Tupping, whose legs are paralyzed from a fall. When Dr. Bull arrives too late to the home of Janet’s brother, wealthy Herbert Banning, to save a sick hired girl, because he was up all night delivering an Italian baby, his competency is questioned. Banning’s daughter Virginia is pregnant from a night spent with a football player at a nearby university. Frightened because her parents want her to marry a senator’s son, Virginia confides in Dr. Bull, he convinces her to marry the football player. After Aunt Myra suggests that a sick girl has typhoid because of her smell, Dr. Bull suspects that typhoid has gotten into the water supply during the recent rain because Banning neglected to keep clean a construction camp for a new power plant, which had been built next to the reservoir, over Dr. Bull’s objections. He drives to his colleague Dr. Verney’s laboratory where typhoid is diagnosed. The outraged townspeople vote to have Dr. Bull removed as health officer even though Janet, at the risk of disgracing herself, defends him. Although he has lost his self-confidence, Dr. Bull remains dedicated to curing Joe with a serum he devised that helped one of Janet’s sick cows. Soon, Joe’s fever breaks and feeling returns to his toes. After an argument with Janet, Dr. Bull is about to propose when Larry arrives with the intimidating brothers of a girl he has been courting, and Dr. Bull calls the reverend to marry them. Later, as the newspaper reports Dr. Bull’s serum discovery, Dr. Bull and Janet board the train on their honeymoon, as do Larry and his bride, while Joe, walking with a cane, and his wife May, wave goodbye. More on Wikipedia
Watch Doctor Bull (1933)
