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Washington Story (MGM) might be subtitled Mr. Van Johnson Goes to Washington. Van plays a New England Congressman, party affiliation unspecified, who is without doubt the handsomest member of the lower house. Although Representative Johnson dislikes being interviewed, he changes his mind when he meets sexy Newswoman Patricia Neal. She tells him that she wants to do "a straightforward, factual account of morning, noon and night in a Congressman's week." and promises that "I'll be with you constantly.'' Before long. Johnson has dropped his "no comment" tactics, and is whispering sweet uncongressional remarks into Pat's ear as they dance cheek to cheek at Washington parties. The final clinch on the capitol steps can be foreseen a long time in advance.
When Van and Pat aren't billing & cooing, there is a parallel plot about a rather mysterious "President's shipbuilding dispersal bill." In voting for the bill. Congressman Johnson endangers his re-election by courageously placing the national welfare ahead of petty political considerations in his home district. Needless to say. he helps to rout the bill's enemies. The picture has some fairly lively scenes shot on the spot around Capitol Hill. In Robert (Battleground) Pirosh's writing and direction, and in smooth performances by Sidney Blackmer as a lobbyist. Philip Ober as a columnist and Louis Calhern as an elder Congressman, Washington Story turns out to be a rather diverting blend of love and legislation.
White Corridors (J. Arthur Rank; Universal-International) is a British hospital drama in which just about everything in sight is amputated but the long arm of coincidence. The setting is Yeoman's, a small country hospital where the medical staff seems to be in worse shape than the patients. Research Pathologist James Donald, who is conducting experiments involving penicillin-resistant cases, becomes infected, while treating a patient, with one of those mysterious, nameless movie ailments. Dr. Googie Withers, a beautiful lady surgeon who is in love with Dr. Donald, saves him with the very serum he had been trying to perfect.
The rest of the staff is also in bad shape. Nurse Moira Lister is pining for Resident Physician Jack Watling, who is engaged to Dagmar Wynter, daughter of the hospital board chairman. Watling's father, Senior Surgeon Godfrey Tearle, becomes so unnerved during an operation that he is unable to complete it. There is also a pretty fledgling nurse (Petula Clark) who has the jitters.
With so much smooching going on between doctors and nurses in offices, laboratories and ward rooms, it is small wonder the patients fare badly. A young boy dies of blood poisoning; a female patient's cerebral abscess is mistakenly diagnosed as tonsillitis; and Retired Civil Servant Basil Radford has to break his ankle to get admitted to the hospital for lumbago treatment. Pat Jackson has directed all this hectic activity in scalpel-keen style, but White Corridors never quite recovers from an ailing scenario.