Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1971’s Dr. Cook’s Garden!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

Everyone loves Dr. Leonard Cook.

Played by Bing Crosby, Dr. Cook has been the doctor in the small town of Greenfield for as long as anyone can remember.  He has delivered almost the entire town.  He’s the friendly face that everyone sees whenever they have an ache or a pain.  He’s the somber source of comfort whenever the time comes from someone to pass.  Dr. Cook has lost some patients but he’s saved even more and no one doubts that Dr. Cook always does his best.  As admired as Dr. Cook is as a doctor, he’s almost equally admired for the beautiful garden outside of his office.  Cook maintains the garden by always pulling out any plants that he feels would not serve the best interest of the garden.  That’s Dr. Cook.  He’s always doing whatever needs to be done to make the world a nicer place.

Unfortunately, Dr. Cook is getting old and he’s slowed down a bit.  He has a heart condition and he can no longer be as physically active as he once was.  Dr. Cook’s former student, Jimmy Tennyson (Frank Converse), returns to Greenfield so that he can help out his former mentor.  Dr. Tennyson is going to help ease Dr. Cook into retirement and then eventually take Cook’s place as the town doctor.  Dr. Cook may say that he’s not planning on retiring anytime soon but it’s obvious that he has faith in Dr. Tennyson’s ability to eventually replace him.

Or, at least, Cook feels that way until Dr. Tennyson starts asking about some of Cook’s patients who have died over the years.  Tennyson discovers that many of Cook’s patients died despite not being seriously ill and that Dr. Cook also has a surprisingly large supply of poisons.  When it’s mentioned that no one in town has ever wondered why Dr. Cook has lost so many patients because only the “mean” patients tend to die, Dr. Tennyson realizes that Dr. Cook has been doing his bit to make sure the town of Greenfield stays a nice place.  Dr. Cook calls it “community service.”  Dr. Tennyson calls it murder but can he turn on his former mentor and the most beloved man in town?  And when Tennyson starts to pressure Cook to stop practicing medicine and playing God, Dr. Cook starts to make his own plans to put his former student in his place.

An adaptation of a stage play by Ira Levin, Dr. Cook’s Garden is a suspenseful and short made-for-TV movie.  Director Ted Post does a good job of opening up the action and preventing the film from becoming overly stagey.  The main reason the film succeeds is due to the performance of Bing Crosby in the role of Dr. Cook.  Crosby’s kindly and cheerful demeanor keeps the viewer off-balance but, once Dr. Cook decides to target his former student, the friendly surface evaporates and Dr. Cook is revealed to be just as ruthless and cruel as those who he targets.  This is the type of film that will inspire you to wonder just what exactly your neighbors may be hiding in their gardens.