Bullet Scars

Regis Toomey and Howard da Silva star in "Bullet Scars," a 1942 B movie that's pretty good, thanks to the nice performance by Toomey.

The Dillon gang, led by Frank Dillon (Da Silva) pulls off a robbery, but one of them, Joe, is badly wounded. They can't risk going to a hospital, so they corral a doctor, Steven Bishop (Toomey) to help them, claiming the shooting was accidental and saying nothing about the fact that they're all crooks.

Meanwhile, Joe's sister Nora (Adele Longmire), a nurse, is asked to come and take care of her brother. Dillon offers the doctor a fortune and his own laboratory if he will stay and take care of Joe, who is Dillon's best friend. Dillon is also in love with Nora, who wants nothing to do with him.

It doesn't take Bishop long to realize that he's pretty much a captive of these men, but while picking up supplies at the drugstore, with one of the men standing nearby, he does find out about the recent bank robbery and puts 2 + 2 together. He also knows he won't live if Joe dies while under his care. He and Nora have to figure out how to get out of there.

There's nothing special about this movie, but it is entertaining, and the end is clever. Regis Toomey was a solid actor with a kindly presence who was prolific in both television and film into his eighties. He was a regular on many TV series over the years.

Howard da Silva, turned in as a Communist by Robert Taylor, was blacklisted for 8 years but acted in theater and returned to television in 1959. He starred as Ben Franklin on Broadway and screen in "1776."

However, the most interesting person in this film was the elderly doctor in the beginning of the film, Hobart Bosworth. Bosworth was a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden on his father's side, and on his mother's side, a descendant of the first Dutch settlers to land in the U. S. He was an actor, director, writer, and producer going back to 1908.