After booting Lew Ayres out of the series, top billing was turned over to Lionel Barrymore's Dr. Leonard B. Gillespie for six more movies. Though there are most definitely enjoyable moments in these later films, something is noticeably missing without Lew Ayres. I might even go so far as to say that the series lost part of its original spunk, since young Dr. Kildare is no longer around to spar with Gillespie, and none of his 'replacements' even come close. But Lionel always delivers, in each and every scene he gets, in spite of the fact that some of said scenes are over the top corny. All that said, Gillespie was, from the beginning, the best thing about the series.