Kings Row is a 1942 film starring Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan and Betty Field that tells a story of young people growing up in a small American town at the turn of the twentieth century.

The supporting cast features Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Judith Anderson and Maria Ouspenskaya.

In the small midwestern town of Kings Row, five children grow up together in the 1890s: Parris Mitchell, a polite, clever little boy who lives with his grandmother; pretty blonde Cassandra Tower, daughter of the secretive Dr. Alexander Tower and a mother that is seen only through the upstairs window; the orphaned but wealthy and fun-loving Drake McHugh who is best friends with Parris; Louise Gordon, daughter of the town physician Dr. Henry Gordon; and the tomboy Randy Monaghan, from the wrong side of the tracks, whose father, Tom, is a railroad worker.

The next morning, Parris' best friend, Drake, says that he intends to marry Louise who is in love with him as well despite the disapproval of her father, Dr. Gordon.

As Parris continues his studies with Dr. Tower, he and Cassie begin a secret romance, seeing each other at Drake’s house.

The next morning, Drake learns that Dr. Tower has poisoned Cassie and shot himself and has left his entire estate to Parris.

Parris finds Dr. Tower's notebook which showed that he killed Cassie because he believed he saw early signs that she might go insane like her mother and he wanted to prevent Parris from ruining his life by marrying her, just as Tower's life had been ruined by marrying Cassie's mother.

Drake's trust fund is stolen by a dishonest bank president and he is forced into a menial position with the railroad.

When Parris learns that Dr. Gordon has died, leaving the town with no doctor, he decides to stay in Kings Row.

Wolfgang Reinhardt refused an assignment to produce the film, saying, "As far as plot is concerned, the material in Kings Row is for the most part either censurable or too gruesome and depressing to be used.

The hero finding out that his girl has been carrying on incestuous relations with her father... a host of moronic or otherwise mentally diseased characters... people dying from cancer, suicides–these are the principal elements of the story.

Wallis urged him to reconsider and Robinson realized that he could turn this into the story of "an idealistic young doctor challenged by the realities of a cruel and horrifying world.

"[9] Breen objected to "illicit sexual relationships" between characters in the movie "without sufficient compensating moral values".

"[7] Breen said that any screenplay, no matter how well done, would likely bring condemnation of the film industry "from decent people everywhere" because of "the fact that it stems from so thoroughly questionable a novel.

Breen said that his office would approve the film if all references to incest, nymphomania, euthanasia and homosexuality which the novel suggested, be removed.

[14][15] Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland and Ginger Rogers were initially considered for the role of Cassandra.

Among the other actresses considered for Cassandra were Katharine Hepburn, Adele Longmire, Marsha Hunt, Laraine Day, Susan Peters, Joan Leslie, Gene Tierney and Priscilla Lane.

[8][7] Although Reagan became a star as a result of his performance, he was unable to capitalize on his success because he was drafted into the U.S. Army to serve in World War II.

[17] The pivotal scene in which Drake McHugh wakes up to find his legs amputated posed an acting challenge for Reagan who was supposed to say "Where's the rest of me?"

In City of Nets, Otto Friedrich noted that the movie had a formidable array of acting talent and the scene in which Reagan saw that his legs were gone was his "one great opportunity."

Reagan recalled in his memoir that he had "neither the experience nor talent to fake it," so he undertook exhaustive research, talking to doctors and to people with disabilities and practicing the line every chance he got.

In his book City of Nets, author Otto Friedrich says that beneath the tranquil, small-town exterior was a "roiling inferno of fraud, corruption, treachery, hypocrisy, class warfare and ill-suppressed sex of all varieties: adultery, sadism, homosexuality, incest.

This led Korngold to send a sarcastic letter to the head of studio publicity at Warner Brothers writing "Seriously, should I really stop working and wait for the arrival of Mr. Bellamann?

[3] The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther panned Kings Row which he described as being as "gloomy and ponderous" as the novel upon which it was based.

"Just why the Warners attempted a picture of this sort in these times and just why the corps of high priced artists which they employed for it did such a bungling job", Crowther wrote, "are questions which they are probably mulling more anxiously than any one else."

David Lewis has given it all an unstinted production and James Wong Howe, one of Hollywood's best shooters, has turned the cameras on it.

James Wong Howe's "gorgeous cinematography, meanwhile, maintains many layers of drama in deep focus, as befits this brooding tapestry".

[25] The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (James Wong Howe), Best Director and Best Picture.

The other two series were Casablanca, another TV version of a renowned movie (featuring Charles McGraw in Humphrey Bogart's role), and Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker, a Western later produced by Roy Huggins that went on to its own time slot for several years until it started rotating with Bronco which starred Ty Hardin, another Warner Bros. Western.