In This Underrated War Comedy, Gregory Peck Brilliantly Balanced Heartbreak and Humor

For most of his career, Gregory Peck was the model of upright masculinity. He was stoic, moral, and commanding. He was the conscience of America in To Kill a Mockingbird and the military man that the nation looked up to in The Guns of Navarone. But once in a while, Peck had roles that defined him beyond these performances. In the 1963 drama Captain Newman, M.D., Peck loosens his collar and shrugs off the stoic gravitas we usually associate with him to lean into an offbeat role.