Dark Command (1940) – directed by Raoul Walsh, this Western features John Wayne as the brawny assistant of traveling tooth-puller Gabby Hayes. Wayne’s job is to provoke people into a fight so that he can knock an opponent’s tooth loose, which Hayes will then pull for a fee; the two’s arrangement is to split the proceeds.

The Strawberry Blonde (1941) - also directed by Walsh, this comedy romance featuring Rita Hayworth in the title role, stars James Cagney as Biff Grimes, a dentist that not only pulls a tooth from his reluctant drunken father (Alan Hale), but gets a chance to see what his life would have been like if he’d married Hayworth’s (instead of Olivia de Havilland’s) character through her husband, his former double-crossing friend Hugo F. Barnstead (Jack Carson).

Bells Are Ringing (1960) - Bernard West plays an hilarious dentist-songwriter wannabe opposite top-billed Judy Holliday (her last film) and Dean Martin in this Vincente Minnelli directed-Arthur Freed produced film version of the Betty Comden-Adolph Green Broadway hit Musical, romantic comedy which also starred Holliday. As Dr. Joe Kitchell DDS, West ‘sings’ “I Love Your Sunny Teeth”, “Oh How It Hurts”, and “Hot and Cold”.

The Secret Partner (1961) - this nifty little (MGM-British) crime drama thriller starring Stewart Granger and the lovely Haya Harareet features a scotch drinking dentist (Norman Bird) who’s not only blackmailing one of his patients (Granger) that has a criminal background, but also agrees to put Granger’s character under gas (ostensibly to pull a tooth) in order to extract his keys and some information to facilitate the robbery of a shipping company, for a tidy sum.

Cactus Flower (1969) - another comedy – Walter Matthau plays a dentist that tells his girlfriend (Goldie Hawn) that he’s “married with children” so that he can remain unattached. But when their relationship develops to the point that Matthau’s character is finally ready to make a commitment to Hawn’s, he uses his longtime employee (Ingrid Bergman) to pretend to be the wife he’s leaving.

MASH (1970) - perpetuating the stereotype, the filmmakers of this Academy Award nominated (screenplay) comedy, which led to one of the most successful television series ever, cast John Schunk as Captain Walter ‘Painless Pole’ Waldowski, a dentist that wants to commit suicide.

Marathon Man (1976) - exploiting everyone’s very real fear of dental pain, Laurence Olivier earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination playing a Nazi war criminal ‘dentist’ that exacts extraordinary, excruciating pain on Dustin Hoffman’s character via torture.

The In-Laws (1979) - a successful New York dentist (Alan Arkin) finds himself an unwitting victim-reluctant participant in an outlandish plot of his daughter’s would-be father-in-law & ex-CIA-like government agent (Peter Falk) in this crime comedy that was recently named (by Premiere Magazine) one of the 50 greatest comedies of all time.

10 (1979) - this Blake Edwards romantic comedy includes several funny scenes which begin after Dudley Moore has six cavities filled by a dentist (James Noble) that’s the father of Bo Derek (the object of Moore’s mid-life crisis obsession), who’s about to married. His mouth stuffed with cotton, Moore drinks too much to alleviate the pain which not only leads to an incoherent phone call with his girlfriend (Julie Andrews), but also a trip to a resort in Mexico where, lo and behold, Jenny and her husband are honeymooning.