Le dilemme du docteur

Dr Maurice Evans must choose between treating a good, simple country doctor or a painter and scoundrel whose wife seems appealing. The Dr.'s colleagues are hilarious, and there's a beautiful scene in a greenhouse for which Anthony Asquith and Cecil Beaton should be praised.

Rather too much good solid Shaw has been lost in screenwriter Anatole de Grunwald's attempt to turn a solid and surprisingly funny play about the moral dilemma faced by a man (John Robinson, bearing a striking resemblance to Maurice Evans) over whether to save the life of a brilliant artist who is also a wastrel or a good man who offers far less to posterity into a La Boheme-tinged love triangle between top billed Leslie Caron, Dirk Bogarde (both fine and passionate, as always) and Robinson.

Fortunately, the screen comes alive when the quartet of Shaw's doctors are on stage debating morality and science, most especially in the persons of old Shauvian hands like Robert Morley (Andrew Undershaft in the 1941 Pascal film of MAJOR BARBARA) and Felix Aylmer (Cauchon in the 1957 Otto Preminger film and 1966 Caedmon recording of SAINT JOAN). Alistair Sim as a surgery-happy practitioner also carries his share of the comic load, with Robinson (the real lead of the film) bringing up the slightly stuffy rear.

Director Anthony Asquith , who helmed the great 1938 film of PYGMALION which won Shaw his Oscar as best screenwriter, never allows the action to drag, brings out the best of Shaw's life lessons ("those who marry happily will marry again") even when Grunwald nearly buries them in stock romantic fumbling and uses the period setting as well as he did in his still definitive 1952 film of Wilde's IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

This ...DILEMMA may not be a great film, but given the first rate cast and handsome production, it's well worth discovering - and lovers of Shaw shouldn't think of missing it.

An interesting but not particularly engaging George Bernard Shaw satirical play is given a serviceable cinematic treatment from director Asquith - who clearly had fared much better with PYGMALION (1938) - but, nonetheless, the film is buoyed by a good cast (Leslie Caron, Dirk Bogarde, Alastair Sim. Robert Morley, Felix Aylmer, Michael Gwynne, Alec McCowen) and production values (cinematographer Robert Krasker, composer Joseph Kosma, costumer Cecil Beaton, production designer Paul Sheriff). As it happens, some performers acquit themselves better than others: Bogarde is fun as an impoverished but Machiavellian painter dying of tuberculosis and Sim and Morley are their usual pompous selves as two renowned "quacks" competing to treat him so to earn favors from his lovely wife (an unfortunately out-of-her-league Caron).

It's the turn of the 20th century in England in this film based on George Bernard Shaw's 1906 play of the same title. While I read some of Shaw in literature classes, I didn't read "The Doctor's Dilemma." So, how much different the screenplay may be from the stage play, I can't say. In spite of a tremendous cast of the day and a top director, with all the elaborate trappings by MGM for a brilliant production in color, this film flopped in Britain and the U. S. And the reason seems obvious.

The film is billed as a comedy and drama, and the latter doesn't work with the former in this film. Had Shaw and/or the screen writers stuck to one theme throughout - satire of the medical profession, this could have been a very good and funny movie. Indeed, the doctors provide most of the humor. But there is far too little of it, especially for the likes of Alastair Sim and Robert Morley. Instead, though, the plot gives much time and attention to the roles played by the leads, Dirk Bogarde and Leslie Caron. And, while Bogarde had proved his talent for comedy, the character he plays here, Louis Dubedat, is not at all funny. And, but for the presence of Caron's physical beauty, she adds nothing to the comedy herself. Her role is a piece of the plot that is also exploited for humor - but it's so weak as to be negligible.

One suspects that the film fairly closely follows Shaw's play, with his obvious disdain for conventional morality in the portrayal of the young leading roles. But that's precisely what does this film in. It was a gamble, going for the glamorous leading people at the time, who obviously wouldn't be playing minor roles to the older actors. But in that gamble, MGM missed an opportunity to have a very good smashing comedy and satire about doctors, and the medical profession in England. It just meant focusing much more on that and much less on the social mores.

No one could miss the points by Bogarde's Dubedat - his scorn of the conventional culture and moral standards. But where is the clever dialog there, and where are the funny lines? And how funny is it that he was a bigamist? And that Caron's character didn't seem to care about that? Or that this otherwise talented painter was a thief and cad? It really paints her as quite strange, if not an out and out floozie. Again, this plot tries to deal with two big ticket themes, but does itself in because of that. The result was a very colorful-looking product with much wasted talent, in an errant screenplay that assured it of flopping with the public.

The bottom line for me -- with the likes of Alastair Sim, Robert Morley, and others of this cast in a supposed comedy and satire, is lots of laughs, chuckles and smiles. But for a few lines by the doctors - mostly in the beginning, this film was void of humor. Here are the best of the small number of good lines.

Sir Patrick Cullen, in the opening voice over of himself walking on Harley Street, "Harley Street - the home of the medical profession... Here they all are - the good and the bad. And the surgeons are the worst. They've found out that a man's body is full of bits and scraps of old organs he's no use for. You can cut half a dozen of 'em out directly and he wouldn't be the worse, except for the illness and the guineas it cost him."

Sir Patrick Cullen, voice over when looking at a maid cleaning a doctor's fence sign, "I know him. He used to snip off the ends of uvulas for 50 guineas."

Sir Colenso Ridgeon, "Oh, Dr. Blenkinsop, I can't bear it The most tragic thing in the world is a sick doctor."

Sir Ralph Bloomfield-Bonington, "Oh, I say, you have got your knife into him, haven't you?" Cutler Walpole, "I wish I had. Yes, I'd make a better man of you."

Cutler Walpole, "Oh, I sent you a paper the other day, about a thing I invented - a new saw, for shoulder blades." Sir Patrick Cullen, "Yes, I got it. It's a good saw. Very useful. Handy, useful." Walpole, "Yes, I knew you'd see its points." Sir Patrick, "I remember that saw 65 years ago." Walpole, "What?" Sir Patrick, "It was called a cabinet maker's jimmy, then."

Cutler Walpole, "95% of the human race suffer from chronic blood poisoning and die of it. Simple as A, B, C."

Cutler Walpole, "I was so upset, I, I forgot to take the sponges out." Chuckling, "There I was, stitching her up, and one of the nurses..."

It's rare to come upon such clever and witty dialogue and such an admirable rogue. While this film turns the medical profession onto its hat (not a difficult trick) it does it in a delightful way that captivates and entertains. The twists and turns of the various attitudes is a pleasure to behold. Sure, Caron is a crappy actress who is way over her head among these great actors, but her stilted acting does suit her role. In any case, her acting is overshadowed by the brilliant play and the wonderful performances around her. This is a movie that must be listened to. It wasn't until I devoted my entire attention to it that I really began to appreciate it.