Femmes de médecins

I remember the advertising line for this film – 'Doctors Wives have everything…except husbands.' You'll never forget it, just like the film. The nausea lingers on. This is one of a number of films that Dyan Cannon made to cash in on the success of 'Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice'. Others included 'The Burglars', 'The Love Machine' and 'The Anderson Tapes', but this is surely the least of them. I have to announce that "Doctors Wives' has no redeeming features, and is actually worse than 'The Love Machine'(if such a thing is possible although apart from Cannon being in both the two are actually not connected.). The plot is incoherent and even when you can understand what's going on, it makes you want to, well…go back to sleep because you couldn't understand what was going on before, and that was what made you go to sleep in the first place. (I hope I haven't lost you.) Is there any reason why anybody should give a toss about these rich, upper class, well groomed nitwits who go around sleeping with each other's husbands, and then cry about it when they're dumb enough to get caught? I think I'd rather torture myself with daytime television on an endless tape loop (come back Oprah, all is forgiven).

Some notables in the cast should be mentioned here, in case they have, for the sake of their careers, left this woeful little number off their CVs. We have Gene Hackman, Richard Crenna Janice Rule and Rachel Roberts (a distinguished British stage actress and how did she ever get involved in this particular project?) These are the only participants I am cruel enough (or is it stupid enough), to remember as members of the cast, either playing total boneheads who have no idea what their wives are doing behind their backs, or bimbos who are sleeping with other women's husbands.

This was one of Hollywood's attempts to cash in on the 60's sexual revolution, but I think the members of this cast were the first casualties. What seemed disgraceful in 1971, seems a bit silly nowadays, and the premise of one of the wives making a dare to her bridge pals that she will sleep with all of their husbands is a tad tacky even if it wasn't before, back when the film was originally made. These ladies do not seem the least bit liberated. Just catty. As the Phantom of the New York Daily News would say, this film is viewed at your own risk, so you can't say you weren't warned. In other words, viewers beware, as 'Doctors Wives' is a totally mind (as well as behind) numbing experience.

What's the point of this film? What does it have to say? And why does Dyan Cannon disappear so early on? You'll have all those questions running through your mind while you're watching "Doctor's Wives", but this vapid, pointless, soap-opera-level film provides no answers. A very superficial treatment of potentially strong subjects. A great cast that is thoroughly wasted. And a heart-surgery scene that is not for the squeamish. (*1/2)

Doctors' Wives turned out to be a fun evening at the movies. I mean what more could you ask for? A murder. An affair. An inter-racial relationship. A brain operation. A sex-pot who beds down 32 medical doctor interns! A sex-pot who not only beds down here husband's friends, but some of their wives as well! Drug addiction. Drunks. Sluts. Black-Mail. You name it, this movie has it. And what an all-star cast! There's even Archie Bunker running around after his ex-wife...ha..ha! For it's time it must of been shocking. People must have fainted or been delighted at all the wild going-ons. Of course by today's standards it's pretty tame, and a bit lame. But, Great fun!

Before one can even adjust to the tone of this hospital-set soap opera, the most colorful character introduced in the opening scenes is unceremoniously given the shaft (movie audiences in 1971 must have felt jilted at the altar!). The ticklish repartee that begins the picture gives hint this might be an R-rated "Letter to Three Wives", but things go soapy from there. Prominent brain surgeon on the West Coast (John Colicos, pursing his lips in arch defiance) has been arrested for the murder of his cheating wife, but what should the other doctors on the hospital's board of directors do when they need his talents to save a dying child--whose mother is the mistress of one of the married surgeons? Colicos doesn't strike me as the type of husband who would shoot his spouse and her lover out of jealousy--he's the type who'd want to watch and maybe join in. Adapted from Frank Slaughter's book, "Doctors' Wives" was considered pretty heavy stuff in its day, what with a sex-and-murder scandal, an interracial marital affair, a few naked bums, and surgery footage foisted at us in close-up. It has been written and directed in a desperately with-it fashion, testing the new boundaries in cinema without censorship. Aficionados of the '70s will no doubt enjoy Dyan Cannon's wicked gleam, plus a cast that includes Gene Hackman (who repeatedly slaps wife Rachel Roberts in the face with a newspaper after she confesses to a lesbian affair), Richard Crenna, Carroll O'Connor and George Gaynes as frustrated doctors engaged in a game of musical beds. Main theme "The Costume Ball", sung by Mama Cass Elliot, is a strange, haunting piece of music. **1/2 from ****

What would you get if you mixed two parts "ER" with two parts "Dynasty"? You might think that you would get something steamy yet emotionally intriguing. Instead, you might end up getting an awful medical melodrama called "Doctors' Wives".

I have never understood why any movie would have its most interesting character killed off in the first fifteen minutes. The one and only excusable circumstance would be if you show that character in a lot of flashbacks. That doesn't happen in this film and it suffers severely.

"Doctors' Wives" has the look and feel of a TV pilot. There really isn't much location shooting to speak of. Most of the film takes place in a hospital or at the characters' homes. The screenplay is much more interested in introducing a lot of characters to you rather than fleshing any of them out. As a movie, it is dull and laughable. As a TV pilot, it showed that it might have eventually become rather interesting. Or then again...maybe not. 1/10