Doctor at Sea

One year after the highly successful 'Doctor In The House', Bogarde is back as the hapless medic Doctor Simon Sparrow. Unusually, 'St Swithins' is nowhere to be seen, neither are most of the supporting from the first movie. Even the great James Robertson Justice is playing a different character (a 'Doctor' movie without Sir Lancelot? Unthinkable!)

That said, it's pretty much business as usual, as Doctor Sparrow runs away to sea and gets himself involved in several embarrassing situations, while James Robertson Justice roars and blusters as Captain Hogg.

One shapely distraction is none other than Brigitte Bardot, in her first English-speaking role. A shower scene especially raises our hero's temperature!

Veteran actor Maurice Denham makes the most of a supporting role, while familiar British faces fill out the rest of the cast.

While not as good as the first movie, it never outstays it's welcome and is good fun.

'Doctor at sea' is your average English fifties-comedy, as were turned out by the dozen at the time. Television was hardly around, so on Saturday nights the public crowded into their many local cinema-theaters to watch films like these.

Although overall acting in 'Doctor at sea' is pretty competent, it's clear that this film only escaped a thick layer of dust for one single reason: Brigitte Bardot's participation.

Even stronger than that: Brigitte's picturing in this film surely ranks among the very best in her entire career. More than half a century after its production, one can safely conclude that the British did a great job on her.

That's nearly all there is to say about this light comedy. Apart from Brigitte Bardot, the performance of young Dirk Bogarde as the ship's doctor deserves a mentioning, too.

An average, very English fifties comedy, set on a freight ship.

Nevertheless this movie offers two outstanding dimensions: the first is leading man Dirk Bogarde, who plays with his usual excellence.

The second is Brigitte Bardot, adding much charm by her English-with-a-French-accent.

By the way, the English film crew did a magnificent job on Brigitte: out of the many thousand of shots spanning her entire career, those from 'Doctor at Sea' are among the very best. For this reason alone it is really worth watching this movie.

The second in the popular British comedy series already shows signs of flagging from the class evident in the original film. For one thing, the change of setting proves a bit of a quandary: it both opens up and cramps the jokes (while generally ship-bound, we do get a stretch on dry land – which sees the hero first involved with a drunken blonde and falling foul of her father and then put to jail for being 'under the influence' himself!).

Incidentally, while Dirk Bogarde reprises his role of Simon Sparrow, both James Robertson Justice and George Coulouris (who were also in DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE [1954]) play new characters here – the former's gruffness, while amusing at first, borders on caricature eventually; similarly, Brenda de Banzie's middle-aged passenger (pampered daughter of the seafaring company's President) is somewhat over bearing, evoking memories of Kay Walsh in an episode from the portmanteau film TRIO (1950). Bogarde's love interest, then, is rather incongruously filled by Brigitte Bardot – who's undeniably attractive but not yet the sex symbol of subsequent repute (although she does get to be seen taking a shower at one point).

Gags and innuendo sometimes approach the broad humor one normally associates with the rival "Carry On" series (which was actually still three years away from its inception) and CARRY ON CRUISING (1962) in particular (both films, in fact, culminated in a party on deck which ends in disaster).

Although Dirk Bogarde at this stage of his career was looking for meatier dramatic roles, like Sean Connery for a time he was cast as the likable if sometimes ineffectual Dr. Simon Sparrow for a series of films of which this is the second one. They were moneymakers for the Rank Organisation to be sure and Bogarde got a lot of popularity from them.

After that first film in which he completes his residency, Dr. Sparrow sets up his practice. But when he's both called on to do the work of his older colleague and resist the amorous advances of his less than tempting daughter, Bogarde decides to get away from it all. What better than to take a birth as a ship's doctor on a cargo freighter that does have some passenger accommodations.

Of course when he gets on the HMS Lotus he finds that it's like he never left the United Kingdom when he discovers that the captain is none other than James Robertson Justice. JRJ played the head of the hospital in the first Dr. Sparrow film and was the bane of Bogarde's existence. He's playing the same kind of tyrannical character in this film as the captain from the Bligh School of Command. Or better yet JRJ is like Captain Morton from Mister Roberts.

The compensation is that on the return voyage Brigitte Bardot is a passenger. But on the voyage going and coming back is the daughter of the ship's owner Brenda DaBanzie and she's setting a romantic cap for for the Captain the kind that Bogarde ran to sea to get away from.

Bogarde is shy and sweet and sometimes ineffectual, but he does come through in several of the crises aboard ship. The film holds up well still for today's audience.