Doctor in Trouble

By now a long way from the innocence of 'Doctor In The House', this, the seventh and last movie in the series, sees Leslie Phillips romping around a luxury liner, in what comes across as a less funny cross between 'Doctor At Sea' and 'Carry On Cruising'

I never expected to like this movie for a number of reasons, firstly, James Robertson Justice (for me the heart and soul of the 'Doctor' series) is restricted to a brief cameo (and very ill-looking he is too), while watching it you can't help notice how cheap looking and studio bound the movie is. While the script is at times very poor, the 'Pill' joke was especially dire and yet they included it in the trailer! In addition, it seems clear that the director is running out of ideas when he (often) resorts to speeded up photography to raise a laugh.

Yet I quite enjoyed it. Leslie Phillips was his usual, dependable self, doing wonders with the often-ropey script, at one point even enduring a drag scene! While the cast is a strong one, full of familiar faces. Harry Secombe steals the movie with a very funny performance, one that makes you wish he made more movies, and Irene Handle was also well used. There was even a small role for 'Monty Python's' Graham Chapman, as a very camp photographer.

Despite it's (many) flaws, 'Doctor In Trouble' is a fun little movie, while not in the same comic league as some of the earlier 'Doctor' films, it's far funnier than the previous movie in the series, the lukewarm 'Doctor In Clover'.

A famous television "doctor" goes on a cruise that includes a pools winner, models, a camp photographer and a stern captain (a relation to Sir Spratt himself). Dr Burke tries to get onto the same cruise to talk to the wild Ophelia but finds himself stuck when it sails. He tries to hide as a stowaway. Lots of people run around, women are sexy, men are quite horny and so the whole horrible lot sails off into a period of British cinema that some like to forget, some thing of as fun and others call "sh1te".

If you want a potted history of how British film comedy changed in a few decades there are several places you can go but one place is the "Doctor" series of films that started in the 1950's and ended with this one in 1970. At the start the series was light to the point of blandness and very clean humour, however by this point the series has "sunk" to the sexual level of other British comedies of the 1970's such as the Carry On or Confessions type of film. Watching this will show you what I mean as there is loads of partial nudity, suggestive dialogue, Benny Hill ogling and so on. This doesn't mean it is better or worse than the original film but just a different thing and some viewers will enjoy it. Although it isn't high class or that funny, it does have a rough energy to it even if the sexual stuff hits the ground with a massively dated clang. It doesn't really stand out from anything else similar from the period but it is amusing and very genre and will perhaps please those expecting just that. The plot is meaningless of course but this shouldn't surprise anyone.

The British cast help on paper even if there isn't that much strong material for them. Philips has been much better elsewhere but he is a good sport and does his best with the "ooh I say" material that he was forever delivering. Justice barely makes an impression but his role is well covered by Morley who is amusing. Secombe is probably the pick of the cast – in real life I would have drowned myself to be free of his character but in the film he was pretty funny and he played it really well. Scoular is rubbish but to be honest most of the female cast are there for their bodies and the material only uses them for such. Dee is flat and seems all at sea alongside much more talented people. Small turns from Chapman and Le Mesurier are of good value though.

Overall this is a very basic film that tries to do all the things that the other sexual comedies of the period were doing. As such it is nothing special although happily it is not painful to watch (as some of them are). Fans of the original Doctor films will feel that this has drifted far from port, while others may just feel it is not that funny but it is distracting if dated stuff that can be enjoyed if in the mood.

'Doctor in Trouble' is the seventh, final and possibly least heralded instalment of the successful 'Doctor' comedy movies, which had begun sixteen years earlier.

Even in the early, glory days of the series, with Dirk Bogarde starring as Simon Sparrow, the films were not laugh out loud affairs. Instead the charm of the characters, and their amusing interplay, created an experience that audiences enjoyed and queued up in their thousands to see. Unfortunately, by 1970, times had changed. Bogarde had left the series and cinema goers preferred broader, more 'Carry On' type humour. 'Doctor In Trouble' went for this somewhat bawdier approach and the resulting production was not a success. The plot was rather nonsensical and the screenplay lacking laughs.

Having said that I would recommend giving it a viewing purely for watching the cast in action. It was a real shame that an ailing James Robertson Justice could only film a short reprise of his legendary Sir Lancelot Spratt characterisation. He was replaced in the central part of Captain George Spratt by Robert Morley, a past master at playing pomposity, but it wasn't quite the same. Leslie Phillips played his usual smoothie role with likability and a sparkle in his eye. The bonus was Harry Secombe. On this evidence the ex-Goon would have made an excellent member of the 'Carry On' repertory company. His character certainly supplied the majority of the film's laughs. As ever in this sort of film, the cast was stuffed with British comedy character actors doing what they do best. Notably Irene Handl as a no nonsense mother and John Le Mesurier doing his usual turn as a world weary, authority figure.

Less effective were the main female characters and Simon Dee's portrayal of a lascivious TV actor. Graham Stark (Pink Panther) and Graham Chapman (Monty Python) did not have their greatest moments either. Perhaps strangest of all was seeing Joan Sims pop up in a very unlikely cameo role as a Russian captain!

Overall worth seeing to complete the series and to spot the acting talent, but don't expect many laughs.

A fascinating piece of film history, with a cast that just for starters manages to include Simon Dee, Fred Emney, a Python, a Goon and Joan Sims as an amorous, cigar-smoking Russian captain.

Shot almost entirely on a soundstage in Pinewood, it also works well as a quiz with a point for each offensive stereotype as it appears: Graham Stark in blackface and a 'hilarious' Indian accent (check), a camp fashion photographer (check), dolly birds in big hair and short skirts (check). And so on.

The Doctor series of British comedy films was coming to a halt with this one Doctor In Trouble. If there was ever a redundancy in titles this certainly was it. When was the doctor character ever not in some kind of trouble in the series.

The series itself was in trouble. The beginning films had Dirk Bogarde who wanted to and successfully went on to more dramatic parts, but his Doctor Simon Sparrow had an innocence and vulnerability and was so earnest, things just seemed to happen around him. His main antagonist was the eminent Doctor James Robertson Justice with the booming voice and overbearing manner. He was barely in this one.

So with both of them out more or less, the Doctor series lost too much. Leslie Phillips is the Doctor here and he's not as noble as Bogarde, in fact there's really very little noble about him at all. In fact he's jealous because a medical school classmate of his, Simon Dee, forsook medicine for the theater and now plays a TV doctor heartthrob.

Through a bizarre set of circumstances Phillips winds up stowing away on a cruise ship with Dee and Angela Scoular a girl they're both interested in. And the captain is the brother of James Robertson Justice, a man just as imperious Robert Morley.

A lot of the real comedy in this film is provided by Harry Secombe who plays a brash newly minted millionaire who hasn't got the social graces quite down yet. I really wanted to see more of Secombe than Phillips.

Doctor In Trouble is a good, not hardly great British comedy and it was clear the Doctor was no longer going to make house calls on our funny bone shortly.