Doctor in Trouble

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.

The Doctor series had run its course by the time this film was made. Its a sort of down-market Carry On. There are two particularly cringe making performances from Graham Stark and Graham Chapman.

The script was poor and the standard of production was truly awful. A sad demise.

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.

Leslie Phillips made a number of bedroom farces in the 1970s. Aside from this film he also starred in NOT NOW DARLING, DON'T JUST LIE THERE, SAY SOMETHING, Spanish FLY and NOT NOW COMRADE. DOCTOR IN TROUBLE is more a vehicle for Phillips to do his "thing" rather than a true entry in the DOCTOR film series. It's also the weakest of the five Phillips farces in my opinion, but still very enjoyable nonetheless.

The plot is simple - a doctor finds out the woman he's in love with is going away on a cruise. He wants to propose to her so he decides to go aboard the ship and ends up being a stowaway, hunted down by the crew. While Phillips is the star of the film, the film itself focuses much of the time on the antics of the other passengers of the ship. This isn't a bad thing, though, since Harry Secombe especially is very funny in the film. But he's enjoyable to watch nonetheless and fans of British humour will find his mishaps funny.

Phillips is on form in this film. I wouldn't say he was at his best and most energetic, like in NOT NOW DARLING and DON'T JUST LIE THERE, SAY SOMETHING. His caddish on screen persona is less exploited in this film than in those for one thing. Secondly, this film plays out more like a CARRY ON film rather than a stage farce, so lacks the usual clothes coming off, mistaken identities and so on to quite an extent. Finally, his hiding out from the crew and running away when looks like getting caught, gets a bit repetitive after a while.

Janet Mahoney is fun to watch as a stripper who hooks up with Harry Secombe (thinking he has recently come into a fortune). The striptease scene is also the best scene in the film, with a wonderfully catchy stripper theme composed by Eric Rogers, playing in the background. I could listen to that theme all day; it's that catchy. It was later re-used in CARRY ON BEHIND and CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE.

There are good supporting roles played by Irene Handl, Freddie Jones, John Le Mesurier and others. Sadly, James Robertson Justice appears in only scene, with most of his role being played by Robert Morley, who plays his on screen brother. Morley is very good as the captain of the ship and his exchanges with Secombe are very funny and provide much of the delight of this film's very British humour. Graham Chapman also turns up playing a comic gay character.

There really isn't much more to say. For fans of the DOCTOR series, I recommend it only if you can accept that this is more of a Leslie Phillips film rather than a true DOCTOR film. For fans of Leslie Phillips or the CARRY ON films, it's definitely worth at least one viewing.

'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.