Doctors' Wives

This was done back in the early 1970s were Hollywood was desperate to try anything to drive audiences back to theatres (attendance was at an all time low in the early 70s). The only movies that made money were sex movies and violent movies. So, they combined them! This was considered pretty shocking in its day--today it's fairly tame with gratuitous blood, gore and frank sexual talk. This movie lets you know from the beginning what it's about. We see a beautiful, young, unidentified woman undressing behind some frosted glass DURING the opening credits (never a good sign)! BTW--she's never seen again.

This deals with five couples--all the men are doctors. Dyan Cannon plays the slut of the bunch. One of her opening lines is, "God! Am I horny!" while playing cards with the other wives. She accuses all the other women of not getting sex (she calls it "sexual malnutrition") because they don't know what they're doing sexually. She makes a proposition--she'll sleep with all their husbands, find out what they're doing wrong and give them a diagnosis!!!! She says, "I've already done 50% of the research". The next day she's shot dead by her husband and we then get involved with all the wives, their husbands and their various problems.

This movie has it all--explicit open heart surgery, alcoholism, interracial romance, taping sexual encounters and even a lesbian affair. The dialogue is hysterically bad and the cast delivering it straight-faced makes it seem even funnier. The cast is made up of some very talented actors who should have known better. The only real bad acting is by Carroll O'Connor (this was before "All in the Family") and (surprisingly) Gene Hackman. The best is by Richard Crenna and Janice Rule. This was just a (very) desperate attempt by Hollywood to pull in an audience by shocking it. The only surprising thing here is that there's no real nudity or explicit sex. This is worth seeing for laughs or seeing a bunch of talented actors doing their best with lousy material. It IS fun but a 1 all the way.

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.

Unintentionally hilarious trash. Dyan Cannon's opening line,"God I feel horny!", Rachel Roberts confessing to a lesbian affair,"It was a hot night and I had a thin blouse and no bra" Gene Hackman's reaction, Cara Williams drunken appearance at the club,"The truth is we're all tramps", Janice Rule's outfit, Lori's funeral, Rule writhing on the floor in drug induced lust,etc... all create hilarity in a seriously intended soaper:replete with subplots and a hospital setting. Some of the dialogue is priceless. All of this is interpolated by prolonged, graphic scenes of surgery. It's "Desperate Housewives" with gore. An interesting and diverse cast adds to the fun, and for intended comic relief, there's Christina Holland(from TV's "The Courtship of Eddie's Father")as a student studying sex, and tape recording her sessions. Dyan Cannon is in good form in her regrettably brief role. And was the song "Costume Ball", sung by Cass Elliot, written specifically for this film? Check this one out, and laugh and scratch your head at the same time. DVD PLEASE!

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