Carry on Doctor

Francis Bigger is a notorious charlatan who tours the country lecturing on the subject of mind over matter. During one of his performances he falls off the platform and is taken to the local hospital where he causes total chaos. The regular Carry On team is joined by Frankie Howerd in this 'bedpanorama of hospital life'.

The second, and most possibly my favourite Medical carry on. It has the usual gags and slapstick routines. The rooftop scene with Jim Dale had me in stitches. Frankie Howerd is a brilliant addition to the usual star cast - Hattie Jacques, Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey - and has some good lines, but Joan Sims is a scene stealer as a dim witted lady with hearing problems. This is Carry on at its best, released at the time when series at its peak.

When the hugely popular Dr Kilmore (Jim Dale) is fired unjustly by devious superiors, the patients do something about it.

If only British hospitals were like this. The nurses look like Anita Harris and Barbara Windsor, the doctors are bonkers and the patients are having the time of their life. Yes this is a "Carry On" movie in all it's jovial glory. Thinly plotted it may be, but it's an excellent script from Talbot Rothwell that lets the true comedians in the piece showcase their worth.

Hattie Jacques as a battle-axe Matron, Kenneth Williams as snobby unscrupulous head Doctor Tinkle, Charles Hawtrey suffering a phantom pregnancy, Frankie Howerd as Francis Bigger (a man in hospital after making a living out of saying you don't need Doctor's! And then believing he only has a week to live) and the likes of Bernard Bresslaw and Sid James as rogue patients playing up. It's a marvellous set up that works a treat for visual comedy. Witness Howerd's incredulity when he is woken at 06.00, or Hawtrey's reaction when the stocking laden minx that is Barbara Windsor arrives on the ward. Great comedy moments in a great comedy film. 7.5/10

This was the second of the Carry On films set in a hospital and was released in 1967. It featured the first appearance in a Carry On film by the late, great Frankie Howerd and he is excellent here. He went on to appear in Carry On Up The Jungle in 1970. Most of the Carry On regulars appear here, though Charles Hawtrey is somewhat more subdued than normal. Kenneth Williams is also excellent as a smarmy doctor, as is Hattie Jacques as the matron and Anita Harris also appears as a nurse. It was rumoured that Jim Dale did some of his own stunts and he has a great set-piece here on a rooftop, as he hangs on for dear life. Sid James, who suffered a heart attack just before the film was due to start shooting, has less to do here, though and spends most of the film in bed. I did not enjoy Barbara Windsor in this film, though, but I could never tolerate her as an actress, she couldn't act for toffee and she only got parts in films because of her generous bosom. The film is funnier than some of the other Carry On films, though and it has always remained one of my favourites of the series. I watched it again recently and I still found myself laughing, even after all these years. I regard it as one of the best of the series and much better than most of their films to come during the 1970s. If you haven't already seen it, then watch it on TV or DVD. You won't regret it.

The patients of a suburban town hospital rebel against the registrar Dr Tinkle (Kenneth Williams) and the matron (Hattie Jacques) who got a popular doctor and nurse the sack.

Fairly amusing entry in the series which manages to hold up because it has the charm of an England that never was and the fact that it isn't always hilariously funny dosen't really matter. Frankie Howerd is excellent as the mind over matter charleton who goes around the country persuading people that they don't need medicines or doctors for cash and the ever reliable Syd James also carries the picture with his usual charm this time as a lazy out of work good for nothing who fakes illness just so that he can stay in hospital. Dandy Nichols also turns up as Syd's nagging wife in a funny moment where he listens to the hospital radio while pretending to listen to his wife's constant nagging and she's too busy having a go at him to notice.

Thinly plotted but funny hospital comedy.

My favourite part is the early sequence depicting Frankie Howerd's first morning in the ward. Bernard Bresslaw's character is also funny and involved in a cute romance with a woman patient, Dilys Laye.

The main story has the matron (Hattie Jacques) and a doctor (Kenneth Williams) engineer the expulsion of young Doctor Kilmore (Jim Dale). This story is a bit more mean-spirited than usual for a Carry On but this doesn't kill the film. Jacques later has a great scene where she double-crosses Williams.

With such a large cast many have reduced screen time. So Sid James (as a malingering patient), Barbara Windsor, Peter Butterworth and Charles Hawtrey are very much in support roles. They're good, but it seems weird to have James and Windsor in smaller roles.

The biggest disappointment is having Joan Sims in not only a support role but as a dull spinster besotted with Howerd's character.