Un dottore in altomare

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.

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.

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).

Fresh from his training and having gotten into women trouble in his dogsbody job as a junior doctor in a surgery, Dr Simon Sparrow runs away to sea, joining a cargo ship as the medical officer. Immediately finding that he is prone to seasickness, Sparrow has to content with all manner of colourful characters – the crew of a cargo ship not being the most stable of places for people to spend their time. Things are rough enough but when they stop in a port for some shore leave, the ship picks up a couple of female passengers – making live on the ship before look calm and peaceful by way of comparison.

Still containing the light farce and japes that the Carry On series still had in the early 1950's, the Doctor series continues with its second entry and just some predictable jokes and plots. Shoehorned out to sea, the narrative mixes some medical joking and a fairly plodding plot about nautical flirting (although never approaching what you could call innuendo). It is good-natured enough but never feels like it gets out of second gear – crawling along without any risk of doing anything that well or ever picking up a bit of speed. Without any laughs or enjoyable sequences the film does just come off as rather bland but I suppose it may still have enough about it to appeal to those just looking for an old film to watch on a wet weekend afternoon.

Bogarde doesn't really help things in my opinion; he is bland himself and he doesn't add anything to the comedy or romantic sides of the material. His support cast aren't much better although Bardot's singsong accent and pretty shape is easy on the eye, meanwhile Justice and Sims are really the only easily well-known faces involved. Overall then a fairly uninteresting film that treads a gentle comic path and rarely does anything that good or that bad – it is all pretty bland and average. Might do for those that like this sort of stuff while having a cup of tea during a wet Sunday afternoon but probably that's about it.

2 years out of medical school now, Dr. Simon Sparrow takes a post as a ship's doctor to escape the not-so-good intentions of an amorous female friend. His post is on a cargo ship, so there's no girls aboard! Naturally this all changes when they acquire two female passengers, one being, as it would happen, Miss Bardot. Pretty predictable after that, but there are some good laughs and a lot of fun, though it's not as good as Doctor In The House. The hilarious James Robertson Justice is here again, though in a different role to the last movie, but it's a huge shame that the delightful Muriel Pavlow is missing from the cast! Considering Bogarde ended up with her at the end of the last movie, it's curious where her character seems to have gotten to; she doesn't even garner a mention from him at the start of the film. At least she appears to be in the further sequels.

7/10 - Pavlow over Bardot any day!