Dottore a spasso

English medical comedy in the dark medium of a theater, is often subtle, urbane and sleigh of hand. For American audiences, we see British laughter in two ways, either loud and in your face, such as Monte Python's Flying Circus or tall abrupt and seriously stuffy as in this offering. This film " Doctor at Large " is the second installment and although much is expected, falls a bit flat. Despite having two of the finest English actors like Dirk Bogarde as Dr. Simon Sparrow and James Robertson Justice as Sir Lancelot Spratt, the movie, like the story is hampered with fractured scenes and little adhesion to comedy. One wonders if the characters are seeking sympathy for the script or for the jumbled set of patients which range from the very neurotic to the very eccentric. The movie strives for understanding, but despite its best efforts never achieves the nobility of the original. A great waste of serious talent. ***

'At large' turns out to be a polite term for 'out of work' - but never for long, in the orderly Fifties, when there would always be another job just round the corner. This makes a good basis for a picaresque tour of medical surgeries from the highest to the humblest, as the Dirk Bogarde character is repeatedly told to take his talents elsewhere.

It comes at the cost of a steady, developing narrative, but it provides opportunities for an exceptionally large cast of popular performers. Donald Sinden gets plenty of exposure as an old-style moustachioed seducer, Michael Medwin as the governor's blue-eyed boy, Shirley Eaton as every man's fantasy of a blonde nurse, Dandy Nichols as the nuisance patient who just wants yet another repeat prescription. A most watchable duo are Lionel Jeffries as the weird-looking head of a run-down surgery in the North, and his playful blonde wife acted by Dilys Laye - the only time I've seen her outside the Carry Ons, where she's always made-up to look goofy, but genuinely glamorous here. James Robertson Justice simply acts himself, though that quarterdeck roar is a bit too Fifties to stomach now. And I can't think why they wheeled-on the eccentric Edwardian leftover A.E. Matthews, whose talent never seemed to me to compensate for the trouble he always caused on-set. But if you know who to look out for, you may catch the author of the Doctor books, Richard Gordon, doing his few seconds' walk-on, à la Hitchcock.

This is not rated as the best of the series, the dialogue being pretty clichéd, and the comic sub-plots mostly silly (especially the piece of business over a rich patient leaving her fortune to the Donald Sinden character), and we now know that Bogarde was getting bored with just doing his matinee-idol every time. But his career was just about to take some interesting turns...

After the high seas high-jinx of the previous movie, 'Doctor At Sea', 'Doctor At Large' sees the series go back to basics, with a return to St Swithin's and a reunion with all the main cast of 'Doctor In The House' (with the single exception of Kenneth More).

This return is a slight disappointment, as it never seems to recapture the magic of the original. Part of the problem is, I think, down to the script. There is no plot worth mentioning, more a series of sketches, some good, some bad, while the fact that this move seems to change it's setting every ten minutes or so, (the scene changes from London to Birmingham, Ireland, London again, the countryside, the South of France and back to London again) prevents you getting involved with the characters.

However, this constant change does have it's advantages, for one thing it shows off possibly the best cast ever assembled for a British comedy, with even the smallest role filled out by a familiar face. But, again, their appearance is usually limited to one or two brief scenes.

Of the cast, Lionel Jefferies and Dilys Laye catch the eye, as a seedy, mean, slightly sinister Doctor and his (much) younger blonde wife. Donald Sinden, reprising his role as Benskin from 'Doctor In The House' is fun to watch, playing a character not that different from the ones that Leslie Phillips would later play in the series. While James Robertson Justice hardly seems to be in this move, appearing briefly at the beginning but then not seen until the last twenty minutes or so of the picture.

On the whole 'Doctor At Large' is fun to watch and has a few good jokes (the 'big breaths' joke for example) but never seems to catch fire. It's worth watching but is far from being the best vehicle for Bogarde's Simon Sparrow.

I hadn't seen this since I was a young teenager in the early 1970s and on rewatching it yesterday I realised that this film, along with Richard Gordon's book "Doctor in the House", inspired me to apply for medical school. Mind you, if I'd behaved like the students and doctors portrayed here I would have been struck off. I sure kissing patients, even private ones is not encouraged any more. It's not at all far fetched. If anything a rather restrained and gentle version of medical life.

The film is a succession of set-piece comedy sketches some of which are very creaky in a Carry On Doctor style but what must have got to the younger me was the time Simon Sparrow spent as a locum GP in Scotland (poached fish - I've certainly had some of them from patients) and his reassurance to a scared pre-operative patient which I used as a model in my own career.

After his adventures at sea Dr Sparrow returns to real life and a proper job in a hospital. Messing up his chances of getting a high level position within the hospital Sparrow heads out looking for another job but finds that nothing is going to come easily to him. Meanwhile his colleague Beskin cheats his way into greener pastures with a roguish mix of charm and good humour. Right, well I've done the best I can at providing a short plot summary to the film and I don't think it is that bad considering that in reality the plot is more a series of scenarios with Sparrow drifting around in the working world.

The tone is very much gentle British humour – i.e. not a lot of laughs to be had. It moves slowly enough due to the lack of plot and it is difficult to follow or care about because it does just seem to be drifting aimlessly from one thing to the next. I laughed once or twice at most ("big breaths") but the film just seems happy to exist on a gentle tone rather than having anything sharp or that good in regards material. The cast try hard to raise a laugh or two and push the material as hard as they can but all they can really do is contribute to the gently comic mood. Bogarde is OK in the lead role, hardly memorable but suitable smooth and gentle for the lead. Sinden has fun with a more interesting character and he is funny by force of personality. Justice is hardly in the film but makes his usual impact.

Overall this is an OK entry in an OK series of film. It isn't particularly funny and doesn't really have a plot worth speaking of but it has a gently comic air that might appeal to those looking for undemanding British fare to fill the television on a west Sunday afternoon. Nothing special but not bad so to say.