Il dilemma del dottore

Rather too much good solid Shaw has been lost in screenwriter Anatole de Grunwald's attempt to turn a solid and surprisingly funny play about the moral dilemma faced by a man (John Robinson, bearing a striking resemblance to Maurice Evans) over whether to save the life of a brilliant artist who is also a wastrel or a good man who offers far less to posterity into a La Boheme-tinged love triangle between top billed Leslie Caron, Dirk Bogarde (both fine and passionate, as always) and Robinson.

Fortunately, the screen comes alive when the quartet of Shaw's doctors are on stage debating morality and science, most especially in the persons of old Shauvian hands like Robert Morley (Andrew Undershaft in the 1941 Pascal film of MAJOR BARBARA) and Felix Aylmer (Cauchon in the 1957 Otto Preminger film and 1966 Caedmon recording of SAINT JOAN). Alistair Sim as a surgery-happy practitioner also carries his share of the comic load, with Robinson (the real lead of the film) bringing up the slightly stuffy rear.

Director Anthony Asquith , who helmed the great 1938 film of PYGMALION which won Shaw his Oscar as best screenwriter, never allows the action to drag, brings out the best of Shaw's life lessons ("those who marry happily will marry again") even when Grunwald nearly buries them in stock romantic fumbling and uses the period setting as well as he did in his still definitive 1952 film of Wilde's IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

This ...DILEMMA may not be a great film, but given the first rate cast and handsome production, it's well worth discovering - and lovers of Shaw shouldn't think of missing it.

Dr Maurice Evans must choose between treating a good, simple country doctor or a painter and scoundrel whose wife seems appealing. The Dr.'s colleagues are hilarious, and there's a beautiful scene in a greenhouse for which Anthony Asquith and Cecil Beaton should be praised.

Not much about the film itself - just a few wacky observations . . .

A very astute version of Shaw's classic play - director Anthony Asquith, allows the characters to revel in the pathos that The Doctor spills over each scene.

Although Dirk Bogarde has his comedy smirk on, his performance is utterly commanding.

A nice little quote is *when you're as old as I am it doesn't matter how old a man is when he dies* :) In the latter scenes, the high jinks continue with (poor) old Dirk in shot in the background.

The colouring of the film is quite brutal - but lends a hand to the mystery of the plot - IMHO.

A nifty film for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

For heaven's sake - sparkling and witty actors interpreting brilliant Shavian dialogue with exquisite timing, exploring with the greatest imaginable finesse a huge ethical issue which is as timely now as it was then ....I have not seen or read the unedited play so I cannot indulge in comparisons, but it would seem to me that this was a very professional and refined adaptation of a very funny and wise work, which should stimulate the viewer to explore not only Shaw's original, but also all his other brilliant and fearless sashays...and for that matter why not Oscar Wilde, George Gissing, the whole exquisite corpus of the British fin de siecle....why not accept such a film as a great gift, an invitation to broaden one's literary horizons and become aware of a wonderful, lost world of refinement that will never come again? Down with the philistines!!

If you want to dislike Dirk Bogarde, watch The Doctor's Dilemma. You could also watch any number of his movies, but perhaps this is the one that started it all. He plays his character so despicably - and while arguable, that was the point of the story, had the role been acted by James Mason, you would have both hated and liked him. The doctor and the audience would have had a dilemma!

In the story, Michael Gwynn is a celebrated doctor who has the resources to cure a certain number of men from tuberculosis (this is a period piece, despite Leslie Caron's strange hairdo). When a beautiful, pleading woman (Leslie) comes to him and begs him to save her husband's life (Dirk), he tells her he doesn't have enough room in his treatment program. How can he, in good conscience, kill one of the men already signed up just to save Dirk's life? Is he really more worthy of living than any of the others? She argues that because he is a talented artist, he is more worthy. When Michael and his associates, Alistair Sim and Robert Morley, spend some time with Dirk to get to know him, there are lots of unpleasant discoveries... I didn't really enjoy this movie. I couldn't stand Dirk, and George Bernard Shaw's script could have used a good edit while translating it from stage to screen. One fun thing, though: if you're wondering why Leslie was always wearing blousy dresses, it's because she was extremely pregnant during filming! In the final few scenes, even her loosest dress and coat couldn't hide her baby bump.