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.

An interesting but not particularly engaging George Bernard Shaw satirical play is given a serviceable cinematic treatment from director Asquith - who clearly had fared much better with PYGMALION (1938) - but, nonetheless, the film is buoyed by a good cast (Leslie Caron, Dirk Bogarde, Alastair Sim. Robert Morley, Felix Aylmer, Michael Gwynne, Alec McCowen) and production values (cinematographer Robert Krasker, composer Joseph Kosma, costumer Cecil Beaton, production designer Paul Sheriff). As it happens, some performers acquit themselves better than others: Bogarde is fun as an impoverished but Machiavellian painter dying of tuberculosis and Sim and Morley are their usual pompous selves as two renowned "quacks" competing to treat him so to earn favors from his lovely wife (an unfortunately out-of-her-league Caron).

It's rare to come upon such clever and witty dialogue and such an admirable rogue. While this film turns the medical profession onto its hat (not a difficult trick) it does it in a delightful way that captivates and entertains. The twists and turns of the various attitudes is a pleasure to behold. Sure, Caron is a crappy actress who is way over her head among these great actors, but her stilted acting does suit her role. In any case, her acting is overshadowed by the brilliant play and the wonderful performances around her. This is a movie that must be listened to. It wasn't until I devoted my entire attention to it that I really began to appreciate it.

George Bernard Shaw's play, "The Doctor's Dilemma" is adapted here by Anatole de Grunwald and directed by Anthony Asquith. Asquith has a formidable cast: Leslie Caron, Dirk Bogarde, Alistair Sim, Robert Morley, Felix Aylmer, John Robinson, and Michael Gwynn. Caron plays Mrs. Dubedat, whose artist husband Louis (Bogarde) is dying of tuberculosis. She approaches a doctor, Sir Ridgeon (Robinson) who has a cure for TB but can only treat so many patients. He's very attracted to the lovely Mrs. Dubedat and says that he must meet her husband to see if he's worth saving. Meanwhile, he finds out that a friend of his (Gwynn) is suffering from the same disease.

Mrs. Dubedat worships her husband and is blind to his faults, which are many. He hits people up for money that he has no intention of returning, he steals a cigarette case from one of the doctors, and he's a bigamist. The doctors are shocked to learn all of this. On the other hand, he's a great artist. What to do? At the time this play was written, it was somewhat topical, as there was a doctor who thought he had a cure for TB but didn't. Shaw, in his way, pokes holes at the doctors represented here - the surgeon (Morley) who thinks that there's an operation for every condition; the quack (Sim) who blames everything on blood poisoning. A third doctor (Aylmer) is more thoughtful, taking nothing for granted. Shaw was somewhat of a metaphysician, and apparently didn't believe in doctors. He believed that the human system could heal itself.

But though this has its comic moments - Dubedat's completely unapologetic attitude about his bigamy, borrowing, and stealing - it does raise questions about the iconic status some people achieve when they die young, and whether, in fact, they're not better off doing so. And what makes a person worth living? His good deeds or his great art? Bogarde is great as usual as the handsome, womanizing rogue, and he and Caron make a beautiful couple. If Caron was trying to prove she was more than a dancer with this film, she certainly did so, in a sympathetic performance. But for a woman without much money, she sure had some beautiful Cecil Beaton costumes. As the film is in color, they're even more eye-popping. The doctors Sim, Morley, and Robinsonare wonderful.

"The Doctor's Dilemma" is talky, especially in the beginning, but stick with it. It's not the best adaptation of Shaw for the screen that you'll ever see, but the performances make it worth it, and it's a thought-provoking movie.

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!!