Doctor in Trouble

The Doctor series of British comedy films was coming to a halt with this one Doctor In Trouble. If there was ever a redundancy in titles this certainly was it. When was the doctor character ever not in some kind of trouble in the series.

The series itself was in trouble. The beginning films had Dirk Bogarde who wanted to and successfully went on to more dramatic parts, but his Doctor Simon Sparrow had an innocence and vulnerability and was so earnest, things just seemed to happen around him. His main antagonist was the eminent Doctor James Robertson Justice with the booming voice and overbearing manner. He was barely in this one.

So with both of them out more or less, the Doctor series lost too much. Leslie Phillips is the Doctor here and he's not as noble as Bogarde, in fact there's really very little noble about him at all. In fact he's jealous because a medical school classmate of his, Simon Dee, forsook medicine for the theater and now plays a TV doctor heartthrob.

Through a bizarre set of circumstances Phillips winds up stowing away on a cruise ship with Dee and Angela Scoular a girl they're both interested in. And the captain is the brother of James Robertson Justice, a man just as imperious Robert Morley.

A lot of the real comedy in this film is provided by Harry Secombe who plays a brash newly minted millionaire who hasn't got the social graces quite down yet. I really wanted to see more of Secombe than Phillips.

Doctor In Trouble is a good, not hardly great British comedy and it was clear the Doctor was no longer going to make house calls on our funny bone shortly.

The Doctor series had run its course by the time this film was made. Its a sort of down-market Carry On. There are two particularly cringe making performances from Graham Stark and Graham Chapman.

The script was poor and the standard of production was truly awful. A sad demise.

By now a long way from the innocence of 'Doctor In The House', this, the seventh and last movie in the series, sees Leslie Phillips romping around a luxury liner, in what comes across as a less funny cross between 'Doctor At Sea' and 'Carry On Cruising'

I never expected to like this movie for a number of reasons, firstly, James Robertson Justice (for me the heart and soul of the 'Doctor' series) is restricted to a brief cameo (and very ill-looking he is too), while watching it you can't help notice how cheap looking and studio bound the movie is. While the script is at times very poor, the 'Pill' joke was especially dire and yet they included it in the trailer! In addition, it seems clear that the director is running out of ideas when he (often) resorts to speeded up photography to raise a laugh.

Yet I quite enjoyed it. Leslie Phillips was his usual, dependable self, doing wonders with the often-ropey script, at one point even enduring a drag scene! While the cast is a strong one, full of familiar faces. Harry Secombe steals the movie with a very funny performance, one that makes you wish he made more movies, and Irene Handle was also well used. There was even a small role for 'Monty Python's' Graham Chapman, as a very camp photographer.

Despite it's (many) flaws, 'Doctor In Trouble' is a fun little movie, while not in the same comic league as some of the earlier 'Doctor' films, it's far funnier than the previous movie in the series, the lukewarm 'Doctor In Clover'.

A fascinating piece of film history, with a cast that just for starters manages to include Simon Dee, Fred Emney, a Python, a Goon and Joan Sims as an amorous, cigar-smoking Russian captain.

Shot almost entirely on a soundstage in Pinewood, it also works well as a quiz with a point for each offensive stereotype as it appears: Graham Stark in blackface and a 'hilarious' Indian accent (check), a camp fashion photographer (check), dolly birds in big hair and short skirts (check). And so on.

'Doctor in Trouble' is the seventh, final and possibly least heralded instalment of the successful 'Doctor' comedy movies, which had begun sixteen years earlier.

Even in the early, glory days of the series, with Dirk Bogarde starring as Simon Sparrow, the films were not laugh out loud affairs. Instead the charm of the characters, and their amusing interplay, created an experience that audiences enjoyed and queued up in their thousands to see. Unfortunately, by 1970, times had changed. Bogarde had left the series and cinema goers preferred broader, more 'Carry On' type humour. 'Doctor In Trouble' went for this somewhat bawdier approach and the resulting production was not a success. The plot was rather nonsensical and the screenplay lacking laughs.

Having said that I would recommend giving it a viewing purely for watching the cast in action. It was a real shame that an ailing James Robertson Justice could only film a short reprise of his legendary Sir Lancelot Spratt characterisation. He was replaced in the central part of Captain George Spratt by Robert Morley, a past master at playing pomposity, but it wasn't quite the same. Leslie Phillips played his usual smoothie role with likability and a sparkle in his eye. The bonus was Harry Secombe. On this evidence the ex-Goon would have made an excellent member of the 'Carry On' repertory company. His character certainly supplied the majority of the film's laughs. As ever in this sort of film, the cast was stuffed with British comedy character actors doing what they do best. Notably Irene Handl as a no nonsense mother and John Le Mesurier doing his usual turn as a world weary, authority figure.

Less effective were the main female characters and Simon Dee's portrayal of a lascivious TV actor. Graham Stark (Pink Panther) and Graham Chapman (Monty Python) did not have their greatest moments either. Perhaps strangest of all was seeing Joan Sims pop up in a very unlikely cameo role as a Russian captain!

Overall worth seeing to complete the series and to spot the acting talent, but don't expect many laughs.