Le dilemme du docteur

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.

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.

I love this film. Alistair Sim and Robert Morley are marvelous as they advocate the various and absurd treatments they'd used on their patient.

But I'm appalled that this film isn't available for home viewing, especially when you consider how many crummy films have been released on tape or DVD.

Could it be that Shaw's estate has refused to release the distribution rights for home viewing? If so, then someone out there -- perhaps the Criterion Collection -- can convince the copyright holder to relent.

"Dilemma" may not be the best adaptation of a Shaw play (I think top honors go to "Pygmalion"), but it catches the play's flavor. The dialog is sharp and witty, and Dirk Bogarde gives another fine performance as the ailing man.

This would be a fine addition to any collection.

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!!