Doctor at Large (1957)

Let's be realistic.

Crappy film

A Masterpiece!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

After trying out being a ship's doctor in Doctor At Sea, Dr. Simon Sparrow returns home to Great Britain just looking for a place in the medical world. He gets a post at St. Swithins Hospital, but promptly insults the head honcho there James Robertson Justice. After that Dirk Bogarde as Sparrow for the third in the Doctor series gets to try and practice medicine in a variety of unusual and amusing situations.Bogarde once again strikes the right note as the earnest, dedicated, but a little bit socially challenged Dr. Sparrow. He's got the knack of not bumbling so much as walking into these incredible situations and people and sometimes mucking it up. But somehow it all works out in the end.Doctor At Large also boasts the usual memorable character players prominently as always James Robertson Justice as the tyrannical Dr. Lancelot Spratt who terrifies all who come within range of his booming voice. One guy who thinks he's got JRJ in his pocket is kiss up Dr. Michael Medwin who gains a coveted position on the surgical staff that Bogarde wanted originally. He screws up in the end though quite accidentally, still it's always good to see one of his kind lose out.But the guy who actually steals this film whenever he's on the screen is Donald Sinden. That this guy could become a doctor should frighten everyone in the United Kingdom. You have to see his 'examination' and how he gets his medical degree to believe it. Basically this guy became a doctor to get girls and he pursues that avocation quite avidly. Quite the rake Sinden, he does everything but twirl his mustache like some Snidely Whiplash villain. Most American audiences know him from being Grace Kelly's earnest, but dull husband in Mogambo. This is quite a change.Watching the Doctor series from Great Britain I'm struck by the fact that across the pond they seem to take a more lighthearted view of medicine than we do. It wasn't until after the Code was lifted that doctors were ever portrayed in a light hearted manner. Doctor At Large holds up quite well even for American viewers like myself who would not be acquainted with the fine points of the British health system. This series could easily be revived today, I could see someone like Hugh Grant playing Dr. Simon Sparrow.

A typical film of the "doldrums" era of British cinema.A formulaic, lacklustre comedy with the type of populist humour that was acceptable, perhaps even funny, to audiences of the 1950's.You can see it very much as a forerunner to the smutty humour of the Carry On series but this was 1957 and they couldn't get away with very much just yet.What humour there is is very lame and pretty cringey. The big breaths "joke" particularly. It's no wonder British cinema was disregarded so roundly in this era.It's obviously before the era of "medical ethics" too, with Dr Sparrow overstepping the doctor/patient boundary quite worryingly at times, putting one rich female patient over his knee and slapping her on the rear end. Again, all a bit cringey. Stereotypes of all kinds abound, racial, social and sexual.As a period piece on how films were made in the 1950's it's a classic example. It hasn't stood the test of time very well though!

From a Britain of Travelling Salesmen,Surgical Appliance Shops and Dirty Weekends comes a glimpse of a long - forgotten past in "Doctor at large".Mr Dirk Bogarde,Miss Muriel Pavlow and Mr Donald Sinden happily recreate their principal roles and Mr James Robertson Justice reappears as that stuff of legend Sir Lancelot Spratt.The film mainly concerns itself with the struggles of Dr Simon Sparrow (Mr D. Bogarde) as he serves as a locum in various medical practises throughout the country.At one such in the midlands (populated almost exclusively by Shepperton cockneys)he clashes swords with Miss Glady Henson who fortunately does not appear to recognise him as the murderer of her husband PC Dixon a few years earlier. He pursues attractive blonde (well,this was 1957) nurse Miss Shirley Eaton and , in a rather racy scene she agrees to stay overnight with him at an hotel in the country.They put up at "The Judge's Rest" - later rather confusingly referred to as "The Judge's Arms" - where love was unable to find a way past the formidable Miss Judith Furse as the sort of landlady who would if necessary interpose her body between an illicit couple and enjoy doing it. Miss M. Pavlow - terribly nice and incorrigibly virginal - loves him from afar and he behaves towards her more like a GBF than a potential lover,something that she signally fails to spot.His last - minute conversion to her cause is not particularly convincing. Mr D.Sinden's role as uber - lech Dr Benskin has been lampooned by every Hospital Panto for the last fifty years so he must have been doing something right.Perhaps he was living the fantasy of every young male medical student. The sublime Mr A.E. Matthews graces the screen as the absolutely potty Duke of Skye and Lewes and serves to remind us of the once abundant supply of delightful eccentrics that the British Film Industry could call upon to enliven even the most moribund production. There is the requisite number of breast and bottom jokes without which no British medical comedy could flourish but not one of them is remotely offensive.Lovers of Channel Four's "Green Wing" may recognise some of them. Although the "Doctor" franchise rumbled on for years,only "In the house" "at sea" and "at large" can be considered to be the "pur sang" of the series.Even by 1957 Mr D. Bogarde was looking a little fretful and in 1958 he appeared in "The Doctor's Dilemma" which caused a lot of confusion amongst the less literate of his fans. I like to think that there is a heaven somewhere where he is driving his long - bonnetted Vauxhall convertible along a deserted country road with Miss Shirley Eaton's pretty scarfed head resting on his shoulder.As they reach the brow of a hill you can see the bright blue sea sparkling in the distance.Mr Bogarde's hair is blowing in the slipstream as they pull off into the car park of an old country inn. He takes a small suitcase out of the boot and they walk hand in hand to the front door.The Inn is called "The Judge's Rest" and the landlady ,Miss Judith Furse,smiles and says "Welcome Mr and Mrs Sparrow,I'll show you to your room"

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.