Carry On Doctor (1972)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This was the second of the Carry On films set in a hospital and was released in 1967. It featured the first appearance in a Carry On film by the late, great Frankie Howerd and he is excellent here. He went on to appear in Carry On Up The Jungle in 1970. Most of the Carry On regulars appear here, though Charles Hawtrey is somewhat more subdued than normal. Kenneth Williams is also excellent as a smarmy doctor, as is Hattie Jacques as the matron and Anita Harris also appears as a nurse. It was rumoured that Jim Dale did some of his own stunts and he has a great set-piece here on a rooftop, as he hangs on for dear life. Sid James, who suffered a heart attack just before the film was due to start shooting, has less to do here, though and spends most of the film in bed. I did not enjoy Barbara Windsor in this film, though, but I could never tolerate her as an actress, she couldn't act for toffee and she only got parts in films because of her generous bosom. The film is funnier than some of the other Carry On films, though and it has always remained one of my favourites of the series. I watched it again recently and I still found myself laughing, even after all these years. I regard it as one of the best of the series and much better than most of their films to come during the 1970s. If you haven't already seen it, then watch it on TV or DVD. You won't regret it.

Not up to the level of their best stuff, but far from the level of the Carry On team's weakest, this entry is as usual silly but entertaining. Some of the jokes are plainly obvious, but there are a few laugh-out-loud moments to make up for the tamer and lamer gags. The acting is good, but hardly the best that the team has displayed. It is however excess length that is the prime weakness here. The final fifteen minutes or so are very weak, and could have been handled better. Otherwise, this is simple, amusing fun, although 'Carry On Again Doctor' comes more highly recommend than this, and despite the title, the two films share as much in common as any of the Carry On films do.

The patients of a suburban town hospital rebel against the registrar Dr Tinkle (Kenneth Williams) and the matron (Hattie Jacques) who got a popular doctor and nurse the sack.Fairly amusing entry in the series which manages to hold up because it has the charm of an England that never was and the fact that it isn't always hilariously funny dosen't really matter. Frankie Howerd is excellent as the mind over matter charleton who goes around the country persuading people that they don't need medicines or doctors for cash and the ever reliable Syd James also carries the picture with his usual charm this time as a lazy out of work good for nothing who fakes illness just so that he can stay in hospital. Dandy Nichols also turns up as Syd's nagging wife in a funny moment where he listens to the hospital radio while pretending to listen to his wife's constant nagging and she's too busy having a go at him to notice.

Did you?No, you wouldn't let me.What a line. This film is cheesy as they come, but it's all part of a British institution - the Carry On films. If you're not a Brit or you haven't seen any of these films then allow me to elaborate for a moment. Made between the late 50s and late 70s (except for one execrable exception from 1992), 28 films with the title "Carry On..." celebrated the best of UK 'seaside humour'. In other words, tit jokes. There's something inherently satisfying about watching this film in particular, one of my desert island films. Maybe it's the ridiculous puns, or the silly prat-falls, or the comfort of watching familiar faces. Who knows? But it is pretty funny. *Spoilers*Dr. Kilmore ("Did you hear about the pregnant bedbug? She had a baby in the spring") is a handsome doctor who the nurses fancy and the blokes think is pretty cool. Dr Tinkle ("Cold baths every hour, matron.") hates him, as does the infatuated-with-Dr-Tinkle Matron ("This hospital is not big enough for both of us, Doctor." "Oh, I don't know, you're not that big, Matron."). Nurse May (Barbara Windsor) fancies Dr Tinkle. And it all sort of moves on from there, apart from Francis Bigger, a 'positive thinker' with a bad back, and his deaf partner Chloe ("She's a bit mutt, doctor."). There's lots of puerile wordplay ("Ooh, what a lovely pear." "You took the words right out of my mouth!"), half-naked women on rooftops, falling over, exaggerated facial expressions and hammy acting. In other words, business as usual for the Carry Ons.I love this film.