Doctor in Trouble (1970)

Powerful

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Leslie Phillips made a number of bedroom farces in the 1970s. Aside from this film he also starred in NOT NOW DARLING, DON'T JUST LIE THERE, SAY SOMETHING, Spanish FLY and NOT NOW COMRADE. DOCTOR IN TROUBLE is more a vehicle for Phillips to do his "thing" rather than a true entry in the DOCTOR film series. It's also the weakest of the five Phillips farces in my opinion, but still very enjoyable nonetheless.The plot is simple - a doctor finds out the woman he's in love with is going away on a cruise. He wants to propose to her so he decides to go aboard the ship and ends up being a stowaway, hunted down by the crew. While Phillips is the star of the film, the film itself focuses much of the time on the antics of the other passengers of the ship. This isn't a bad thing, though, since Harry Secombe especially is very funny in the film. But he's enjoyable to watch nonetheless and fans of British humour will find his mishaps funny.Phillips is on form in this film. I wouldn't say he was at his best and most energetic, like in NOT NOW DARLING and DON'T JUST LIE THERE, SAY SOMETHING. His caddish on screen persona is less exploited in this film than in those for one thing. Secondly, this film plays out more like a CARRY ON film rather than a stage farce, so lacks the usual clothes coming off, mistaken identities and so on to quite an extent. Finally, his hiding out from the crew and running away when looks like getting caught, gets a bit repetitive after a while.Janet Mahoney is fun to watch as a stripper who hooks up with Harry Secombe (thinking he has recently come into a fortune). The striptease scene is also the best scene in the film, with a wonderfully catchy stripper theme composed by Eric Rogers, playing in the background. I could listen to that theme all day; it's that catchy. It was later re-used in CARRY ON BEHIND and CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE.There are good supporting roles played by Irene Handl, Freddie Jones, John Le Mesurier and others. Sadly, James Robertson Justice appears in only scene, with most of his role being played by Robert Morley, who plays his on screen brother. Morley is very good as the captain of the ship and his exchanges with Secombe are very funny and provide much of the delight of this film's very British humour. Graham Chapman also turns up playing a comic gay character.There really isn't much more to say. For fans of the DOCTOR series, I recommend it only if you can accept that this is more of a Leslie Phillips film rather than a true DOCTOR film. For fans of Leslie Phillips or the CARRY ON films, it's definitely worth at least one viewing.

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 last 'Doctor' film was adapted by Jack Davies from Richard Gordon's book 'Doctor On Toast', and is basically a hybrid of 'At Sea' and 'In Clover'. Leslie Phillips is back as sex-mad but ambitious 'Dr.Tony Burke', whom he had last played in 1960's 'In Love' ( his character in 'Clover' was 'Dr.Gaston Grimsdyke' ). Once again Burke wants desperately to be married so he can qualify for a well-paid medical job in America. He tries to propose to his girlfriend - kooky fashion model 'Ophelia O'Brien' ( Angela Scoular ) - but she is about to set sail on a Mediterranean cruise. Attempting to find her, he is knocked unconscious, and awakes to find the ship has set sail, technically making him a stowaway. Burke must track down Ophelia to complete the proposal, while attempting to steer clear of the Hitler-like 'Master-At-Arms' ( Freddie Jones )...The gaps between films was becoming noticeably longer. The previous entry - 'In Clover' - had been four years before. By 1970, tastes in comedy had shifted away from harmless slapstick to more adult content, including the use of profanities and nudity, hence Phillips gets to say 'bastard!' more than once, and we see Scoular topless and Phillips' bare bottom. The series was now indistinguishable to the 'Carry On' films in every respect, even Eric Rogers was hired to do the music. That said, 'Trouble' is enormous fun. The cast are good; ex-disc jockey Simon Dee is not bad as a vain television star ( some would say he was not acting at all ) called 'Basil Beauchump'. The film was made just before his television career self-destructed. Soon after its premiere on I.T.V. on Christmas Day 1975, a viewer's letter in 'The People' newspaper said how good it was to see Dee on television again, even if only in a film. Though he still had his admirers, there were not enough of them to get him reinstated as a Saturday night chat show host. These days the name 'Simon Dee' is a byword for fleeting fame. Harry Secombe is a riot as loudmouthed Welsh pools winner 'Llewelyn Wendover' ( the same surname, incidentally, as Arthur Haynes' character in the last film ). Because he is now well off, he thinks he is free to leer at the local crumpet, wander uninvited onto the bridge, and dine at the Captain's table. James Robertson Justice's 'Sir Lancelot' is reduced to a cameo ( the actor was nearing the end of his life ). The Captain of Phillips' ship is Spratt's brother, and is played by Robert Morley. Joan Sims appears briefly near the end as a Russian sea captain, and Graham Chapman - then starring in the B.B.C.'s 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' - flounces around as gay photographer 'Roddy'. Irene Handl is a scream as the social climbing mother of airhead stripper 'Dawn Dailey' ( Janet Mahoney ), who wants her little girl to get on in life by marrying the Captain. Modern audiences will probably be appalled by Graham Stark's Indian steward, but it was all part of the comedy scene at that time.Funniest moment - the running gag about Wendover turning up for dinner wearing the wrong clothing. On being told to only wear a black tie for dinner, he proceeds to do exactly that! Second funniest moment - in an effort to fool the Master-At-Arms, Tony impersonates a female passenger named 'Lavinia' ( "or 'lav' for short!" ). Needless to say, the disguise is soon exposed; he falls over, his legs flying into the air, leaving the Master Of Arms in no doubt as to his true gender.Things To Look Out For - Burke's brief chat with a nameless St. Swithins doctor played by Geoffrey Davies. Its never established, but he's obviously meant to be 'Dick Stuart-Clark' from L.W.T.'s 'Doctor' series. The series had proved so popular it was decided to acknowledge it in some way. It suggests that a movie version based on the television show was on the cards. Strangely, it never happened.Another Thing To Look Out For - when Burke is watching television with some nurses, one of them is an uncredited Sheila White, later to play Robin Askwith's sister in the 'Confessions' films.

A famous television "doctor" goes on a cruise that includes a pools winner, models, a camp photographer and a stern captain (a relation to Sir Spratt himself). Dr Burke tries to get onto the same cruise to talk to the wild Ophelia but finds himself stuck when it sails. He tries to hide as a stowaway. Lots of people run around, women are sexy, men are quite horny and so the whole horrible lot sails off into a period of British cinema that some like to forget, some thing of as fun and others call "sh1te".If you want a potted history of how British film comedy changed in a few decades there are several places you can go but one place is the "Doctor" series of films that started in the 1950's and ended with this one in 1970. At the start the series was light to the point of blandness and very clean humour, however by this point the series has "sunk" to the sexual level of other British comedies of the 1970's such as the Carry On or Confessions type of film. Watching this will show you what I mean as there is loads of partial nudity, suggestive dialogue, Benny Hill ogling and so on. This doesn't mean it is better or worse than the original film but just a different thing and some viewers will enjoy it. Although it isn't high class or that funny, it does have a rough energy to it even if the sexual stuff hits the ground with a massively dated clang. It doesn't really stand out from anything else similar from the period but it is amusing and very genre and will perhaps please those expecting just that. The plot is meaningless of course but this shouldn't surprise anyone.The British cast help on paper even if there isn't that much strong material for them. Philips has been much better elsewhere but he is a good sport and does his best with the "ooh I say" material that he was forever delivering. Justice barely makes an impression but his role is well covered by Morley who is amusing. Secombe is probably the pick of the cast – in real life I would have drowned myself to be free of his character but in the film he was pretty funny and he played it really well. Scoular is rubbish but to be honest most of the female cast are there for their bodies and the material only uses them for such. Dee is flat and seems all at sea alongside much more talented people. Small turns from Chapman and Le Mesurier are of good value though.Overall this is a very basic film that tries to do all the things that the other sexual comedies of the period were doing. As such it is nothing special although happily it is not painful to watch (as some of them are). Fans of the original Doctor films will feel that this has drifted far from port, while others may just feel it is not that funny but it is distracting if dated stuff that can be enjoyed if in the mood.