"Doctor in the House" appeared in 1954 and it must have been a success because it begat several sequels. This was the first. It's light hearted throughout, sometimes silly and sometimes amusing. The comedic style fits somewhere between the "Carry On" series and the velvety understatement of the best of the Ealing Comedies, like "The Man in the White Suit."
"Doctor at Sea" has Dirk Bogarde forced to take a position as a doctor on a cruise ship to South America that carries no passengers. It may be economically suicidal but the plot kind of requires it. On the trip, we get to know the various characters of the crew and their malfunctions, major and minor. The ship's carpenter has a fit of the DTs and runs about wailing that he's being followed by various breeds of dogs. It's treated as a joke.
Once in port, the officers and men have an opportunity to get drunk and wind up in jail, an event which is treated as a festival. The ship also picks up two passengers. One is Brenda de Banzie, who sets her cap for the bellowing powerhouse of a skipper, James Robertson Justice, an ill-tempered whale. The other is Brigitte Bardot, barely out of her teens. She and Bogarde get glandular. If the outbound voyage showed us the general milieu, the trip home allows for developing romances and animadversions involving the opposite sex. Bardot is something to behold. She has a chirpy voice and a prancing manner, a la gamin, an Audrey Hepburn with a succulent build. I don't know if anyone remembers any longer the sensation she was to become in the next few years.
Like the "Carry On" series, but unlike the best of Ealing, "Doctor at Sea" is episodic. There's practically nothing to the story itself. The film lurches from one comic scene to the next, jammed with puns and double entendres and sometimes pratfalls. At the climax, Captain Justice gets thoroughly stoned and begins screaming insane orders, and it feels forced.
There are good moments too. Bogarde's predecessor as ship's doctor suffered "a melancholy fate" which no one want so talk about. Finally, Bogarde asks his medical assistant what the previous doctor died from. "Very sad it was. We was in port and he had ideas above his station." "Above his --?" "He tried to walk ashore."
"Doctor at Sea" has Dirk Bogarde forced to take a position as a doctor on a cruise ship to South America that carries no passengers. It may be economically suicidal but the plot kind of requires it. On the trip, we get to know the various characters of the crew and their malfunctions, major and minor. The ship's carpenter has a fit of the DTs and runs about wailing that he's being followed by various breeds of dogs. It's treated as a joke.
Once in port, the officers and men have an opportunity to get drunk and wind up in jail, an event which is treated as a festival. The ship also picks up two passengers. One is Brenda de Banzie, who sets her cap for the bellowing powerhouse of a skipper, James Robertson Justice, an ill-tempered whale. The other is Brigitte Bardot, barely out of her teens. She and Bogarde get glandular. If the outbound voyage showed us the general milieu, the trip home allows for developing romances and animadversions involving the opposite sex. Bardot is something to behold. She has a chirpy voice and a prancing manner, a la gamin, an Audrey Hepburn with a succulent build. I don't know if anyone remembers any longer the sensation she was to become in the next few years.
Like the "Carry On" series, but unlike the best of Ealing, "Doctor at Sea" is episodic. There's practically nothing to the story itself. The film lurches from one comic scene to the next, jammed with puns and double entendres and sometimes pratfalls. At the climax, Captain Justice gets thoroughly stoned and begins screaming insane orders, and it feels forced.
There are good moments too. Bogarde's predecessor as ship's doctor suffered "a melancholy fate" which no one want so talk about. Finally, Bogarde asks his medical assistant what the previous doctor died from. "Very sad it was. We was in port and he had ideas above his station." "Above his --?" "He tried to walk ashore."