DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
UK, 1954, 92 minutes, Colour.
Dirk Bogarde, Muriel Pavlow, Kenneth More, Donald Houston, James Robertson Justice, Kay Kendall, Geoffrey Keen, Joan Sims.
Directed by Ralph Thomas.
The first of a series of very successful comedies. Most of these screen plays were written by the actor Nicholas Phipps who appears in most of them. He adapted the very popular novels by Richard Gordon about life in training for being a doctor and in medical practice in England in the fifties. They were a forerunner also of the rather more vulgar 'Carry On' series.
Dirk Bogarde starred in most of the films although in Doctor in Love, the star was Michael Craig and Leslie Phillips also took over in Doctor in Clover. The young Kenneth More, Donald Sinden, Donald Houston are all very vigorous support for Dirk Bogarde.
Many English character actors and actresses have supporting roles, especially James Robertson Justice as Sir Lancelot Spratt, a role he was to repeat in many of the other films. The production team of Betty Box and Ralph Thomas was responsible for the whole series. Doctor in the House is better than its successors. It is very entertaining British comedy of the fifties style.
1. The qualities of British comedy? The styles used in this film, its impact on the audience of the fifties, influence on later British comedies, especially the 'Carry On' series?
2. The colour, music, breezy style and atmosphere?
3. Audience response to the comedy routines: to students and their attitude towards studies, relationships? To the hospital way of life, humorous side, accidents? The wit of the dialogue, the humour of the situations?
4. The focus on sentiment especially with the character or Simon, his ambitions, study, relationship with Joy, the delivery and the mother calling the baby after him? The blend of sentiment and comedy in the British style?
5. Comment on the British tone of the film: its picture of English society in the fifties, London, youth and study, the various cross-sections of people presented for example the patients, landladies and their daughters, nurses and doctors? The comedy within the traditions of British comedy?
6. Dirk Bogarde’s style as Simon - as hero, lost at the beginning, pleasant, earnest? His study, his friendship with the others and their influence on him, the romantic interludes and the outing with Rigor Mortis, with Gobel and the expenses? His relationship with Joy and her laughing et him, antipathy at the outing and their reconciliation, the humour of his getting her back into the nurses, home after curfew? his relationship with Briggs and their meeting
at the exam? With Sir Lancelot, the Dean? The human touches of the formation of a doctor?
7. Grimsdyke and his attitude towards his inheritance, the continual failing, irresponsible attitude and enjoying it, his relationship with Stella? Decision to study? Benskin and his attitude towards girls - in the traditional British style? Evans, Welsh background, the emphasis on football? How well drawn were these characters – how typical of fifties' medical students?
8. The world of the nurses, Joy, the severe nurses and matrons? Sir Lancelot and his bumptious attitude, his taking people on the rounds of the patients, his attitude at the football match, his benign blackmail of the Dean and helping with the paying of the fine? The Dean and his starchiness and his ability to be blackmailed because of his past? Sister Virtue? The world of the exams, medical boards?
9. The presentation of the women: Joy an a credible nurse, heroine? Stella and her devotion to Grimsdyke? Isobel and the incident with the accident, the outing, her fashionable expectations?
10. The presentation of ordinary people in detail especially the patients, landlady, landlady's daughter? The comic and humorous aspects of ordinary people?
11. The film's attention to comic detail - sufficient for the comedy conventions, for giving the human touch to the comedy and its issues?
