Quattro in medicina

James Robertson Justice was born to play Sir Lancelot Spratt, an iconic figure who can't fail to bring a smile to your face simply by walking into a room......you just know what is coming next! I grew up with this film and the other Doctor films, and whilst the rest were average to good, this just stands out as the perfect example of British comedy making in the 1950's. The bridge from Ealing to Carry On! The cast is to die for, J R J, Kenneth More (so underrated), Donald Houston, Muriel Pavlow, Kay Kendall and Donald Sinden. The dialogue is superb...what's the bleeding time...ten past ten sir!!! I can't recommend this film high enough, if you ever are feeling a little low or just want to sit and watch something innocent and intelligent that will make you laugh.....Doctor in the House is just what should be ordered!!!!

Watching Doctor In The House which was the first in the Doctor Simon Sparrow series that was a standby for Dirk Bogarde it put me in mind of the American film Not As A Stranger which came out the following year. Both films dealt with medical students and their training. While the American film was quite serious and quite good this film overed a lot of the same ground.

Bogarde's Dr. Sparrow is an earnest and serious character who just keeps falling into comic situations that seem to find him. This is a funny film, but Bogarde plays it absolutely serious as he did in the whole series and the comedy just plays off him.

Kenneth More who is his best friend plays it far more laughs. If you see Not As A Stranger note Robert Mitchum as the lead like Bogarde and More is most like Frank Sinatra who was Mitchum's best friend. The parallels are quite striking.

A lot of familiar faces from British cinema are in the cast. James Robertson Justice of the booming voice is the terror of the students. He takes a special interest in Bogarde though like Broderick Crawford did in Mitchum in Not As A Stranger. Robertson Justice would return in the sequels so popular was his character.

Bogarde who always took on quirky and challenging roles throughout his career always came back to Simon Sparrow. I suspect he liked the money and some of his more challenging parts didn't yield well at he box office.

Doctor In The House holds up well as does the rest of the series I've seen so far.

Dirk Bogarde is a marvellous innocent in the lead as Dr. Simon Sparrow enduring a four-year trial in Saint Swithens Medical School. But Kenneth More and James Robertson Justice each steal every scene they are in. The dialogue is hilarious and the sight gags even better, but the movie also works for me on a "truth and beauty" level as well. Marvellous, fast-paced entertainment that holds up well to this day!

A fairly good watch, especially considering the number of flaws in the film, it mixes good dialogue with British mannerisms to create a reasonably amusing picture. The film has no real sense of time, with years passing but only feeling like months, and the characters all look too old to be fresh medical students, plus there are quite a few lame jokes. The Technicolor looks a bit too colourful to be natural too, though colour does suit the film more than black and white would have. As has been alluded to already, the film is still quite reasonable entertainment in spite of its shortcomings, and James Robert Justice gives a highly memorable performance, keeping it all buoyant whenever he is on screen.

I was truly surprised to see this film was not as well received as I might have expected. Enter a young med student. He's surrounded by older students who can't seem to get out of the first year of studies. I'm told that does happen in Britain at least.

He does have some allies in navigating the unfamiliar course of study. There's the nurse who takes a liking to him and then there are some patients possibly malingerers on the ward who are won over to the inexperienced student.

Will our good med student make it through or will he be left by the wayside with the circle of students marking time and filling up space.

Certainly this film inspired such worthy American films as GROSS ANATOMY and BAD MEDICINE, which seemingly brought the essential plot up to date by eliminating the nurse scheming to become a doctor and substituting for her a female medical student.