Doctor at Sea
That Doctor is Back ... and She-Sick!
The second Doctor film in the series produced by Betty. E. Box & Ralph Thomas continues on from the first. In which Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde), is still focusing on building his medical career, but is constantly distracted by his practice in London. So he decides to take a 180 degree turn, signing on as the main doctor on board a cargo ship the SS Hogg, run by a bad tempered Captain Wentworth Hogg (James Robinson Justice), a very similar bad-tempered role to that of the hospital boss Sir Lancelot Spratt, which he played in the rest of the films in the series.
Captain Hogg appoints Dr Sparrow to treat his motley crew, who are a mixture of the insane, drunks, cantankerous or a combination of all three!
Before long what seems to be a long ordeal turns into nothing short of a cruising holiday, when the ship temporarily docks in South America and several, mostly female passengers, hop on board, causing havoc for Hogg and Sparrow, but to the delight of everyone else on board. Interestingly, one of these passengers Helene Colbert is played by a young Bridgette Bardot, before she became an international superstar.
Although this follow up to the first doctor film is funny in parts, a good two-thirds of it feel really boring and repetitive. You don’t really care about the story as a whole and even though Dirk Bogarde and James Robinson Justice are just as good as they were in the first film, this film script doesn’t live up to their acting performances, or indeed their dedication to their craft.
5/10 – Calum Roberts