London Film Festival was great, as was Kevin Smith chatting away at the Indigo 02
London Film Festival was great, as was Kevin Smith chatting away at the Indigo 02
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Doctor In The House was the first in a series of movies starring the doctors of St Swithins Hospital in some form or other. This first foray follows the trials and tribulations of one Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde) during his five years of medical training at the school/hospital.
Amongst the first people Sparrow meets is Grimsdyke (Kenneth More) a perennial student who has no inclination to ever qualify as doctor. Grimsdyke and his friends are much more interested in other things than their studies. Taffy has rugby on his mind while Benskin only has time for women, nurses in particular.
Sparrow is much more serious than they are but the high spirits the exhibit cant help but rub off on him. Because of this his learning at St Swithins is often interrupted by other preoccupations, something that gets him, and the others, in trouble with the Dean and especially Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice), the head of the Hospital.
Doctor In The House is a very fine example of a 50’s British comedy. It has a fun lighthearted story, some great characters and a group of top acting talent to boot.
The story of a young medical student starting his training is something that is still relevant today, so even though the aged look of the characters stands out their lifestyle and activities are still the same as we associate with all students today. Studying is far from being high on their list of priorities, women, drink and sport are all far more important in their lives!
DITH works so well because the script is so good. It manages to successfully mix the student life of the doctors with their medical training and use every scene to create a laugh, or at the very least to build towards one. There is nary a wasted moment in the whole film, everything is important even if it is for the smallest of reasons.
With four main characters; Grimsdyke, Sparrow, Benskin (Donald Sinden) and Taffy (Donald Houston), there is enough scope for a lot of different situations and some group interactions that continually push the storyline forward. In some ways DITH is a very bitty film, which is has to be as the three year course the doctors are all on needs to be completed by the end of the storyline. This leads to a very truncated storyline as bits and pieces fly by. You get to see some cohesive plotlines but most of the time it is just like watching a bunch of sketches involving the same characters. Not that this really matters that much when it works. The comedy is still funny, even more so if you are a fan of such serious medical dramas like ER and Casualty, even 50 years after it was made.
The presence of More and Bogarde certainly helps, when you have two very good actors playing off each other that will always raise the overall standard of the movie they are in. In this case it really does make a difference that you have the two of them, and some quality supporting actors such as Sinden and Robertson Justice involved, but the Robertson Justice is always a total joy to watch.
All in all DITH is a British comedy classic from a bygone age when that term could be used to describe more than one film a year like it is now, if we are lucky! It is up there amongst my own personal favourites from an era when British comedies were amongst the best made.
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Dirk Bogarde plays the wide-eyed, innocent medical student, Simon Sparrow, who arrives at ... more
St. Swithins Hospital. He falls in with a crowd of students who are all senior to him but have been kept down in the first year, including lecherous Donald Sinden...
![Doctor In The House [DVD] [1954]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78521950.jpg "Doctor In The House [DVD] [1954]")
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