Customer Reviews

Carry on Doctor [VHS]

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For the 15th entry in the long running British comedy film series, it was a return to familiar terriotry - the hospital. Carry On Nurse (1958) had enjoyed immense International success so a similar formular was re-worked into Carry On Doctor.

It must be said that Carry On Doctor is amongst the most famous in the series and indeed it has many fine moments throughout, although I have to say that I found Again Doctor (1969) to be more satisfying as there was a little bit more of (dare I say it) a plot structure. This is no more than an updated formular of Carry On Nurse, with slight variations. All of the gang are here, with guest star Frankie Howard receiving top billing. Also included are Sid James (who due to his present illness at the time was restricted to film most of his scenes in bed), Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jaques as the ferocious, no-nonsence matron, Jim Dale, Joan Sims, barbara Windsor, Bernard Bresslaw, Peter Butterworth, Anita Harris and Dilys Laye.

Basically all fun and games throughout although the climax is good where the patients rebel aginst Williams and Jaques after the unfair dismissal of accident prone Jim Dale. They subject to Williams to an ice cold bath and Jaques to a degrading blanket bath - amusing stuff.

Best players would have to be Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jaques although many of the other cast members get their moments too including Frankie Howard who seems to effortlessly blend in with the regular Carry On cast as though he'd always been part of the team, Jim Dale who is accident prone throughout and Charles Hawtrey in an unusual role as a patient suffering from a sympathetic pregnacy! Barbara Windsor makes a welcome return to the series who had not been seen since 1962's Carry On Spying whilst Joan Sims is another regular in an unusual role as Frankie Howards deaf assistant. She plays the role masterfully whilst Bernard Bresslaw and Peter Butterworth bubble in the back ground as patients.

The series was on a roll at this time after enjoying success with Screaming (1966) and Don't lose Your Head (1966) and the next two films would perharps be the pinnacle of the series with Up The Kyber (1968) and Camping (1968). As for Carry On Doctor (1967) this defintley ranks up there with the other greats of the series. Recommended!

I first saw some Carry On films in the late 60's, when they were new. I love the Carry On series. They are not the funniest films ever made, but they are consistenly funny, and after a while, you know what to expect from each scene. The cast members are very good, and it's like watching a TV series because you feel as if you know these people. I have recently started to accumulate as many as I can through Amazon.

One thing I like about them, especially the early ones, is their "old English" quality. You see England, cars, fashions, etc., as they were forty years ago.

Overall, these films are just fun, nothing to be taken seriously or analyzed to death.

I first saw this 20 years ago on an independent TV station and loved it. It is too bad that they do not include this installment with the other "Carry On" movies in the fine collection that they put out a few years ago The Carry On Collection. Frankie Howerd, Jim Dale, and Kenneth Williams are exceptionally funny. I loved Jim Dale as Dr. Killmore wooing a medical school skeleton in his office.

The patient is Francis Bigger, played by Frankie Howerd, and the line is a sly reference to the funniest scene in Carry On Nurse. It's probably the cleverest line in Carry On Doctor. Like Carry On Nurse, Carry On Doctor takes place in hospital and, as the movie says, is a bedpanorama of hospital life.

The long-running Carry On movies were bawdy, low-comedy, good-natured madhouses that featured a repertory company of comics we came to recognize instantly. Here, the company is made up of Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Hattie Jacques, Sid James, Joan Sims, Charles Hawtrey, Barbara Windsor and Bernard Bresslaw, among others. They play the patients, the doctors and the nurses at Finisham Hospital. If you relish jokes about bedpans and hernias, where any possible activity below the waist will wind up as corny, corny jokes or wheezing double entendres, Finisham is the place to be. Says Dr. Kilmore (Jim Dale) to Francis Bigger, "Just as I thought. You fell on your coccyx." "I did not," says Bigger, "I fell on my back." "Your coccyx is at the base of the spine," points out Dr. Kilmore. Says Bigger, "Well I've never heard it called that before."

A Carry On hospital movie always has lots of nubile nurses assisting the longing denizens of the male ward. "Nurse, I dreamt about you last night," says a hobbled Ken Biddle (Bernard Bresslaw) to the stacked Nurse Clarke (Anita Harris). "Did you?" she asks? "No," Biddle says, "you wouldn't let me." And of course we have to deal with the Matron, a large woman more indomitable than a battleship, who knows how to keep any male quivering at the thought of one of her enemas or her ice baths. Has a matron ever been played as perfectly as Hattie Jacques? Her matrons always know what they want, and in this movie, Matron wants Dr. Kenneth Tinkle (Kenneth Williams), the hospital's chief physician. "Matron," Dr. Tinkle says, "you may not realize it but I was once a weak man!" "Doctor," says Matron, "once a week is enough for any man!"

Who cares what the plot is when we have lines like these? We even have Charles Hawtrey who, in film as well as in life, raised mincing about to an art form, playing a father-to-be suffering from false pregnancy symptoms. It's a small, unlikely and vivid bit. The whole movie is a funny, gently off-color and totally innocent experience...such as the small boy who swallowed half a crown and was taken to hospital. Two days later the boy's mum asks the doctor, "How's he doing?" "Sorry, missus," the doctor says, "there's still no change."

The Carlton Region Two DVD of Carry On Doctor is the one to get. It has a fine picture and several extras. The best is the film's commentary by Jim Dale. He comes across as a nice guy, talking about people he enjoyed working with. For the last few years, as well as having great success on Broadway, Dale has been doing the acclaimed audio books for the U. S. version Harry Potter books.

This is the sequel to Carry on Nurse. As usual, sequels are not quite as good as the first movie, especially for people who have seen the first one many times. One of the problems is that scenes that were not included in the first one because they were less funny than the included scenes are included in the sequel. If you have not seen Carry on Nurse this will still be a funny movie. People who have seen the nurse one will not be as amused.

This is nearly the last of the carry on "hospital" movies. By now they have run out of original ideas. In the "carry on again doctor" movie by Wham the audio commentary by one of the actors uses the expression "bottom of the barrel" to describe these later films. You should not buy this if you are new to Carry On. Instead buy one of the more highly rated movies. If you are a collector this is worth your buying it.

It looks like this is not the wham version which has an audio commentary about the filming and is 9:16 screen size.