Picturegoer – July 16th 1955
Start Reading The Laughter Hit of the Year – Doctor At Sea
A specially edited serialization for “Picturegoer”
by Dirk Bogarde star of the Rank Organization film
Right from the beginning, it was just one of those days. The kind of damp and dreary day that the weather forecasters, with their side-splitting gift for comedy, usually describe as “warm, with bright periods and occasional showers.”
As far as the eye could see, vistas of grey Victorian villas stretched into the dtstance. In the background loomed the smoking chimneys of a typical British manufacturing town.
And Dr. Simon Sparrow, M.D., was on the brink of making two grave discoveries. Namely, that it was a cold, hard, unfeeling life – and that, compared to him, the Babes in the Wood were a couple of worldly-wise smarty-pants.
Just two years before, he’d been downing pints in the local with his student-days pals Grimsdyke, Benskin and Evans, celebrating the fact that dear old St. Swithins, the college hospital, had given him a diploma and a smart pat on the back. Celebrating the fact that he could take his place in the world as a fully fledged doctor.
And he – the poor fool! – had actually been happy about it. Only that was before he realized that, for all those four years, dear old St. Swithins hadn’t taught him the half of it. Not even a quarter.
So where was he now? Seated at the wheel of his very small, very third-hand car, with the wonky steering, being towed back to the doctor’s house – where he was installed as a meek and put-upon junior partner – by the grandest funeral hearse in the town.
The procession halted. Majestically, the hearse driver levered himself out of the high seat. Gloomily. he detached the tow-rope. Humbly, Simon thanked him.
“Always willing to help a colleague,” the man intoned lugubriously.
If he’d thought about it Simon would have realized that no good could come of a day such as this. But he hadn’t. And now he was too busy looking at the sign outside the house. Or rather the two signs.
The bigger and brassier stated proudly: Dr. George Thomas, L.S.A., Physician and Surgeon.
It was a name oozing confidence and respect. It was a name with roots. A name to which you’d entrust your money – or your appendix.
Beneath it, on a bit of damp, temporary-looking card, was another name: Dr. Simon Sparrow, M.D.
But a local wag had had another thought on the subject. The M.D. was rudely crossed through – and a blunt “B.F.” was scrawled in its place in red pencil.
It was the measure of Simon’s state of mind that he didn’t even attempt to rub the letters off.
As he opened the door, Dr. George Thomas. L.S.A., Physician and Surgeon, came bustling down the stairs. He was a big man in his late forties, as full of confidence and respect as his name; as indubitably trustworthy. And as well-established. He was resplendent in tweeds.
“Take surgery for me my boy will you? I have an important consultation. They want my opinion – urgently.” So saying, he picked up his bag of golf clubs and strode off.
But Dr. Thomas was the least of Simon’s problems.
There was another. massive one. And it was looming larger every day. Her name was Wendy. She was the Thomases’ daughter.
Now there was no denying Wendy was a nice girl. A nice, well-made, healthy girl. It was true she did look a little like the heroine of the hockey team, who had taken up sport to work off her neuroses, but you couldn’t hold that against her.
Someday she would make some man a good wife. Well, a wife, anyway. But the paralysing thought was slowly dawning on Simon that Dr. and Mrs. Thomas and Wendy were intending the husband to be – Simon.
Whether Dr. Thomas was more interested in marrying off his daughter, or in the prospect of countless “consultations” on the golf course with a tame son-in-law in surgery, Simon couldn’t be sure.
All he was sure about was that the combined Thomas tactics were getting harder and harder to duck.
Later that evening, after Dr. Thomas had returned, matters came to a head. “It’s time you thought of getting married. my boy. Patients prefer a married doctor. They feel safer,” said Dr. Thomas meaningfully.
And then Simon was manoeuvred into taking Wendy to the pictures.
The trap was closing. As Simon told himself, the patients might feel safe if there was a woman around, but he didn’t – not with Wendy. Like a Canadian Mountie, she was going to get her man.
That night, poring over official forms in the surgery – a positive relaxation after the evening he’d endured – Simon heard the door open quietly. And there, beaming, well-scrubbed and enveloped in a woolly dressing-gown was Wendy.
“I’ll help you,” she cooed brightly.
And then Simon made his fatal mistake. He took out a bottle of aspirin, selected two pills and swallowed them with a glass of water.
“Have you got a headache?” inquired Wendy anxiously.
“I’ll rub your neck.” She came at him like an all-in wrestler getting ready for the kill. Before he could put out a peep of protest, Simon was lying on the surgery couch, fighting off the ministrations of Wendy.
On the dot, the door opened. Dr. and Mrs. Thomas gazed at the spectacle. Simon noted their faces and his heart sank. They wore the same triumphant expression that a fighter pilot might sport after a successful sortie. It was a look that plainly said: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.”
In the solitude of his room. Simon surveyed the situation. After all, there’d been that persistent girl at his landlady’s when he was at St. Swithins. Only you can leave your lodgings – and your landlady – and her daughter.
But you can’t leave your job just like that. Particularly a job that was going to give him so much experience and do his whole career so much good. Or could he?
Why not go to sea? After all, they had doctors on ships, hadn’t they? Why shouldn’t they have Dr. Sparrow?
Why not indeed?
That was how one moonless night, several weeks later, found Simon standing, suitcases in hand, on a cold, deserted dock. In his brave escape from Wendy he’d taken the first sea job he’d been offered: ship’s doctor on the Lotus.
After countless involved instructions from the policeman on the dock, he found his ship. She was not a pretty sight. Maybe it was the dim light. But to Simon she looked distinctly dirty, unseaworthy and small. The gangway creaked ominously as Simon entrusted his weight to it.
He tried to be jaunty, but gave it up. How could he be jaunty on a miserable night in a miserable dock on a miserable ship – even if Wendy was safely several hundred miles away?
Someone – he remembered a grizzled face, but that was all – ushered him into the ship’s saloon. And there Simon had his first encounter with the colleagues be would be living with for the next crowded months while they were out on the open sea.
He looked at them. On the whole, a promising crowd. They gazed back at him.
There was Hornbeam, the First Officer and Mate. A pleasant looking man, Simon thought. The kind who wouldn’t have too many funny jokes about seasickness up his sleeve.
Next came Archer, the Second Officer, neat and precise- looked as though he’d be more at home in the local gentleman’s outfitters than on the Lotus.
Whimble was the Chief Steward, a mouse-faced man, with obviously a load of grief on his mind.
Trail was the Third Officer, a cheerful chap, the sort who twirled metaphorical moustachios the moment a girl sailed into view.
Finally, there was Fellowes, the apprentice: just seventeen, a choir-boy with the devil in him – smoking a pipe almost as big as himself.
The introductions over, it was Trail who embarked on the trivialities.
“What was it that sent you to sea? Wine, women or the police?”
Simon stroked his neck, which even now still seemed sore from Wendy’s tactics.
“Women – in a way,” he smiled.
“Well, park yourself,” said Hornbeam. “Nice to have a young doc aboard. They told you at the office about the last one?” There was a pause for a sharp intake of breath and a gloomy shake of the head.
“No,” gulped Simon.
“No? Oh. Well, never mind,” tut-tutted Hornbeam.
It was Trail who broke up the gloom session.
“I hope you’re hot stuff on sailor’s troubles?”
This was better. “I expect they’re the same as other people’s,” Simon replied nonchalantly.
That did it. The congregation burst into laughter. All except Simon and prim, precise Archer. Archer was not amused.
When the last echoes of their merriment died away it occurred to Simon that one thing seemed to be missing – the captain. Probably a nice, jovial salt, good company. Yes, he ought to see the captain soon.
He suggested as much. Their reaction was totally unexpected. They stared at him in a dread silence. Then, with infinite tact, Hornbeam found his voice.
“I wouldn’t. Not tonight.” He sounded like a nanny placating a fractious child.
“He doesn’t welcome visitors after dark. He’s not… well, the social type. Perhaps that is because he never married.”
A strangled chuckle came from Trail’s direction.
“Neither was his father. You’ll see, doc.”
That night Simon did not sleep well.
The next morning a new phenomenon swam into Simon’s line of vision. It’s name was Easter, the doctor’s steward – and, as Simon blearily wiped the sleep out of his eyes, he decided that someone certainly should have warned him about Easter.
On the stage at the old Lyceum – second lead perhaps in “Sweeney Todd”- Easter would have been a wow. (That wasn’t so far off the beam, either, Simon discovered, for Easter had once been on the halls as a “Chinese” conjurer, name of Pin Yung.)
On board ship he was, to say the least, a trifle incongruous. He was spick and span, full of toothy smiles, with hair well oiled. His first words were as ominous as his appearance.
“Morning, doctor. Easter’s the name. Doctor’s steward. I’ve a message from Father.”
“Father?” echoed Simon.
“The captain.” Easter lowered his voice discreetly.
“He wants a bottle of his usual stomach mixture. pronto.”
The captain, it seemed, suffered from dyspepsia.
“Something chronic,” Easter explained. “When he has one of his spasms, life’s not worth living for all hands.”
Apparently the only mixture that acted on the captain’s dyspepsia was the stuff that the late Dr. Flowerday, Simon’s predecessor, used to make up for him
Perhaps, Simon thought, Easter would tell him what happened to Dr. Flowerday.
Easter’s large, indiarubber face composed itself into a picture of melancholy misery. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather not talk about it.”
As if on cue, a loud, gurgling noise from the direction of the ceiling penetrated the silence. Simon looked up in alarm. Easter, he saw, was unperturbed. Still wrapped in melancholy, he wagged his finger and sighed.
“It’s them pipes, sir. Your cabin is situated, as you might say, immediately below the captain’s…”
The loud, gurgling noise was heard again. “It’s very inconvenient,” breathed Easter.
As Simon made up the captain’s mixture in the ship’s hospital, he discovered a lot more about Easter. He also discovered a lot about the late Dr. Flowerday.
The cupboard, supposedly housing the drugs, hung on one hinge. Simon inserted an exploring hand into the depths of it. His fingers contacted a bottle. And it turned out to be an empty gin bottle.
Back to the search – and this time he came up with a violin.
At this point, Easter joined in the voyage of discovery.
“The late Dr. Flowerday was very keen on tennis racketing – very keen indeed,” he said sadly.
But Simon was beginning to get a little tired of the late Dr. Flowerday. He felt the need to assert himself.
“We seem a bit short of drugs. Shouldn’t there be an official stock?”
Easter looked over at him with the sorrowful gaze of one who is about to break bad news. “The late Dr. Flowerrlay and me had an arrangement like, over the disposal of surplus stores.”
“You mean you flogged them, I suppose?”
Easter became suddenly passionately interested in the stitching on his boots. But his embarrassment passed. As Simon set to work on the captain’s mixture, he suggested a drop of Worcester sauce. “Always likes it. As we of the medical fraternity say – it makes it nice and piquant.”
Once on deck, making his way to the captain’s cabin with the medicine, Simon began to breathe freely again. Wonderful air. Wonderful life. Wonderful to be rid of Wendy.
He paused in front of a tough-looking gentleman supervising tho loading of meat carcasses.
“Are you the butcher? I’m the new doctor.”
The butcher eyed him sadly. “Same line of business, really, aren’t we?” And back he went to his carcasses.
Everywhere else the news that Simon was the new doctor brought on the same animated response. No one, it seemed. could care less.
It seemed to Simon that he was a good two feet shorter than he had been on waking up that morning.
For five minutes he stood outside the door marked “Captain.” At last he plucked up the courage to tap gently on it.
“ENTER.” The voice from within would have reached the farthest end of the Wembley Stadium without the help of a microphone.
Well, this was it. In half a second Dr. Simon Sparrow and Captain Hogg of the Lotus would meet face to face.
Simon manoeuvred himself round the door.
The captain was bent low over the washstand. A great mountain of a man, clad in nothing but his rough, woollen singlet and pyjama trousers. He was washing the most fearsome looking beard Simon had ever seen.
He turned and looked at Simon.
“What,” he roared, “is on your head?”
“My head. sir?” Simon said. “Nothing, sir.”
“Exactly. Your cap? You have a cap? Why the blazes aren’t you wearing it?”
For one terrifying moment Simon expected him to send for the firing squad on the spot. He didn’t. He went on roaring.
“There’s no tramp stuff aboard this vessel. This is my ship, you understand, doctor. My ship. And it’s run properly. ‘
To emphasize the point, the captain started to shake the medicine bottle furiously. He squatted on the settee.
“Remove that corn plaster.”
Simon protested: “It’s really not my job to remove…”
“You’re the doctor, aren’t you?” That seemed unanswerable. Simon removed the corn plaster. He gazed apprehensively at the medicine jiggling around in the bottle and warned the captain not to shake it.
“Women, I suppose,” the captain bellowed, “sent you to sea.”
There was no point in denying it. Truly the ghost of Wendy seemed likely to haunt him forever.
“I thought so, I can always tell. Well, I don’t tolerate that sort of thing among my officers. I don’t approve of women, you understand. In my view, they’re unseaman-like ond unnecessary.”
Simon controlled a grin.
“Surely, sir, even a seaman has to get himself launched somehow.” Captain Hogg glared. “I hope you know your duties, doctor. You will hold your surgery at nine sharp in the morning and bring me the sick list at ten thirty. And I want to know what’s wrong with them. There’s none of this dam’ medical secrecy at sea. I want everything out in the open.”
At this point, the bottle of medicine that was getting such a punishment from the captain gave up. The cork popped out and a spray of pinky brown mixture flew over him.
In the confusion, Simon started to wipe him down. That was too much for Captain Hogg.
Outside the cabin, Simon had to admit that, all things considered, the first meeting with the captain had not been an altogether unqualified success.
But there was no time to worry about things like that. The Lotus was on her way. And, for the first time, Simon began to enjoy himself on boord.
“I can smell the open sea already. This is the life. I should have tried it before,” he confided to Trail.
He squared his shoulders, adjusted his cap to a cocky angle and set off down the deck with a nautical roll. As he passed the radio cabin, he heard the B B.C. announcer’s voice… “Attention, all shipping. Winds of gale force can be expected…
❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖
Doctor At Sea ✭✭✭✭
Brigitte Bardot Dirk Bogarde James Robertson Justice
It’s amazing. Practically unheard of. It can’t be done, the wiseacres said. When you make a comedy in a thousand, such as Doctor In The House, leave well alone. No follow-up. It will be a disappointment.
But they were wrong Gloriously, hilariously wrong. It can be done. Here is the evidence.
Until you’ve joined Dr. Simon Sparrow on his first voyage as ship’s surgeon – well, “you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet ” (as Al Jolson used to put it). And, for PICTUREGOER, that’s the best reason we know for awarding it our Seal of Merit.
Once again, Richard Gordon’s tales of high jinks in medicine are spiked with real wit and comedy characterization. But, if anything, the fun is crisper, broader than it was in the earlier film . It isn’t a slavish sequel. Only one character has been brought forward – Dr. Simon Sparrow, again played by Dirk Bogarde, whose comedy touch gets more and more assured with every film.
The film opens two years after Simon has left medical school and saddles him with a problem: her name is Wendy, the daughter of the senior partner. And her intentions are very strictly matrimonial.
He escapes to sea in the Lotus. Then the fun really warms up. Samples? There’s that first dreadful bout of seasickness; the captain’s problems with a persistent female; the sailor who sees wild green Alsatians while in his cups; the ship’s dance; the feud between rival captains; and a final, gorgeous bit of shipboard chaos when the captain of the Lotus mixes whisky with nerve pills.
Basically, it’s just a string of crazy episodes threaded on to a hair’s breadth of plot. But what episodes!
It’s beautifully cast: with special credits to Brenda de Banzie, Michael Medwin, Maurice Denham, Hubert Gregg. But towering over it all is the tremendous performance of James Robertson Justice as the captain of the Lotus.
And for sheer enchantment there’s little Brigitte Bardot; the prettiest and sauciest girl the French have sent British studios since Odile Versois.
Colour: gorgeous. Production (under the incisive handling of Betty Box and Ralph Thomas): razor-sharp. Not a trick missed.
M.H.
Simon….Dirk Bogarde
Hélène….Brigitte Bardot
Captain Hogg….James Robertson Justice
Muriel….Brenda De Banzie
Hornbeam….Geoffrey Keen
Easter….Maurice Denham
Archer….Hubert Gregg
Trail….Michael Medwin
Fellowes….James Kenney
Jill…..Jill Adams
Captain Beamish….Raymond Huntley
Wendy….Joan Sims
J.A.R.F.D. – A J. Arthur Rank Production. British.
Vistavision. “U.” 93 Mins. Technicolour
Producer: Betty Box
Director: Ralph Thomas
Photographed by Ernest Steward
Music Composed by Bruce Montgomery
Screenplay: Nicholas Phipps and Jack Davies
From the book by Dr. Richard Gordon
Release: September 5
