Picturegoer – Mar 30th 1957

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The Funniest of the Doctor films

DOCTOR AT LARGE ★ ★ ★ ★

Have you heard the one about the doctor who ….? Well, if you haven’t heard it, you can bet your last tonsil that this movie will tell it to you.

Third – and best – of the Sparrow-in-Doctorland series, it takes the team of students from Doctor In The House out into the big wide world of brass plates and National Health pills. A rib-battering frolic it turns out to be. We follow Dr. Sparrow into the Midlands to assist in the scruffy practice of a medical man whose hero is Dr. Crippen – and whose wife (delightfully played by Dilys Laye) is sickening for love. And we watch our hero step into the zany world around Harley Street, where the patients need humouring like poodles-and pay a fat lot of guineas for it.

Of course, James Robertson Justice is there, growling his way into the part of the famous surgeon whose bite is worse than his bark.

Sparrow’s ambition to be a surgeon holds the whole film together, with Mr. Justice turning into his fairy godmother in the last reel.

Dirk Bogarde adroitly suggests charm and sympathy, admirably assisted by Donald Sinden and Muriel Pavlow.

Popping up briefly all over the place and very effectively, too- is the British repertory of character faces, A. E. Matthews, Lionel Jeffries, Mervyn Johns, Martin Benson, Ronnie Stevens.

But a special word for Barbara Murray, who stylishly carries off a silly society part.

So what’s next for the “Doctor”? More, I hope. This one’s as good as a daily apple.