Tammy and the Doctor

I thought this movie was well done, and that Sandra Dee was a very good Tammy Tyree, however I think that Debbie Reynolds did a better job when she originally played this character in Tammy and the Bachelor. I also think that Tammy Tell Me True was a little bit sweeter than this movie. On it's own it is a great film, but when compared to the others, it's just not as good.

"Tammy and the Doctor" is the third of four films made over a 10-year period, based on the character, Tammy Tyree. She is the heroine of the 1948 novel, "Tammy Out of Time," by Cit Ricketts Sumner. Three different actresses played the role. The very best was Debbie Reynolds in the first film, "Tammy and the Bachelor" of 1957. Sandra Dee made the second film in 1961, and this one two years later. I haven't seen the fourth, which starred little known and remembered Debbie Watson and a supporting cast of little known actors. Watson did star in a TV series of Tammy, from 1965-67, but she had a short acting career that virtually ended shortly after this film.

While Sandra Dee did a fairly good job picking up as Tammy in the second film, "Tammy Tell Me True," this film goes so overboard with her bayou drawl and lingo that that's almost funny inn itself. The story picks up with the last one ended. She has been in college for some time and a companion to Annie Rook Call, who is living with her on the houseboat. But Annie has taken sick and needs surgery. The doctor arranges for her to be a patient of a world-famous specialist in the field in Los Angeles. So, Tammy flies with her in a private plane to L. A.

Tammy gets a job at the hospital so that she can room there with staff nurses while she also continues as a companion for Annie. The bulk of this film consists of Tammy making one goof after another that disrupts things in the hospital. It would be funny except that no one could imagine anyone with no training at all being put in the positions she is seen working at. She mixes up babies in the newborn nursery when she changes them and puts them in the wrong cribs. Then, she's in the OR and touches a surgeon who's about to do surgery. Then she's in a room off of surgery and takes one of the scissors on a table that has just come out of surgery before the instruments are checked. There are several like this, and after each one, she's back mopping floors.

The attempt at humor by putting her in all these positions doesn't work well. It would have worked if she had been kept in the cleaning job, which she didn't mind, and then have a much better script with some good comedy Instead, the funny dialog that was part of the first two films is missing completely here. In place of that, Sandra Dee's Tammy is overboard hokey with the strange lingo and drawl. By this time, she should have toned it down some, and learned enough not to keep referring to doctors as leechers, and medicine practice as leeching. I think she did that around a dozen times in this film.

Oh, and Tammy finally finds real love this time - the third time's a charm? It with the master surgeon Dr. Bentley's intern assistant, Dr. Mark Cheswick. Peter Fonda plays the role that varies from listless to wooden. The only thing that keeps this film from tanking completely is the supporting cast, especially Beulah Bondi returning as Annie Rook Call, and three new faces. One is Margaret Lindsay as Head Nurse Rachel Colman who adds a touch to the story in her love from Dr. Bentley who doesn't know she exists until Tammy straightens things out. Another is Alice Pearce as Nurse Millie Baxter who provide some little comedy as she job-sits Tammy. And Reginald Owen as patient Jason Tripp. He turns from sour grapes to a good companion and chess player with Annie.

The hokeyness that was magnified in this third film I think helped do it in. Here's a sample line - the closest to funny, in the film.

Dr. Cheswick, asking Tammy for a date, "You wanna go to the Bowl?" Tammy, "Bowl? I never heard it called that. Uh, but don't you worry. I'll go afore we leave."

I love the Tammy films, but one problem with them is continuity. In the first film, "Tammy and the Bachelor", it looks absolutely certain that she was about to marry her love (Leslie Nielsen). But in the second film he was gone and apparently lost interest in this delightful young woman. And, by the end of "Tammy Tell Me True", she was head over heels in love with a gorgeous and sweet professor (John Gavin)....and yet when "Tammy and the Doctor" begins he's gone! This is much more a problem for me than having Debbie Reynolds play Tammy in the first film and Sandra Dee in the next two.

This movie picks up after the second film. Tammy's good friend and companion, Annie (Beulah Bondi), is ill and needs to get surgery. However, she is awfully close to Tammy and Tammy wants to accompany her to the hospital. The hospital isn't about to let Tammy stay there and they come up with a compromise...to let her work at the hospital in order to be close to Annie.

So is it any good? Well, yes. But it isn't nearly as heart-warming and sweet as the previous two films. Much of it, in my opinion, is due to this film emphasizing comedy more than romance. Plus, I still kept worrying about her two previous boyfriends! Overall, a good film but not quite up to the very high standards set by the previous two movies.

By the way, Imdb mentions that this was Beulah Bondi's last film. This is not such as sad thing, as she lived another 17 years and made several notable television appearances during this period.

I am a teenager and with all the junk out on television today this comedy/romance was refreshing. There was no vulgar language of such, except for Mr. Tripp saying one word which is funnily commented after. It is brilliant and I enjoyed every moment of it right up the ending. The backward "stanty boat" girl, who lived "betwist here and Vicksburg" all her life. And has never flown in a plane before. So if you want to see a truly great film this is one of them! Watch all three of them. The three would be Tammy and the bachelor, Tammy be true, and Tammy and the doctor! They are all special in the own way. You can them on AMC sometimes.

Kayla

Tammy And The Doctor was the big screen debut of Peter Fonda and back in his Easy Rider rebel days he referred to it as Tammy And The Schmuckface. I wonder know in his late 70s how Peter Fonda feels about the film?

It was the last of the big screen Tammy films, she would go on to a short lived television series with Debbie Watson. Sandra Dee plays Tammy Tyree of the Mississippi Delta a southern fried version of the little miss fixit roles that Deanna Durbin also did for Universal Studios back in the day.

In this film Beulah Bondi the rich old lady to whom Tammy has become attached is taken ill. Specialist Macdonald Carey is in from Los Angeles and he recommends that Bondi have open heart surgery which he will perform. Like every other man of all generations Carey gets taken with her and thinks she will be an asset in giving Bondi a proper attitude toward the surgery.

So Tammy gets taken on at the big LA hospital and as she always does her naivete but also her strong common sense wins over everyone around her eventually. Nurse Alice Pearce becomes her best friend. But her real conquest is young doctor Peter Fonda who is a protégé of Carey's.

Seeing her going off with Peter Fonda also makes me wonder what happened to Leslie Nielsen and John Gavin in the previous two Tammy films. Or if there were more Tammy films how many of the male sex she would have endeared herself to.

One does wonder how Peter Fonda views the film today. For me it's pleasant easy to take entertainment. Tammy does kind of grow on you.