Doctor in the House

Watching Doctor In The House which was the first in the Doctor Simon Sparrow series that was a standby for Dirk Bogarde it put me in mind of the American film Not As A Stranger which came out the following year. Both films dealt with medical students and their training. While the American film was quite serious and quite good this film overed a lot of the same ground.

Bogarde's Dr. Sparrow is an earnest and serious character who just keeps falling into comic situations that seem to find him. This is a funny film, but Bogarde plays it absolutely serious as he did in the whole series and the comedy just plays off him.

Kenneth More who is his best friend plays it far more laughs. If you see Not As A Stranger note Robert Mitchum as the lead like Bogarde and More is most like Frank Sinatra who was Mitchum's best friend. The parallels are quite striking.

A lot of familiar faces from British cinema are in the cast. James Robertson Justice of the booming voice is the terror of the students. He takes a special interest in Bogarde though like Broderick Crawford did in Mitchum in Not As A Stranger. Robertson Justice would return in the sequels so popular was his character.

Bogarde who always took on quirky and challenging roles throughout his career always came back to Simon Sparrow. I suspect he liked the money and some of his more challenging parts didn't yield well at he box office.

Doctor In The House holds up well as does the rest of the series I've seen so far.