Doctor at Sea (1955) - film review

Newly graduated from medical school, Dr Simon Sparrow joins a medical practice but finds himself the victim of the amorous intentions of his partner’s daughter.  His solution is to runaway to sea – to become a ship’s doctor on a cargo ship, where his patients include the irascible Captain Hogg and a crew of sex-starved mariners.   At the next port of call, Sparrow and his new friends go ashore and soon end up in jail.  When the ship sets off once more, it has two extra passengers: Muriel, the daughter of the shipping line, and her singer friend, Hélène.  Sparrow’s professional duties are once more confounded by his attraction for the fair sex...

Doctor at Sea was the second in the Rank Organisation’s popular series of film adaptations of the autobiographical novels by Richard Gordon.  Although somewhat less memorable than the first (Doctor in the House), the film has its charms and some great comic moments.  Dirk Bogarde once again plays the adorable Dr Sparrow (his most popular screen persona) whilst the magnificent James Robertson Justice appears to taunt him, not as Sir Lancelot Spratt, but as the even more lugubrious Captain Hogg. The film also stars French beauty Brigitte Bardot in one of her earliest film roles (several years before she acquired a reputation as a sex goddess), although she does appear slightly out of place in this quintessentially English comedy.

© James Travers 2003

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