Carry On Again Doctor *** (1969, Kenneth Williams, Sidney James, Jim Dale, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor, Charles Hawtrey) – Classic Movie Review 2374

Director Gerald Thomas assembles a vintage Carry On cast of the familiar funny faces in 1969 for this more or less consistently amusing if slightly less funny attempt to repeat the success of the big hit Carry On Doctor (1967).

Sidney James as the medical orderly Gladstone Screwer, Joan Sims splendid in black lace as Ellen Moore, Kenneth Williams as the haughty head surgeon Doctor Frederick Carver, Barbara Windsor as dancer Goldie Locks (aka Maud Boggins), Hattie Jacques inevitably as matron, Jim Dale as the accident-prone Dr Jim Nookey and Charles Hawtrey splendid in drag as Dr Ernest Stoppidge all polish up their bedside manners for screen-writer Talbot Rothwell’s slim plot about fat ladies.

Dr Nookey is in disgrace after one escapade too many and his boss Dr Carver sends him to a remote island hospital, where is given a secret slimming potion by staff member Gladstone Screwer. Nookey thinks the serum might just be his ticket home to happiness. 

So then Dr Nookey (‘the only thing I’m good at you get struck off for’) brings the secret weight-loss potion from the Beatific Island back to England to make his fortune with a chain of slimming clinics. Alas, however, others want to cash in on his good fortune…

You hardly go to a Carry On film for plot, but a few more good gags and situations would really help. However, there are some great one-liners and cross-dressing delights, and the cast by and large make up for the script deficiencies.

You can complain about the slightly lame and sometimes tired script, but not ever about the lovely actors. Sample humour: Hawtrey (as Dr Stoppidge): ‘I do not object to jiggery, but I do take exception to pokery’.

Also in the cast are Patsy Rowlands (as Miss Fosdick), Patricia Hayes, Peter Butterworth, Peter Gilmore, Pat Coombs (as Miss Armitage the new matron), William Mervyn, Elizabeth Knight (as Nurse Willing), Alexandra Dane, Valerie Leon and Elspeth March.

The sequence with Jim Dale running into a hospital trolley and lying prone on it while it speeds down a set of stairs is justly famous.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2374

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