Movie review - Doctor #5 - "Doctor in Distress" (1963) **

Dirk Bogarde's career had thrived since he left the Doctor series but I guess we all need to renovate our houses - and he may have been nervous with the increasingly "arty" direction his career was going in - so he was enticed back to the popular series. His confidence and control is apparent in his performance as Simon Sparrow - no longer a callow youth, he's a successful doctor and respected colleague (and friend) of Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice). This entirely changes the tone from the previous films, which were based on Sparrow being green and uncertain.

He's still single though - in this one he purses Samantha Eggar, one the prettiest characters in the series. Act two consist of Spratt falling in love with a physio and going to a fat farm on Sparrow's advice. (This is Justice's film as much as Bogarde's.) Eggar goes overseas and Bogarde flirts with a new girl, a French piece rather like Jean Seberg in Breathless. This happens rather quickly so when Eggar returns it's hardly like a great romance. Also it feels shallow at the end that Justice doesn't get the girl, but Huston does.

The support cast includes Leo McKern as a Hollywood producer (a patient of Sparrow's), Donald Huston returning as a Welshman from the first movie (though he has hardly any scenes with Bogarde), Bill Kerr as a drunken Aussie sailor (who Spratt calls "a disgrace to the Empire"). Some funny bits but it lacks the soul of previous films - there is a serious bit with a girl having an operation, but no one really grows or makes friends, or forms a relationship, like the earlier ones in the series.