Doctor in the House (1954) on Netflix
Simon Sparrow arrives at St Swithin's Hospital in London to start his medical training. He rooms with Richard Grimsdyke and two other students, and meets the chief surgeon, Sir Lancelot Spratt.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.5/101,805 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Plot summary
Simon Sparrow begins his medical training at St Swithin's Hospital in London. To escape the amorous daughter of his first landlady, he moves in with three fellow students, Richard Grimsdyke, Tony Benskin and Taffy Evans. The chief surgeon, Sir Lancelot Spratt, is short-tempered and demanding, and strikes terror into everyone at the hospital. His friends cajole Simon into a series of dates: first a young woman nicknamed Rigor Mortis, then Isobel Minster, whose tastes are expensive, and finally Joy Gibson, a nurse at St Swithin's, whom he comes to like. Richard, who lives on an annuity that ends once he graduates, deliberately fails his examinations each year, until his fiancée Stella gives him an ultimatum.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Doctor in the House (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kenneth More's fee was only £3,500 because his film Genevieve had not yet been released, and Robert Morley was passed over for the surgeon when his agent demanded £15,000, so James Robertson Justice took the role for £1,500.
- Rank executives doubted anyone would want a film about medicine and that Dirk Bogarde, who had played spivs and Second World War heroes, could do light comedy, so the filmmakers got a low budget and only Rank contract artists.
- Producer Betty Box found the novel at Crewe on a long rail journey and bought the film rights herself after Associated British Picture Corporation, which had optioned them, decided not to make the film.
- Dirk Bogarde renamed his character Simon Sparrow because he thought it funnier, and his one stipulation was that he had to be a real doctor who did funny things but never instigated them.
- Two doctors were on set throughout filming so the cast could perform operations and medical procedures correctly, with someone always there to explain exactly how.
- The fictional St Swithin's Hospital uses the front of University College London, and is thought to be based on Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, where Richard Gordon was a student.
- Ralph Thomas claimed it was the first purely British picture with no foreign involvement to make a million pounds' profit within two years, and it became the most successful film in Rank's history with 15,500,000 admissions, a third of the British population.
- The film's success spawned six sequels plus television, radio and podcast series titled Doctor in the House, and made Dirk Bogarde one of the biggest British stars of the 1950s.
