Doctor in Distress
Original British 1963 quad film poster
Directed by	Ralph Thomas
Screenplay by	Nicholas Phipps Ronald Scott Thorn
Produced by	Betty E. Box
Starring	Dirk Bogarde James Robertson Justice Samantha Eggar
Cinematography	Ernest Steward
Edited by	Alfred Roome
Music by	Norrie Paramor
Production company	Rank Organisation
Distributed by	Rank Film Distributors
Release date	20 July 1963 (1963-07-20) (UK)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Doctor in Distress is a 1963 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Dirk Bogarde, James Robertson Justice, and Samantha Eggar. It is the fifth of the seven films in the Doctor series. After a one-film absence, it was the final return to the role of Simon Sparrow by Dirk Bogarde, and also the return (although in a different role) of Donald Houston. The film uses some of the characters in Richard Gordon's Doctor novels, but is not based on any of them.

Plot

Simon Sparrow, now a senior doctor at Hampden Cross Hospital, falls in love with Delia, a model and aspiring actress. They eventually move in together, but then she goes to Italy to audition for a film.

Meanwhile, Sir Lancelot Spratt injures his back in a fall. Placed under the care of physiotherapist Iris Marchant, he is initially hostile, but soon succumbs to her charms. He turns to his friend Simon for advice. Simon sends him to a nature cure clinic in a vain attempt to help him lose weight. Spratt has Iris followed, and, when his private investigator turns up at Hampden Cross as a patient, follows her himself (terrorising a nervous train passenger in the process). He proposes to her, but is eventually rejected in favour of another of her patients, retired army Major Tommy French.

Delia returns to England, having somehow acquired an expensive Italian car (a Maserati Sebring) and expensive clothes, though she did not win a part in the film. It is implied that she and Simon get together again.

Main cast

Reception

The film was one of the ten most popular movies at the British box office in 1963.^[1]

According to Kine Weekly the four most popular films at the British box office in 1963 were From Russia With Love, Summer Holiday, Tom Jones and The Great Escape, followed by, in alphabetical order, Doctor in Distress, The Fast Lady, Girls! Girls! Girls!, Heaven's Above, Jason and the Argonauts, In Search of the Castaways, It Happened at the World's Fair, The Longest Day, On the Beat, Sodom and Gomorrah, The V. I. Ps, and The Wrong Arm of the Law.^[2]