Liz Fraser – The Magnificent 60s

Chortled all the way through. You can see why it was the biggest film at the British box office in 1960. Dirk Bogarde had turned up his nose at repeating the character for the fourth time and went off to make more serious pictures like Victim (1961) which, it transpired, dented his box office appeal. Replacement Michael Craig (Mysterious Island, 1961), while brawnier, passes this particular screen test with flying colors though he has his work cut out to hold his own against such practised scene stealers as James Robertson Justice (Mayerling, 1968) and Leslie Phillips (The Fast Lady, 1962) and once Virginia Maskell (The Wild and the Willing, 1962) enters proceeding her coolness makes the camera her own.

I was surprised how much this relied on innuendo. But this is a gentler exercise in smut than the sniggering guffawing Carry On approach. And there’s little chance of it descending into misogyny since the females hold all the aces. The plot is episodic and none the worse for that and even a diversion into a strip club, which might suggest a narrative clutching at straws, proves a surprising highpoint.

Basic story shifts Dr Hare (Michael Craig) out of hospital and into general practice which provides ample comedic opportunity via patients and colleagues. But, first of all, just to confuse matters and as if the producers were worried the series might not survive outside the boundaries of St Swithins Hospital, the tale begins with him returning to hospital with what turns out to be jaundice.

Cue the booming interventions of Sir Lancelot Spratt (James Robertson Justice) and the first of the love stories wherein Hare and Dr Hinxman (Nicholas Parsons) are rivals for flighty Nurse Sally Nightingale (Moira Redmond), who, in the first of many knocks to the male ego, while playing off one against the other goes off with another man. Before she does, Dr Hinxman takes revenge by prescribing all sorts of medications which will leave Hare so indisposed he is unable to respond to the nurse’s ardor.

Back in civvy street, as a GP, Dr Hare has to fend off predatory female patients and secretary Kitten Strudwick (Carole Lesley) and deal with standard comedic issues such as the boy who gets his head jammed in a cooking pot and the less common task of explaining the facts of life to a 40-year-old virgin. His boss Dr Cardew (Nicholas Phipps) is under the thumb of a wife who has shipped out to California only to summon her husband every now and then. The ever-amorous Dr Burke (Leslie Phillips) fills in and is the prime mover in an episode that involves strippers Dawn (Joan Sims) and Leonora (Liz Fraser). There’s a particularly good reversal in a drunken scene where the totally inebriated Wildewinde (Reginal Beckwith) completes all the police drunk tests (if that’s what they’re called) with ease.

When Dr Burke is incapacitated, his place is taken by Dr Nicola Barrington (Moira Redmond). And that should have been enough of a plot to see the picture through but the movie doubles down on complication. Dr Barrington fends off Dr Hare and when Nurse Nightingale reappears Barrington in due course quits. Dr Spratt is also on board for further scene-stealing duties including ruling the roost in a strip club and undergoing an operation.

The romantic situation is resolved, Dr Spratt is put in his place temporarily and our hero effects a return to the hospital.

I wouldn’t say the writing (by Nicholas Phipps) is of the highest caliber but the jokes come at an assembly line pace and the cast are superb, barely a cast member incapable of stealing a scene. You hire James Robertson Justice and Leslie Phillips at your peril. Without Dirk Bogarde hogging the scenery, this flows much better than others in the series, with the supporting cast being more than just foil to a star who was a major box office attraction at the time. And it helps that the women – Moira Redmond (Nightmare, 1964), Virginia Maskell, Carole Lesley (Three on a Spree, 1961), and Carry On regulars Joan Sims and Liz Fraser – are even more adept at scene-stealing than the men and not merely foil for misogynist jokes as in the Carry On series.

Director Ralph Thomas (The Wild and the Willing) seems to have found a new lease of life without having to deal with Dirk Bogarde and brings a certain verve to proceedings, especially in tripping up male ego.

Comedy is such an odd one to judge. Many a time I have sat through with scarcely a titter movies I’ve been told are hilarious. Other times I’ve been told to give them a free ride because they are making a point. So I stick to my own rule.

Make me laugh – I don’t care how – and this had me laughing all the way through.

Easy credit led to a boom in the standard of living but also created global recession after the sub-prime mortgage scandal. Back in the day you couldn’t borrow money except from a bank and they only lent to people with money. To get a mortgage you needed to prove you could save, you required at least a 10 per cent deposit before any bank would loan you money for a mortgage, and you needed to go through a stiff criteria test. Even then, you were at the mercy of inflation. If you were absolutely desperately you could go to money-lenders and pay back inflated sums, the notorious “vig” of the Mafia.

But then someone invented the notion of buying on credit from largely unlicensed brokers. You could live the dream – television, white goods, carpets, furnishings, a car – even if you couldn’t afford it and you didn’t have to go through any kind of procedure to qualify. Of course, you ended up paying two or three times the original price but the payments were spread over years so, theoretically at least, affordable. These days, credit cards lure people into the ease of purchasing and giving no thought to repayment. You don’t have to repay at all – or only a very small fraction – if you don’t mind your debt accruing exponentially.

In Britain it was called “hire purchase” or more colloquially the “never-never.” Nobody was called to account for selling goods to people who were inherently unable to afford it, were clearly incapable of managing money or, just as likely, were apt to get carried away.

While on the one hand this is one of the saddest movies you’ll ever see, lives crushed by debt, the tone is so mixed the reality gets lost in the characterization of the kind of chancer who would later be epitomized by the likes of Alfie (1965). But whereas the Michael Caine character has oodles of charm and eventually comes good, here equally charming ace salesman Albert (Ian Hendry) never sees the error of his ways.

One of the dichotomies of the tale is that despite his earnings and his financial wheezes on the side Albert never has enough money to fund his lifestyle – snazzy sports car, great clothes – and lives in a squalid flat while ostensibly living the dream, string of women on the side. Like Werner Von Braun (I Aim at the Stars, 1960), he can’t face up to consequence much less take responsibility for his actions. But he’s not the only one using easy credit as a means of moving up in society, his boss Callendar (John Gregson) has taken up golf with a view to rubbing shoulders with estate agent Corby (Geoffrey Keen), whom he views as rising middle class without being aware that Corby also has unsustainable delusions of grandeur, hosting dinner parties for local politicians, ensuring his house is filled with desirable items.

Without doubt Albert is a superb salesman, adept at not only overcoming initial customer reluctance but persuading them to invest in far more than they ever dreamed. He is so good that his boss is more than willing to overlook his various pieces of chicanery.

But too often the comedy gets in the way. The idea that Albert can weasel his way out of any difficult situation – twice he dupes the man coming to repossess a car on which he has evaded payments for years – take advantage in unscrupulous fashion of any opportunity (he takes over an empty flat, steals the orders of rivals) and even offers advice on how to outwit, legally, bailiffs, sets him up as the kind of character (the little guy) who can defeat authority. But cheap laughs come at the expense of more serious purpose.

He leaves a trail of destroyed lives in his wake. He abandons his illegitimate daughter, fruit of a supposed long-term fling with Treasure (June Ritchie). One of his many married lovers, Joyce (Liz Fraser), wife of Corby, commits suicide – and he then proceeds to blackmail the husband. Albert’s boss is on the verge of losing out to a bigger rival.

For women, he is at his most dangerous when being kicked out, at his most persuasive and charming when trying to weasel his way in. He always finds some new woman and generally has a few on the go at the one time. The only time he appears to have any standards is when he walks away from one lover on discovering that her husband is a scoutmaster and therefore the seduction has required little skill.

But all Albert’s charm can’t disguise the brutality of debt. The arrival of the bailiffs strikes terror in hearts. A dream can turn to dust in an instant. Consequent shame unbearable. And there are no shortage of characters pointing out to Albert how heinous his actions are.

Ian Hendry (The Hill, 1965) captures the smooth-talking salesman. June Ritchie (The World Ten Times Over, 1963) has a meaty role as does Liz Fraser (The Family Way, 1966). John Gregson (The Frightened City, 1961) is unrecognizable while Geoffrey Keen (Born Free, 1966) essays the kind of grasping businessman that would become his forte. Nyree Dawn Porter (The Forsyte Saga, 1967) has a small part.

Directed somewhat unevenly by Jay Lewis (A Home of Your Own, 1964) from a script by Jack Trevor Story based on the bestseller by Jack Lindsay.

Prophetic.

Tag: Liz Fraser

Doctor in Love (1960) ****

Live Now, Pay Later (1962) ***