An oddity that unsurprisingly never found its public, this is like a Fifties' comedy caught in a time capsule and whisked three decades on. You can understand that Victor Banerjee, mugging frantically as the Indian hero, wanted a change of pace after the heavy dramatics of his passage to India, but what can the distinguished director Ronald Neame have ever seen in this hopelessly dated Indian Doctor in the House? Banerjee, all Asiatic earnestness, is the ever-smiling Calcutta refugee who comes to England and progresses from bus conductor to bogus Harley Street doctor in a remarkably short time. He becomes wildly successful and pretty girls flock for consultations. There's a lot of non-contact sex of the kind seen in old Norman Wisdom and Dirk Bogarde comedies, and even the old chestnut of boiling milk symbolising Banerjee's rising passion. A beautiful Indian girl called Sinitta Renet who's briefly in the film at the start knocks spots off the English competition (even Amanda Donohoe), who were all presumably numbed by having read a script which contains no laughs at all. However, Ken Howard's music is delightful and the whole prescription would probably have gone down quite well in 1954.


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