Displaying items by tag: Ronnie Stevens

DENTIST ON THE JOB

UK, 1961, 88 minutes, Black-and-white.

Bob Monkhouse, Kenneth Connor, Shirley Eaton, Eric Barker, Richard Wattis, Ronnie Stevens, Reginald Beckwith, Graham Stark, Charles Hawtrey.

Directed by C.M. Pennington-Richards.

A star vehicle for Bob Monkhouse, popular film and television star. Good-looking, presentable, but playing characters who seem rather smugly satisfied with themselves.

This is a sequel to Dentist in the Chair. It was released in 1961, the years when the Carry on series was emerging. And, quite a number of Carry on stars appear, especially Kenneth Connor, in the central role, along with a cameo by Charles Hawtrey, and key roles by Eric Barker and Shirley Eaton. The other main character is played by Ronnie Stevens.

The film could have been called Carry on Dentist, Carry on Advertising, or, even, Carry on Toothpaste!

The film is about a campaign for a new toothpaste which is not doing very well, Richard Wattid the very prim executive, Reginald Beckwith one of the sales representatives. Because a dentist, qualified, will be taken off the register for promoting a product, Monkhouse and Stevens are tricked into signing up to promote this toothpaste. So, all the usual shenanigans, quite some ogling, lots of sexual innuendo.

However, Kenneth Connor, is an ex-convict has plenty of opportunities to do his impersonations, projects and, then American accent. Shirley Eaton obviously enjoys this kind of role. And, Eric Barker, has two roles, two cousins.

Lots of knockabout comedy, parody of filming commercials, and a completely impossible situation whereby the doctors prepare take to a recorded message substituted for one going into space which will advertise the toothpaste all over the universe! There is some comment on security but, a more security-conscious public will think that these episodes, because not to be taken too seriously, are absolutely impossible.

Along with the Carry on series and other small comedies, this was British comedy on screen in the early 1960s.