User Reviews

When I read in Simon Sheridan's excellent book 'Keeping The British End Up' that the late Hughie Green had acted in a '70's British sex comedy, I was intrigued. The film in question was 'What's Up Superdoc!' and it was made in 1978, a sequel to an earlier picture called 'What's Up Nurse?'. Both were about the sexploits of one Dr.Robert Todd ( did Bob Todd the actor know of this shameful plundering of his famous name? ), a medic whom women find irresistible. In 'Nurse', he was played by Nicholas Field, son of legendary comic Sid Field, whereas in 'Superdoc!', the late Christopher Mitchell, son of much-loved character actor Norman Mitchell, took the role. Mitchell was familiar to audiences through his role as 'Gunner Parkins' in the B.B.C. sitcom 'It Ain't' Alf Hot Mum'. At the start of the movie, Todd is set up in his own little London practice ( no mention of his wife, Olivia, played in the previous picture by by Felicity Devonshire ), and having a great time sleeping with his sex-mad patients.

He finds out that an artificial insemination experiment carried out years before resulted in him inadvertently fathering over 800 children, all of them boys. Todd's name and photo are leaked to the press, and soon he finds himself chased by women desperate to get pregnant ( which seems to consist of half of the British population ). Unable to satisfy them all, he goes into hiding, hiring an ex-military man called Goodwin ( Harry H.Corbett giving possibly the worst performance of his career ) as minder. Before you can say "you lovely boy!", Todd is abducted by a gangster ( Bill Pertwee ) who wants him to impregnate his daughter...

As you have probably already guessed, this is crass stuff, featuring talented actors fighting a losing battle with material that was probably corny even when Burke and Hare were robbing graves for medical experiments in Edinburgh. Mitchell is a dead ringer for John Alderton in 'The Upchat Line' television series, and is better than Field, but that is not saying much. The supporting cast of naked flesh includes Mary Millington, Anna Bergman ( from 'Mind Your Language' ), 'Hill's Angel' Sue Upton, and Fay Hillier ( who later penned a biography of Dick Emery ). Derek Ford, who both wrote and directed, seems to have no flair for comedy. The story, such as it is, owes a huge debt to Ralph Thomas' 'Percy' ( 1971 ), and offers us a glimpse of how that film might have looked with lesser talents in charge.

What about Hughie, I hear you ask? He plays 'Bob Scratchitt', the conceited host of a television chat-show on which Todd has agreed to appear. When Todd tries to state his side of his story, Bob loses his rag, and uses the 'W' word on air! Much as I dislike Green, I had to admire his nerve for going on a film like this and sending himself up rotten. If only he'd been allowed to swear on 'Opportunity Knocks!'.

The undoubted highlight is the 'Blue Angels' speciality act at the Paul Raymond Revuebar, as it provides an erotic charge the rest of the film lacks. Even so, a comparison with 'Plan Nine From Outer Space' ( which another reviewer makes ) is patently absurd. At least the girls here look natural, not puffed-up with silicon implants and botox and all the rest!

Tragically, Christopher Mitchell died of cancer in February 2001. His father, Norman, passed away only a month later.

SPOILERS INCLUDED

Could this really be the work of the same Derek Ford who made Diversions/Sex Express three years earlier? Sadly yes, assembling his first real 'name' cast since This, That and the Other in 1969 seems to have convinced Ford to make one of his most mainstream films with out and out comedy material taking the forefront and Ford's sexploitation past downplayed. But while ex-producing partner Stanley Long was able to make the jump from the sex documentary format of 'Naughty' to the audience pleasing 'Adventures of' comedies, Ford seemed too humourless and too into that Wife Swappers era of sex resulting in unwanted pregnancy, death, and misery to successfully reinvent himself as a comedy man. In fairness Ford's mid-Seventies sex comedies Commuter Husbands and The Sexplorer have their moments, but his attempts at creating a Xerox of the 'Confessions' series, in What's Up Nurse and this its sole sequel have the feel of unfunny and vulgar outbursts .

Taking place on bland sets that give the film the look of a poorly-moneyed sitcom What's Up Superdoc casts recently deceased TV actor Christopher Mitchell as a doctor who unknown even to himself is the 'Superdoc' the most fertile man in the world and who through sperm donation in his college years has fathered 837 children. A female doctor eventually tracks Mitchell down to break the news, and it's not long before he's 'unmasked' in the headlines as well. This elevates the portly, unattractive doctor to the unlikely level of a rock and roll sex god, women try to grab him in lifts, 'groupies' follow him around with test tubes hoping to get pregnant from a sperm donation, under the shadow of publicity his life becomes a misery.

To save him from being mobbed in the streets, Mitchell is put in the 24 hour protection of order-bellowing ex-sergeant major Goodwin (Harry H. Corbett) a nightmare character from the national service days. Corbett essentially holds Mitchell prisoner, forcing him to have as many 'cold baths' as possible and ejecting women with dodgy Swedish accents and exceptionally large breasts out of his apartment, much to Mitchell's resentment. Mitchell agrees to be a guest on Hughie Green's talk show, but his appearance proves disastrous when the 'family' entertainer's nasty side comes to the fore and Green has a foul mouthed outburst on air ('a joke' in the film, not entirely unbelievable in light of later revelations). Amidst the chaos Mitchell is kidnapped by ubiquitous movie heavy Milton Reid and Chic Murray from The Ups and Downs of a Handyman. They're cronies of a rich oil tycoon (Bill Pertwee whose 'Texan' accent is hopefully one of the film's intentional gags) who wants a sperm donation from Mitchell in order to impregnate his daughter. Mitchell refuses, so is kept prisoner while a parade of British Sex Queens are lead on in the hope of kick starting his libido and shaking him down for that special 'donation'. Stripteases, jumping him while jogging, 'my pussy's stuck' double-entendres and a bathtub threesome all fail to stir the unflappable doctor. Mercifully, further feeble temptations of the flesh are spared Mitchell when Corbett and a bunch of Italian gangsters in pin-stripe suits lead by Melvyn Hayes turn up at Pertwee's mansion. A more woeful than wacky hose fight and some nonsense on board a fire engine brings the final curtain down on the Superdoc's adventure, and not a moment too soon.

The worse of Ford. Attempts to win audience's sympathy when the lead's private life becomes a public freak-show (as in 'Percy' and the Gallic 'Pussytalk/Le sexe qui parle') are predictably eschewed here in favour of an endless parade of juvenile self abuse and sperm jokes. To the degree that the film's theme tune, a disco revamp of 'Hold On, I'm Coming' turns out to be one of Ford's more sophisticated ideas. Even the sex in the film is by Ford's standards tame. Punters briefly get to see Anna Bergman and Nicola Austine in and out of maid's uniforms and an intoxicated Mary Millington being showered with wine but only Mitchell's night-time escape to naughty Soho seems to have held the director's flagging interest.

Some commentators have mischievously suggested the Children's Film Foundations' production Glitterball borrowed from Ford's The Sexplorer, and here it's almost as if Ford was replaying the CFF's compliment with a skateboard chase through a park and mugging 'star' turns pitched more at the level of a children's pantomime than an X certificate sex film. Everyone in the cast is clearly slumming it, with Hayes, Pertwee and Bergman happy to trade in on their Sitcom popularity in It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Dad's Army and Mind Your Language respectively. Unsurprisingly then that no one survives with their dignity intact, but it's a particularly sad sight to see Corbett- a serious luvvie at heart who came to despise his comedy image- not even able to be funny anymore. Released at the dead end of the British sex film era, What's Up Superdoc was not a success and began Derek Ford's long descent into obscurity.

WHAT'S UP SUPERDOC! is another lame sex comedy from '70s British exploitation director Derek Ford. It's an unconnected sequel to WHAT'S UP NURSE!, featuring a man who turns out to have fathered hundreds of kids and who finds himself pursued by dozens of beautiful women as a result. It's a near-plot less affair that comes across as a rip-off of CONFESSIONS OF THE WINDOW CLEANER and its ilk, and what story does exist is completely nonsensical.

The worst thing about this, though, is the humour, which is consistently unfunny. If you like seeing 'name' stars dragging their reputations through the mud then this might be the film for you. Where else can you see Bill Pertwee playing a Texan (with the worst accent ever?) or Harry H. Corbett constantly mugging? Hughie Green shows up to play himself and Melvyn Hayes is pure annoyance. There's a lot of nudity, of course, and even Mary Millington shows up at one point, but WHAT's UP SUPERDOC! is a film that seems guaranteed to test the patience of even the most forgiving of viewers.