I'm confused by the quantity of negative reviews on this site for DENTIST IN THE CHAIR, a low budget British comedy released in 1960 and starring the comic double-act of Bob Monkhouse and Kenneth Connor. Monkhouse and his cronies are the youthful students of a dental school and Connor is a bumbling thief who through various machinations of the plot ends up masquerading as one of the students himself.
The laughs in DENTIST IN THE CHAIR come thick and fast and most of them take the form of character humour which in the hands of Monkhouse and Connor is very funny. Certainly this is no worse than the likes of CARRY ON CABBY from the same era so I'm not sure why all the hatred. At the same time I can understand that this sort of humour feels very genteel and dated by modern standards, but as I despise modern comedy that's fine by me.
The script was written by the ubiquitous Val Guest, although bizarrely he didn't direct in this instance; those duties were handled by Don Chaffey, who went onto helm one of the all-time classics, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS. The supporting cast includes the illuminating Peggy Cummins, familiar from the horror classic NIGHT OF THE DEMON, with the likes of Eric Barker in more minor parts. I can't lie and say DENTIST IN THE CHAIR is a classic, but it's certainly a fun movie for fans of British comedy. A sequel, DENTIST ON THE JOB, was to follow.
