"Tammy and the Doctor" is the third of four films made over a 10-year period, based on the character, Tammy Tyree. She is the heroine of the 1948 novel, "Tammy Out of Time," by Cit Ricketts Sumner. Three different actresses played the role. The very best was Debbie Reynolds in the first film, "Tammy and the Bachelor" of 1957. Sandra Dee made the second film in 1961, and this one two years later. I haven't seen the fourth, which starred little known and remembered Debbie Watson and a supporting cast of little known actors. Watson did star in a TV series of Tammy, from 1965-67, but she had a short acting career that virtually ended shortly after this film.
While Sandra Dee did a fairly good job picking up as Tammy in the second film, "Tammy Tell Me True," this film goes so overboard with her bayou drawl and lingo that that's almost funny inn itself. The story picks up with the last one ended. She has been in college for some time and a companion to Annie Rook Call, who is living with her on the houseboat. But Annie has taken sick and needs surgery. The doctor arranges for her to be a patient of a world-famous specialist in the field in Los Angeles. So, Tammy flies with her in a private plane to L. A.
Tammy gets a job at the hospital so that she can room there with staff nurses while she also continues as a companion for Annie. The bulk of this film consists of Tammy making one goof after another that disrupts things in the hospital. It would be funny except that no one could imagine anyone with no training at all being put in the positions she is seen working at. She mixes up babies in the newborn nursery when she changes them and puts them in the wrong cribs. Then, she's in the OR and touches a surgeon who's about to do surgery. Then she's in a room off of surgery and takes one of the scissors on a table that has just come out of surgery before the instruments are checked. There are several like this, and after each one, she's back mopping floors.
The attempt at humor by putting her in all these positions doesn't work well. It would have worked if she had been kept in the cleaning job, which she didn't mind, and then have a much better script with some good comedy Instead, the funny dialog that was part of the first two films is missing completely here. In place of that, Sandra Dee's Tammy is overboard hokey with the strange lingo and drawl. By this time, she should have toned it down some, and learned enough not to keep referring to doctors as leechers, and medicine practice as leeching. I think she did that around a dozen times in this film.
Oh, and Tammy finally finds real love this time - the third time's a charm? It with the master surgeon Dr. Bentley's intern assistant, Dr. Mark Cheswick. Peter Fonda plays the role that varies from listless to wooden. The only thing that keeps this film from tanking completely is the supporting cast, especially Beulah Bondi returning as Annie Rook Call, and three new faces. One is Margaret Lindsay as Head Nurse Rachel Colman who adds a touch to the story in her love from Dr. Bentley who doesn't know she exists until Tammy straightens things out. Another is Alice Pearce as Nurse Millie Baxter who provide some little comedy as she job-sits Tammy. And Reginald Owen as patient Jason Tripp. He turns from sour grapes to a good companion and chess player with Annie.
The hokeyness that was magnified in this third film I think helped do it in. Here's a sample line - the closest to funny, in the film.
Dr. Cheswick, asking Tammy for a date, "You wanna go to the Bowl?" Tammy, "Bowl? I never heard it called that. Uh, but don't you worry. I'll go afore we leave."
