Doctor's Orders

Doctor's Orders (1930)

** (out of 4)

First entry in Hal Roach's "Boy Friends" series which was pretty much started up to give cast members of his Our Gang series a place to move onto as adults. In this one Mickey Daniels and Grady Sutton have crushes on Mary Kornman so they fake a car wreck so that a fake doctor (David Sharpe) can demand that they stay at the girl's house and get better. All goes as planned until the girl's uncle (Edgar Kennedy) catches on. The series certainly didn't get off to a good start as this film contains quite a bit of effort but all of it is wasted because the material is just poorly written and there's not a single laugh to be found. The last portion of the film is not only unfunny but it's also quite annoying as Sharpe must pretend to be not only a doctor but as well a nurse so he's constantly going in and out of various uniforms and trying to fool the uncle who he accidentally beat up earlier in the film. Both Daniels and Sutton remain in the bed for the majority of the picture so they add nothing but sound effects. Our Gang favorite Kornman certainly grew up to be a pretty young lady but she's not given much to do either.