It was directed by Ralph Thomas and stars Leslie Phillips as a doctor who gets accidentally trapped on an outgoing cruise ship while it begins a round the world trip.

The cast was rounded out by a number of British comedy actors including James Robertson Justice, Harry Secombe and Angela Scoular.

Renowned surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt arranges a cruise for his patient, the famous television star Basil Beauchamp.

Other passengers aboard ship include pools winner Llewellyn Wendover and Mrs. Dailey, a socially ambitious lady hoping to find a wealthy match for her daughter Dawn.

Justice recovered and wanted to play both roles as planned but the filmmakers decided he would be unable to do so, in part because he now had an uncontrollable tremor in his right arm.

"[5] Producer Betty Box said the film "wasn't a happy time for" her and director Ralph Thomas as they knew it "was the last movie we'd be able to make" with Justice.

Despite good performances from other members of the cast, she thought "the entire project was doomed... from the day a real life surgeon said the world 'Scalpel' over dear James's unconscious bulk.

[10] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "By far the unfunniest of the Doctor series – plotless, witless, and reaching the peak of its invention with the joke about the passenger who puts his clothes through a porthole under the impression that it is a washing-machine.

Leslie Phillips is in due (and relentless) course called upon to lose his trousers, do a female impersonation and fall down a ventilator, but the film has expired from a surfeit of corn and Simon Dee long before that.

"[11] Penelope Mortimer of The Observer wrote "why all this talent, of various kinds, gets absolutely nowhere must be the fault of the screenplay... For it is a dreadful story, a terrible script, inadequately seasoned with worn out laughs.