Doctor At Large

Watching TV on Saturday afternoon, just before the rugby and the Great Gordon Discomfort, I stumbled on a screening of Doctor At Large, the second in the "Doctor" movie series with sexpot Dirk Bogarde in the lead role. In one scene, a woman comes into Bogarde's surgery with her puppy-fatty teenage daughter and explains that the daughter has a cough. Doc Dirk applies his stethoscope to the girl's back and asks her for "Nice big breaths." The daughter, speaking for the first time, lispingly replies, "Yeth, and I'm only thixteen." I first heard that joke when I was a small boy, and until yesterday didn't know - or had forgotten - that this half century-old piece of British cinema comedy had made it famous. Quite rude for 1957, don't you think? And yet I'm also wondering if in these generally much ruder times a joke involving a male medical professional and an underage girl's bosom would be acceptable.