Minor Surgery

By J.C.

THE CAREY TREATMENT

Directed by BLAKE EDWARDS

Screenplay by JAMES P. BONNER

Peter Carey M.D. pulls down $45,000 per year and the hospital dietitian. The money pays for a seemingly inexhaustible wardrobe of sports clothes. The dietitian relieves the tedium of the countless hours Carey spends searching Boston and environs for a murderous abortionist. A friend of Carey's has been falsely accused of performing the abortion, an injustice as certain to raise the good doctor's wrath as burning a hole in one of his mohair pullovers.

James Coburn, who usually projects all the charm and style of a mothball, plays Carey with just the right kind of good-humored aplomb. He even man ages to keep his cool when the delicious dietitian (Jennifer O'Neill) confesses that her estranged husband used to think "the things I like to do in bed are immoral." Coburn sifts this information for just a second, then replies enthusiastically, "They are, they are."

Director Blake Edwards is uneasy, sometimes even clumsy with outright comedy (A Shot in the Dark, The Party). But he has a sure hand and dapper style for this sort of frivolous melodrama, essentially a Saturday night diversion. The violence here is subdued, the suspense unhurried and unruffled.

As memories of his old TV show Peter Gunn will affirm, Edwards also has a knack for vivid casting in secondary roles. The Carey Treatment has nice character bits by Pat Hingle as a Boston police captain and Skye Aubrey as a spaced-out nurse. Miss Aubrey is throaty, sexy and the boss's daughter (her father is MGM President Jim Aubrey). Moreover, Jennifer Edwards, who adroitly plays a school chum of the abortion victim, is the director's daughter. Seldom has traditional Hollywood nepotism paid off so handsomely for the audience. . J.C.

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