'Doctors' Wives' provides good reasons to keep well

By Emerson Batdorff

Well, if you ever figured doctors were really like that, you'd take care never to get sick. It seems they're cads and bounders and their wives take dope and alcohol and other men.

That's in "Doctors' Wives,' a sexy potboiler that reminds a man of nothing so much as a whole season of TV medical shows condensed into one heart spasm..

Actually, it gets dull only Infrequently. There is a certain amount of interest generated by trying to outguess the management.

Will Dyan Cannon carry out her project, which is to sleep with all the doctors and report to their wives what they are doing wrong? "I've covered half the field already," she smirks.

Will the gentleman who was so interestingly shot (right through his girl friend the bullet went and pinked him in the heart) survive open-heart surgery, on TV yet, before your very eyes?

Will the murderer get sprung from jail to operate on a little boy's brain, because he's the best brain man in the business?

Will any of the doctors ever content himself with just his own wife?

And so it goes. There is no point in outlining a plot because it makes absolutely no difference. The whole works is put on to allow us to watch stereotypes and vicariously to explore all sorts of sex, including one poor repressed lesbian.

This sort of got to me because it got to her husband. It shouldn't have because he is a psychiatrist, played in anguish by Gene Hackman. His treatment is to whap her 15 times with a rolled-up newspaper. Does her a lot of good, too.

A lot of the picture would be of interest to the ancient Aztecs, the Indians of Mexico whose ritual included

Dyan Cannon is the bane of the wives' existence but not for long because she gets scragged five minutes after the movie begins-a terrible blow for the Cannon fodder.

tearing the living heart out of a victim. Here we have more close-ups of palpitating open-heart surgery than I consider to be entertaining.

Dyan Cannon is billed at the top of the cast. She shows up, as advertised, early in the game, her face like that of a smiling Pekingese and her gown cut way down to here.

Unfortunately, she is the one who is shot after about five minutes of movie, cutting down on its potential for Cannon watchers.

'Doctors' Wives'

Directed by George Schaefer, screenplay by Daniel Taradash based on a novel by Frank G. Slaughter. Produced by M. J. Frankovich. Adults only. Columbia, 102 minutes. Lorrie Dellman Peter Brennan Joe Gray

Delja Randolph Amy Brennan Heien Straughn Maggie Gray

Dyan Canzon Richard Cremna .Carroll O'Connor

Rachel Roberts

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.Janice Rule Diana Sands

Cara Williams