After the death of Dr. Adams in the mid nineteen eighties, the BBC produced a film that was directed by Richard Gordon called The Good Dr. Adams. This film was neither a documentary nor reconstruction of Adams’s life but a dramatization of the events leading up to and including both his trial for murder and the aftermath of the trial. This film actually shows its audience Adams giving out lethal doses of both heroine and morphine, thus putting into your head the question “Did he kill her and the other patients that died under his care?”
The opening to this film is quite unusual. It has a row of big trees either side of the screen and then a big, expensive Rolls Royce drives into view, as this continues slow and mournful music begins to play and sounds as if it is played by string instruments. From this it cuts to a shot of Doctor Adams’s his big, fat smiling face and the music changes with the cut to a happier and faster tune. Everything shown to us so far tells us that life is going well for this fat, prosperous middle-aged man. As he drives his Rolls Royce through the busy Eastbourne streets he waves to the street personnel. Upon his arrival at the Balmoral nursing home, the matron greets him and they begin to discuss the death of one of Dr. Adam’s patients. He reaches into his deep pocket and hand the matron a set of crumpled and battered paper; these are the patient’s cremation and death certificates. This is where we are first shown the fact the he is disorganised, weather this happened or not is unknown to us, but the director’s choice to put this in the film reacquaints us with the question of the Doctors competence.
The way this film has been structured is quite a common way that is used by most of the Hollywood directors during their careers. It is structured as a tripartite. The first part of this film deals with Dr’ Adams’s personality, with the background to the main part of the story and his life leading up to the trial. The second part of the film is the main part of it, and it gives quite a detailed account of the trial. The third and final part of the dramatization of Adam’s life is mainly the aftermath of the trial, but it finishes with another funeral procession, although it is not another of Adams’s patients it is Adams himself who died in the mid nineteen eighties.
The court case that we see during he film is set in the Old Bailey, in London, but was actually filmed in Liverpool’s major court house. As the case begins we are shown Adams in his cell, but because he is on remand he is in his own clothes and able to read newspapers and books. The meets with his lawyer MR Geoffrey Lawrence and discusses the forthcoming trial.
