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Doc Hollywood is a 1991 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Daniel Pyne along with Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, based on Neil B. Shulman's book What? Dead...Again? The film stars Michael J. Fox, Julie Warner, Barnard Hughes, Woody Harrelson, David Ogden Stiers, Frances Sternhagen, and Bridget Fonda.
The film was shot on location in Micanopy, Florida.
Mayor Nick Nicholson and the town's reception committee meet Ben, hoping to hire him to replace the "Old and wholly unpleasant" Dr. Aurelius Hogue, who is planning to retire. While his 1956 Porsche Speedster is being repaired, Ben tends to patients and flirts with ambulance driver and law student Vialula (better known as "Lou"), a single mother of a four-year-old daughter. Local insurance agent Hank Gordon also courts Lou, while Nancy Lee, the mayor's daughter, pursues Ben.
The town's residents begin to warm to Ben, and he in turn starts to enjoy small-town life. Ben tells Lou that he was born and raised in a small town in Indiana, and went off to college in Washington, D.C. for a better life. Dr. Hogue, initially dismissive of Ben as being too young and too inexperienced, changes his mind when he has a heart attack and Ben saves his life. Grateful, Hogue privately calls Halberstrom explaining Ben's delay due to his enforced community service (which he explains as being "volunteer work"), while Judge Evans pardons Ben from his remaining sentence.
On the eve of Ben's departure, he shares an intimate evening with Lou. Unwilling to exploit the situation or incite Hank's jealousy, Ben secretly leaves town at night. Near the town's reservoir, Ben happens upon a local man whose wife is in labor inside their car. After a short hesitation, he stops to help. During the delivery, Ben's Porsche is once again damaged when a fatigued carnival truck driver crashes into it.
Ben prepares to leave the next day, as the community has chipped in and bought him a plane ticket to Los Angeles. Lou, not wanting Ben to waste his talents in a small town, hides her feelings for him, and says she is marrying Hank.
Dr. Halberstrom hires Ben based on Hogue's recommendation. However, Beverly Hills' superficiality soon leaves Ben, who grew up in a small town, feeling depressed and isolated. A few weeks later, Hank and Nancy Lee arrive in Los Angeles, bringing Ben's repaired car with them. After Hank tells Ben that he and Lou broke off their engagement, Ben returns to Grady and reconciles with Lou.
Daniel Pyne was hired to rewrite the film as Michael J. Fox had admired Pyne's script for The Hard Way. Pyne said, "It was a dream re-write. It was a dry, badly structured doctor comedy, and I pushed it more toward the romantic side, with a touch of Local Hero. Michael committed to that draft, and I did another immediate polish. What wound up thirteen months later on the screen was as much mine as anyone's."
The budget was $20 million. The story location was moved from Georgia to South Carolina but filmed on location in Florida in the towns of Micanopy and McIntosh, south of Gainesville. Further filming took place in Los Angeles.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that "Mr. Fox, blithe and funny as ever, amusingly shrugs off each new surprise the film has to offer", adding that "while retaining his boyish appeal, Mr. Fox also seems a shade more substantial this time, possibly because he is seen making life-or-death decisions when not fielding comic lines". She did, however, say that "the screenplay, by Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman and Daniel Pyne, is occasionally sharp-tongued but more often pleasantly knee-deep in rustic corn".
Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times remarked that "If you have any doubt as to the outcome, you haven't been paying attention to the latest self-serving movie trend. The back-to-basics, anti-greed message of Doc Hollywood has been all over the screens this season, from TV's Northern Exposure to the movies' City Slickers, Regarding Henry, Life Stinks and The Doctor". He added:
Roger Ebert rated the film a three out of four stars stating "On the basis of the movie's trailer, I was expecting Doc Hollywood to be a comedy. And it is a comedy. But it surprised me by also being a love story, and a pretty good one – the kind where the lovers are smart enough to know all the reasons why they shouldn't get together, but too much in love to care."
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