Private Duty Nurses

In this sequel to "The Student Nurses", three young interns by the names of "Spring" (Kathy Cannon), "Lynn" (Pegi Boucher) and "Lola" (Joyce Williams) have all been admitted to a large hospital and are looking for an apartment. They finally come upon one which is being rented out by a man named "Dewey" (Paul Hampton) who takes an immediate liking to Lynn. Meanwhile, Spring becomes attracted to an injured Vietnam vet by the name of "Domino" (Dennis Redfield) and Lola gravitates to a young doctor named "Dr. Elton" (Hebert Jefferson Jr.). Essentially, the story then chronicles the trials and tribulations each of these young women encounter within their relationships. Now as far as this movie is concerned it touched upon a few social issues relevant to the time this film was produced and as a result some viewers may not be quite able to fully understand or appreciate certain aspects. Likewise, the fact that this was a low-budget production doesn't help in that regard either. Even so, in spite of its limitations it managed to keep my interest for the most part and as a result I rate it as about average. Followed a year later by the third film in the series, "Night Call Nurses".

This early New World Pictures output from Roger Corman might have been labeled as an exploitation film, but, it's pretty much just a dramatic soap opera about the lives, loves, and tribulations of three young nurses. There's some nudity even though it's not in abundance and all three of the girls are attractive with Pegi Boucher being the standout, who by the way is treated like crap in this movie and never given a good conclusion for it, like the other two girls are. Overall, I was entertained for the 80 minutes nothing more nothing less.

Then again, that may have been the point for writer / director George Armitage's entry in the Roger Corman-produced "Nurse" series of pictures, as Armitage touches upon a variety of serious themes. He works elements such as racial discrimination, drug smuggling, and ecology into his story of three expectedly comely young nurses - Spring (Katherine Cannon), Lynn (Pegi Boucher), and Lola (Joyce Williams) and their assorted misadventures and romantic scrapes. Spring gets involved with a Vietnam veteran named "Domino" (Dennis Redfield), who races motorcycles, Lola with Dr. Elton (Herbert Jefferson, Jr.), who is angry at the lack of black doctors in a certain major hospital, and Lynn with Dr. Doug Selden (Joseph Kaufmann), a true crusader. There are the obligatory and enjoyable doses of sex and female flesh, but the admittedly glum tone prevents this from being as enjoyable as it could have been. It manages to avoid ever being too boring, but it just doesn't have the energy to keep it moving quicker. Even the lovely ladies this time around aren't as appealing as one would usually see in this kind of New World production. The supporting cast includes such familiar faces as Morris Buchanan (the guy who had a hole blown in his head by Pam Grier near the beginning of "Coffy"), Paul Hampton (who's actually more animated and moderately more engaging than he was in Cronenberg's "Shivers") as a would-be swinger, imposing screen tough guy Robert Tessier as a "super bouncer", and Paul Gleason of such 80's classics as "Trading Places", "The Breakfast Club", and "Die Hard" as a serious-minded doctor. As others have noted, there is a definite problem with a movie that, considering its running time is a mere 80 minutes, plods too much and has too much padding, such as extended night club scenes with a rock group named Sky. All of this is watchable enough, but it really could and should have been better. Five out of 10.

This movie was a follow-up to the hit Roger Corman quickie The Student Nurses and went along similar lines, but had a completely different cast, a much schlockier tone and no story carry-over whatsoever. Once again, the idea was to weave together a story of young professionals trying to succeed amid the temptations of the swinging early 70s. The cast of attractive but inexperienced unknowns try their best, but the way out story line does them few favors. There is the usual soft-core cinema titillation, with the camera following the girls in their tight uniforms along hospital corridors, and then off to parties where they smoke dope, take off their tops and have sex, but after the first movie it began to seem repetitive. So, instead of focusing on the career and personal tribulations of the girls as the first movie did, this movie's makers went all out trying to get in everything ELSE they could think of that was relevant to the day and as a result this movie is ludicrously overloaded with sensationalistic exploitation movie nonsense - murderers, drug pushers etc. - which shifts the focus away from the characters and not to any good purpose. The characters aren't very interesting, but neither is the story.

The resulting movie is now rather horribly dated, totally unbelievable and not very much fun to sit through, even as camp. The dialogue probably sounded fairly hip at the time (or maybe it didn't) but it is pretty laughable now, as are the attempts to make the party scenes seem exciting by using a lot of way out psychedelic camera angles and tricky edits (spins, tilts etc.). That stuff was actually a few years old by the time this movie was made and had become a tad clichéd.

One quick comment about the band mentioned in the other review and the "Townsend/Perry" lookalike singer.

That's Doug Fieger, and the band is Sky. They made two magnificent albums 1970-71, produced by Gary Wright, Jimmy Miller and Andy Johns. Johns brought in the same heavy hitters he used on Stones albums. Doug (whose brother is Kevorkian lawyer Geoffrey Fieger) went on to form "The Knack" and co-wrote Billboard's 1978 song of the year, My Sharona.

It's too bad the previous reviewer hated the music; Sky being in it is the only reason I've heard of this movie. It's obviously not a great showcase for their songs, however. I've watched the film on DVD and it's pretty lousy, kind of embarrassing like a 1970s suit. But it does have one of my all time favorite bands on the soundtrack, so that counts for something.