silentgmusic

In the 1970s, with the expansion of producer Roger Corman's New World Pictures, Corman set out to establish a cycle of successful films, focusing on nurses. There were the Candy Stripe Nurses, Night Call Nurses, and, of course, The Student Nurses. Corman was so successful with this series of low-budget sex-and-drama-with-a-little-politics films that he set out to create another series, sort of a spin-off of the The Student Nurses. This was to be the Teachers series.

The Student Teachers, a sometimes funny and somewhat dated film, was intended to parody, among other things: gangster films (with drug dealers like in French Connection) and sex-education films (like we used to see in health class). There is plenty of nudity, a few love scenes, dopey hippie characters, tough African-American characters, nice student-teachers who teach at a local high school, and Corman regular Dick Miller as a sexist, foul-mouthed physical education teacher (he's funny but turns real nasty).

Some of the film segments (most of them, actually) are extraneous and somewhat pointless; there are more plot lines here than in most Robert Altman films. The actresses are pretty, though, especially the blond character who has an artist boyfriend. Corman perfected his formula of success with the Teachers series, and Jonathan Kaplan shows a flair for editing and good camera work that he would later expand upon in Project X and Bad Girls. Kaplan seems to have fun with The Student Teachers, especially with the student sex films the characters watch and the dim-witted hippie character.

I saw this film on video, under the ridiculously misleading title "College Co-eds". The film is not about college (it's high school) and there are no co-eds to speak of. Still, it was fun to watch, and certainly is an interesting time capsule, a trip back to when things were simpler, people embraced the liberal lifestyle, and drive-ins still rocked. I wish I had been alive in 1974 to have seen this one in the back of a Dodge Dart, snuggling up to a girl with bell-bottoms and feathered hair.

I'm nostalgic, and I wasn't even there.

Sure, "Night Call Nurses" is essentially a relic of the typical product thrust upon drive-in theatres in the 1970s. There isn't much of a plot, just a whole lot of nonsense about three nurses and their exploits. There is a lot of nudity, a little humor, some slasher-film elements and a truck driver who does psychedelic drugs. Pretty ridiculous stuff overall, but not without some amusing parts. (I was scratching my head, however, with the "human machine" segment; it was interesting yet pointless).

"Night Call Nurses" was merely one entry in the New World Films "Nurses" cycle which included "Candy Stripe Nurses" and the original "Student Nurses." While those films had a more coherent plot than this one, it is difficult to criticize this one for being so episodic and meandering because the film delivers what it promises: nude women. There are plenty here, no complaints in that category.

And George Armitage, who went on to make the cult classic "Miami Blues," infused some wit and social commentary into the script which are also present in his own foray as writer-director into the "Nurses" cycle, "Private Duty Nurses."

The music is all pseudo-rock and gutter-guitar blues.

Overall, "Night Call Nurses" is a mindless time-waster, but as far as time-wasting goes you could do far worse.