The Young Nurses

"The Young Nurses" is a reasonably engaging entry in Roger Cormans' series of "nurse" pictures. Written by Howard R. Cohen, produced by Cormans' wife Julie, and directed by Clint Kimbrough, it follows the Corman / New World formula of sex, nudity, action, and a little social / political commentary. Our three luscious leading ladies are Jeane Manson as Kitty, Ashley Porter as Joanne, and Angela Elayne Gibbs as Michelle, and each gets her own story thread. Kitty falls for Donahue (Zack Taylor), a young man dominated by his pompous dad (William Joyce). Joanne oversteps her boundaries as a nurse in order to treat a patient properly. And Michelle is an activist who discovers a drug ring working out of their hospital. Each is a serious minded, passionate young woman, and of course they all look good in and out of clothes.

Overall, this feels pretty routine for the series, but at least it avoids being melodramatic and does have some appreciable, mild doses of humor. There are some genuinely poignant moments to be found, such as the one with an aged black man played by the legendary comedy relief actor Mantan Moreland, in what was sadly his final feature film appearance. There are some very fine actors in supporting roles and bits - Allan Arbus as a demanding head surgeon, Mary Doyle as the extremely stern head nurse, Don Keefer as a hospital chemist, Nan Martin as a stuffy reporter, Sally Kirkland as a patient at the clinic, Dick Miller (always nice to see this guy!) as a hard-hearted cop, and Caro Kenyatta as Michelles' boyfriend Lester. The real treat, though, is in seeing the legendary filmmaker Samuel Fuller in a fun, two scene role as a villainous doctor.

Daniel Lacambre does the very impressive cinematography, Barbara Peeters (future director of "Humanoids from the Deep") is the art director, and Gregory Prestopino supplies the groovy rock score.

Decently entertaining trash for fans of 1970s New World product.

Six out of 10.

Substantially an exploitation flick, this production appears to have been shot on two-tracks with some decent actors such as Alan Arbus shoe-horned into a cheap vehicle to parade comely, yet vapid and monotonic, young women in tight nurses' uniforms.

Apparently, no one told the real talent this when their scenes were filmed.

I caught this on cable with half an eyes in 1987 at my ex's while she was filling me in on family matters, little more than a background distraction to our conversation, until an uncredited Robert Urich walked on as a sleepy intern, half-hiding his face from the camera. I presume he cottoned to the semi-porn nature of the project and reduced his exposure and potential for ridicule.

Who knows? Maybe it led to his casting in the TV-series "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" later that year.

Except for that curiosity value, this film is a pass. Bus tours through Ohio are more exhilarating.

In this movie, which is the 4th film in the "Nurse Series", three young nurses are all trying to make a difference at a local hospital. The first nurse named "Kitty" (Jeane Manson) is a pretty blonde who takes a liking to one of her patients and tries to make sure that he doesn't aggravate an injury he sustained in a boating accident. The second nurse, "Michelle" (Angela Gibbs) has discovered that a patient of hers has died from a drug overdose and decides to investigate where he obtained the drugs. The third nurse by the name of "Joanne" (Ashley Porter) recognizes that there is an extreme shortage of doctors in the hospital and in the course of her duties takes on some of their responsibilities even though she lacks the necessary credentials. Now obviously the plot is a bit unrealistic and suffice to say the movie suffers as a result. Likewise, several of the scenarios were a trifle clichéd and were more or less rehashed from the other films in the series. Additionally, although I thought Ashley Porter--and to a lesser extent Jeane Manson--were nice additions to the scenery, neither of them were really able to bring this film up to even an average rating. In short, I consider this to be a rather weak entry into the "Nurse Series" and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

It might not have been the best idea to watch all four of the "Nurses" movies that were packaged by the Shout Factory on DVD a few years ago one after another in the space of a week. At a certain point, especially considering how Corman and wife/producer Julie had a well-oiled machine as far conventions go, they started to blend together with the characters all being two white women and one black or Hispanic woman (sometimes there could be a fourth woman, but usually it was three), and while the black/Hispanic would be involved in an "issue" storyline, the others would have either a man they would be on/off with or other dramas going on. Only here and there would things take place *in* the hospital. In the case of The Young Nurses what helps a great deal is that the script is tightly plotted, there's good cross-cutting between the three stories, and it builds to things and is rarely boring.

Does that mean it's any great shakes or high art? Good lord no. But I enjoyed the actresses here and what they were tasked to do - Kitty (Jean Madison) fools around and maybe falls in love with a guy who has a boat (there's a lot of boat sailing and the like here); Joanne (Ashley Porter) wants to become a doctor and will do a lot to become one (nothing too dirty I think); and Michelle (Angela Gibbs) is seeing there's a drug ring at the hospital she'll try to bust - and I liked that Michelle's plot wasn't *as* much related to being about her race. The director Kimborough may not have the kind of material that made, say, Night Call Nurses memorable for its datedness (there's no wild filmmaking to try to show what a drug trip is), but that's to the movie's benefit - it comes in, does its thing, and gets out.

One note of interest for 'cineastes' out there: the magnificent director Samuel Fuller, of the tough pictures Pickup on South Street, Shock Corridor and the Big Red One, appears in a small role as a rather scummy character; he was one of the things that picked up the interest for me in the story, and among the cast he was one of the better (small-scene) players. If he had been in it more it might have risen even further above its limitations. But as it is, I liked where the stories went and that was enough to carry me through the material, even as the direction didn't stand out like Kaplan's entry in this (un-canon) series.

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 and no story carry-over. 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 are attractive but very inexperienced unknowns and the script does them few favors. The story focuses on a drug ring operating out of the hospital where the trainee nurses work, and they decide to investigate, an action that runs counter to the usual anti-establishment tone of the series. Beyond that nothing much of interest happens. Mostly this was just another exercise in soft-core 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.

The problem here is that the series creators were pretty much out of fresh ideas and so just recycled the same old character conflicts from earlier in the series: sexist doctors, older nurses who aren't with it and rigid administrators who are more concerned with protocol than patient care. Yawn. As a result this movie is now not very entertaining, except perhaps as camp. The dialogue probably sounded fairly hip at the time (or maybe it didn't) but it is pretty laughable now, and unless the viewer couldn't get enough of 1973 and is looking for a groovy, mod era experience, and any old one will do, I would avoid this type of movie at this point. It's cheap-jack, not very well or very imaginatively made and even fails to satisfy as exploitation, since very little sensationalistic happens and nothing happens that we hadn't already seen in the earlier installments.