Night Nurse

"Night Nurse" is representative of pre-code era films--only slightly risqué by today's standards. It is also representative of the times in the sense that Hollywood seemed to be enamored of the medical profession--both doctors and nurses--during the period, with many such scripts being produced. I think it is due to changing views about medical professionals, instigated by medicine being more science-centered. Audiences probably learned a lot about medical procedures and standards that were somewhat new. This makes such films interesting now from a historic standpoint; and they are interesting as comparisons to today's methods. What we most learn is that standards of care which are en vogue almost always look primitive (and ignorant) by standards only fifty years later.

Joan Blondell and Barbara Stanwyck star in this film about the education, training and practicing of nurses. Stanwyck's character trains in a hospital after no medical education. The girls knock heads with the nurse in charge of their training (and their morals). They deal with the orderlies and physicians who, being male, have a sense of entitlement. Eventually, they get jobs in private care, tending to two young girls who seem neglected.

Clark Gable portrays a belligerent chauffeur with suspect intentions, though his part is a minor one. He plays "sinister" very well, perhaps a clue to his later successes portraying men who are somewhat threatening (like John Garfield).

At one point--as Stanwyck tries to unravel the mystery of the young girls' declining health--the film slows. Otherwise, I found it interesting on many levels. It is fun to see Blondell and Stanwyck as such young women. Even then, Stanwyck commanded the screen with her intensity, when necessary.

This tense 1931 melodrama stars a very young Barbara Stanwyck in the title role as Lora Hart assigned to take care of the two young daughters in a wealthy family. However, she uncovers a plot hatched by their alcoholic mother to kill the girls in order to steal their trust funds with the assistance of a nasty chauffeur and a corrupt doctor. Directed by William Wellman, the movie features several risqué moments with Stanwyck and pal Joan Blondell dressing and undressing in their uniforms, as well as moments of unexpected violence. Again, Clark Gable shows up in a sinister role as the chauffeur and slaps Stanwyck around with convincing malevolence. While I prefer her work in 1933's "Baby Face" on Volume One, no one shined more than Stanwyck in these pre-code films since her non-nonsense manner was a perfect fit for the era's candor and directness.

One of Barbara Stanwyck's best early starring films is Night Nurse which essentially is two separate stories.

The first is young Barbara in training to be a nurse and teaming up with Joan Blondell, another would be nurse, in a typical Joan Blondell role. Stanwyck is a bit more dedicated to the profession, but she learns from Blondell how to take a more realistic attitude.

The second part of the film concerns Stanwyck being assigned as a private night nurse to some kids who are being slowly starved to death. Something is really wrong when you see malnourished kids in a purportedly wealthy home. Stanwyck suspects something amiss and she's quite right. The doctor Ralf Harolde and the chauffeur Clark Gable are in cahoots in a murderous scheme.

Stanwyck puts her own career on the line to bring some justice and compassion to her charges. In doing so she has to step on some medical toes and question the ethics of who she's working for.

Clark Gable was loaned out from MGM to play the murderous chauffeur and if he hadn't been discovered as a new kind of tough leading man, he would have had a grand career as a character actor playing all kinds of thugs who slug. And slug Stanwyck he does, right on the kisser.

Stanwyck gets some help from breezy bootlegger Ben Lyon who would soon be leaving for the UK with his wife Bebe Daniels where he would have his best success. Earlier in the film Stanwyck kind of winks at the rules where Lyon is concerned and she makes a friend who comes in real handy when dealing with Gable and Harolde.

Lyon is fine, but this seemed to be a part James Cagney would have been perfect for. And Cagney going up against Gable would really have made this a classic.

Gritty depression era flick, showing why Warner Bros. was the studio of record. It's tough broads here that get the leads. There's Stanwyck (before her teeth were fixed) and Blondell (gum-popping her way through the Nurse's Oath), both trying to survive grabby interns, unscrupulous doctors, murderous families, and no money. No, this isn't Young Doctor Kildare. Just compare Night Nurse with that sappy 1940's series for insight into what the Production Code did to social realism. Here nurses break the law, doctors violate their oath, and unless you go along, you don't work. Not exactly the professional AMA image. Sure, it's contrived melodrama. But there are elements of the real world here that would disappear from the screen for 35 years, courtesy the PC. Also included are gamey one-liners, mild strip scenes, and a really sardonic look at motherhood, along with a very scary Clark Gable. For a brief period from around 1930-34, Hollywood operated with the lid off, pressed by audiences with no work, no money and no prospects. Movies like NN reflect that reality, which was, of course, too unvarnished to survive. So catch up with this neglected period when you can, especially if the movie's from Warner Bros., like this little gem.

... that being the central theme of a conspiracy to starve two wealthy children to death to get control of their trust fund.

More than half of the film, though, isn't about this at all, probably because the people involved are either so unlikeable or weak, exactly what are you going to do with the characters involved? It's not like you are going to want to endow them with any humanity, otherwise they wouldn't be able to do what they are doing. Thus about half of the film is about Lora Hart's (Barbara Stanwyck's) quest to become a nurse.

Her roommate during her training is Maloney (Joan Blondell). Lora's character is sincere where Maloney is like most of Blondell's precode roles - cynical and sassy. They can both dish out the precode one liners though. It's hard to think that just 90 years ago the equivalent of a RN could have just three years of high school and some on the job hospital training, but that is the case with Lora Hart.

Along the way during Lora's training, a bootlegger (Ben Lyon) wanders into the hospital with a bullet wound when she is unaccompanied and convinces her to treat him and not report it to the police, which is required by law. As a result this guy becomes her "pal" and that is useful when she needs some help in the second half when nobody will help her with the starving kids because of "professional ethics" that require that doctors and nurses not speak up about the situations that they see, when such ethics can never have meant to just let two kids starve to death.

Ben Lyon seems just a little too good natured to be a criminal who routinely orders people killed. It's also very odd seeing Clark Gable as the brutal chauffeur. Warner Brothers gave him a couple of parts in 1931 - in this one and in "The Finger Points". WB completely overlooked his talent and MGM reaped the rewards from that oversight.