Night Nurse

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.

"Night Nurse" (Warner Brothers, 1931), directed by William A. Wellman, is not your ordinary hospital drama in the league of late 1930s "Dr. Kildare" series at MGM or the program "Nurse Keate" mysteries at Warners. It's a pre-production code, risqué hospital drama featuring a lone nurse (Barbara Stanwyck) surrounded by those of the medical profession who do more than examine and cure for humanity. But not all doctors and nurses are the villains here. There is even a chauffeur named Nick, who makes James Cagney's 'Public Enemy' character look more like a boy scout in comparison. But at 71 minutes, director Wellman fills this drama with plenty of sound and fury.

The storyline involves Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck), a young woman who obtains a nurses position at a hospital where she must follow strict rules and regulations, given an hour off to herself a day and only one night off a week. She rooms with Maloney (Joan Blondell), a sassy blonde who believes that rules are meant to be broken. Later, Lora is hired as a private nurse to care for two fatherless little girls who happen to be the heirs to a large fortune. Their mother, Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam) prefers to enjoy herself by smoking cigarettes, being drunk and entertaining herself at all night parties surrounded by low-life people. At the same time, Mrs. Ritchey's chauffeur, Nick (Clark Gable), intends on having those girls starved to death in order to obtain their trust fund after marrying their mother. When Lora learns of this evil plot, she notifies Dr. Ranger (Ralf Harolde) for advise, unaware that he may also part of the plot.

In the opening segment of the video cassette copy of "Night Nurse," which is introduced by movie critic Leonard Maltin, he mentions that no one could have played the role better in "Night Nurse" than Barbara Stanwyck. Agreed! She gives her character an injection of toughness and sincerity. In one of its television presentations on Turner Classic Movies, host Robert Osborne mentioned that the role for Nick, the chauffeur, was originally intended for a young James Cagney, who recently scored big time success with the release of "The Public Enemy" (1931), also directed by Wellman. Although Cagney might have pulled it off, Gable is far better suited for this particular role mainly because of his forceful appearance, strong approach and firm voice. When he introduces himself to Nurse Hart (Stanwyck) in saying, loud and clear, "I'm NICK, the CHAUFFEUR," it shows how threatening his character can be. Cagney wouldn't have done this as well. Yet this is the same Gable, minus his famous mustache and likable personality, shortly before his long reign as MGM's "King of the Movies,", who not only beats up the weaker sex here, but gets to meet his match in Nurse Hart. Aside from Gable's slapping and socking his victims, along with making threats, Stanwyck pulls no punches when she socks an individual drunk in order to confront the mother to attend to her two abused daughters. When she finds that this drunken woman doesn't care, Hart, in anger, looks directly at the drunken floozy on the floor and quips, "YOU MOTHER!"

Also seen in the supporting cast are Ben Lyon, an actor in silent movies with a very well recorded distinctive voice, playing a bootlegger who identifies himself as Mortie near the film's end; Charles Winninger as the kind-hearted Doctor Arthur Bell, who also gets the feel of Nick's fist; Edward Nugent as an immoral intern who quotes this classic line to Stanwyck as she undresses: "Oh, don't be embarrassed. You can't show me a thing. I just came from the delivery room!"; Vera Lewis as Miss Dillon, the no-nonsense head nurse (and she means business); Blanche Frederici (another one of Nick's punching bags); and Marcia Mae Jones and Betty Jane Graham as the Ritchey girls.

After watching "Night Nurse," one wonders how many movies of this sort distributed from other film studios are out there, if any. If "Night Nurse" were made today and released as is, it would present few thrills. But because it was made in 1931, "Night Nurse" is full of surprises, then and now, mainly because of how many scenes got passed the censors. Even the topic of child abuse was a screen rarity during that time.

Rarely shown in recent decades, thanks to Ted Turner and his classic movie channel and video distribution through MGM/UA, "Night Nurse" can be seen, and really seen to be believed. Maybe the movie itself does go overboard, but it's really worth a look mainly because of the cast and tough direction in storytelling. This is vintage Stanwyck at her best, especially when wearing her slightly over-sized nurses uniform. And due to the frankness of director Wellman, he gives the movie the shot in the arm it needs.

And one final word of warning, BEWARE OF NICK THE CHAUFFEUR! (***)

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.

The aspiring nurse Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) seeks a job as a trainee nurse in a hospital, but the Supervisor of the Nurses Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis) rejects her application. However she stumbles upon Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninget) in the door and he accepts her application. She befriends her roommate Maloney (Joan Blondell) and they work together in the night shift in the emergency room. When the bootlegger Mortie (Ben Lyon) comes to the hospital with a gunshot in the shoulder, Lora treats him and Mortie convinces her to not report to the police. After the graduation, Lora is hired by Dr. Milton Ranger (Ralf Harolde) to work for the alcoholic millionaire Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam) nursing her two daughters that are sick. But soon Lora finds that they are starved to death. Further, the brutal chauffeur Nick (Clark Gable) is plotting to kill the girls that have a trust fund from their father so that Mrs. Ritchey will inherit it and then he marries her. What will Lora do?

"Night Nurse" is a Pre-Code drama directed by William A. Wellman. The storyline is a combination of genres, such as comedy of dark humour, drama, crime and romance. The storyline begins like a comedy but after the graduation of Lora and Maloney, there is a twist and becomes darker and darker. Where would have the cinema industry gone if the Pre-Code Hollywood have not been enforced? My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Triunfos de Mulher" ("Triumphs of Woman")

... 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.