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.

"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! (***)

A tawdry and downright disturbing pre-code film that stars Barbara Stanwyck giving one hell of a ferocious performance.

Stanwyck plays the titular night nurse, assigned to care for the two small children of a negligent and drunken floozy. The children's' father is dead; the family chauffeur, played by a hateful Clark Gable, is running things, and he wants the children to die so that he can collect the trust money that was intended for them. Therefore, the children are wasting away from starvation while a useless maid dithers around and Stanwyck tries to get the hospital to intervene.

The film would probably be instantly forgettable if not for the fierce performance of Stanwyck, who throws herself (quite literally) into the role of savior, taking punches, getting thrown into a wall, all while dishing out some punches of her own. This is film-making of the sensational Warners variety, featuring lots of suggestive dialogue, shots of Stanwyck and her nurse buddy, the saucy Joan Blondell, in their underwear, and a world in which things like murder are o.k. as long as they're done for the right reason. The movie is certainly no masterpiece, but it does have that energy and sizzle that characterized Warners films from this time period, and it is effective on its own modest terms.

Grade: B+

... 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.

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.