Nurse on Wheels

This film is funny. Make no mistake about that. It's a gem of a comedy which provokes out-loud laughter in abundance. A whole host of comic characters are at hand to deliver some unforgettable lines amid a very simple, ungarnished plot.

Passing her driving test qualifies nurse Joanna Jones (Juliet Mills) for a position as a district nurse. So she, together with her dotty mother, moves into an out-of-the-way village to take up her new duties. After twenty-odd years under the care of an elderly district nurse, the villagers are somewhat distrustful of the young and beautiful Nurse Jones. This leads to some hilarious situations as the new district nurse is thrown amongst the village's inhabitants. Abel Worthy (brilliantly played by the irascible Noel Purcell) is felled by a tin of corned beef - just one in a series of delightful mishaps. And the dialogue is even funnier. `You know Dr Golfrey's secretary? That flighty young thing? Well, she's flown.'

Esma Cannon relishes the role of Joanna's eccentric mother and Norman Rossington plays a blinder as George Judd, the lovelorn hob-jobber but Juliet Mills is nothing short of outstanding in the lead role.

All in all, Nurse On Wheels is a wonderful example of English comedy. It may be a cliché but they don't make 'em like this anymore.

She gets more screen time here than in most of her films and she grasps the opportunity with both hands.She is splendidly dithering.She reminds me of Billie Burke who played dithering matrons in Hollywood. Much of this film is familiar stuff.It looks as if Norman Hudis has taken the driving lesson sequence from Please Turn Over.Nevertheless it is still entertaining.

Juliet Mills was rewarded for her charming performance as a nurse in 'Twice Round the Daffodils' with the title role in this breezy little comedy in black & white.

A strong female supporting cast includes Esma Cannon as Mills's feather-brained mother ("How your mind wanders. I wonder who you get it from!"), Joan Sims in a refreshingly 'normal' role, with a name - Deborah Walcott - to match, and Athene Seyler in her final big screen appearance.

Among the men Jim Dale plays the first of two expectant fathers in a row for director Gerald Thomas, and Ronald Lewis (who's Land Rover carries a tax disc bearing an April 63 expiry date) is unfortunately a boor as Mills's supposed love interest (which makes it a pleasure to see him scared witless by her driving in a white-knuckle drive through the fictional village of Blandley which is probably the film's comic highlight).

In the style of the carry on films with producer and music from the above, and full of so many of the best famous names in British film comedy ! It may not be one of the greatest films, but with the cast and the music it's still a class example British film comedy of the 1960's.

This type of movie played a major part of my childhood/early 'teens. During the school holidays (or when ever I was off ill during term time), there was always an old black and white movie playing on Monday and Friday afternoons.

Sometimes a thriller or a war movie, most of the time a comedy, all of them 'forgotten' movies such as this one.

Re-watching 'Nurse On Wheels' after almost twenty years a few things become obvious. The most important being that, despite what some marketing people have tried to do recently, this isn't a 'Carry On' movie under a different name. The humour is more gentle and sentimental (though the movie ends with a variation on 'Carry On Nurse's famous 'daffodil gag') and comes across as a slightly more serious 'Doctor' movie. In fact parts of it verge on comedy-drama, for example Raymond Huntley's Vicar is no comedy eccentric, but a man going through a crisis of faith (or simply compare Jim Dale's comic turn as an expectant father in 'Carry On Cabby', with his more serious role in this).

Once again Juliet Mills lights up the screen, proving to have genuine screen presence and she is backed by a typically strong cast of familiar British faces. Not a movie to watch for belly laughs, but a pleasant, charming movie that they really do not make any more.