Carry on Nurse

In Haven Hospital an entire ward is made up of men, ranging from the snooty Oliver Reckitt, the distracted Hinton, the gambling Colonel to the injured boxer Bernie Bishop. With nothing but men around young female nurses things could easily get out of hand but luckily the nurses are ruled by the Sister who in turn lives in fear of Matron, who rules the hospital with an iron fist. However when discipline is so strict, it is only a matter of time before the patients start to act out and rebel.

This is one of the earliest Carry On films in the long running series and it stands out from Constable and Sergeant because it has a much more ensemble feel to it and more of a rambling narrative that works better than the "serious story surrounded by sketches" stuff that the others had tries at doing. In this regard it does seem to keep up a constant tone and is amusing even if it rarely made me actually laugh out loud. This is the problem with a lot of the earlier films in the series – they lack the wit and cheeky humour of the films made in the heyday of the series and thus feel quite stiff and perhaps almost dull at times. There are enough amusing moments here to make it worth seeing but two or three good laughs in 90 minutes is not really enough I'm afraid.

The cast are the same from the first film with a few additions and yet still lacking some of the names that are synonymous with the series (Sid James in particular). Connor is OK in a simple role; Eaton is pretty to look at even if she has few laughs to her name; Hawtrey seems to be in his own film but is fun regardless; Phillips does his usual stuff but familiarity has not bred contempt in me and I enjoyed him; Hyde-White is good value and has the famous final scene to himself while Joan Sims runs around a lot in the way she did in the early days. Owen is OK but the film is stolen by a typical but funny turn from Williams and the very famous Matron character as played by Jacques, who suits the larger than life domineering character well.

Overall this is not a great film and it has not dated well at all. It is amusing but yet rarely that funny – a problem when it seems to be trying to be wacky and outrageous at each step. Time has not treated it well and it is the structured but cheeky Carry On films that have lasted the best. Fans of the series may like it and the cast certainly make it worth a look but this is nothing that special and were it not part of this famous series I doubt it would be seen that often by many viewers.

The second in the popular series is one of the best, but also the first in a quartet of medical lampoons from this stable – the others being CARRY ON DOCTOR (1968), CARRY ON AGAIN, DOCTOR (1969) and CARRY ON MATRON (1972); I’ve watched the latter but not the other two, though I should be able to get to them fairly soon...

Anyway, coming very early in the series, CARRY ON NURSE – which manages to make the most of its single setting – isn’t as crude or as slapdash as a good many of the later entries regrettably proved to be: in fact, it’s pretty much in the vein of classic British comedy of the time (such as the satirical films by the Boultings). The cast brings together several practiced performers in the field: Kenneth Connor (his “Cor, Blimey” attitude as a boxer with a broken hand is somewhat reminiscent of Norman Wisdom), Kenneth Williams (having a less central role than would be the case later but in quite good form as a bookworm nuclear scientist who’s also something of a misanthrope), Charles Hawtrey (playing a radio fanatic, where his prissy antics are already a bit over-the-top), Joan Sims (as an accident-prone nurse), Hattie Jacques (as the fearsome Matron – which became her trademark role), Wilfrid Hyde-White (as an old man whose military record allows him privileged service at the hospital but hasn’t rescinded his gambling mania!), Leslie Philips (as a fun-loving sort who in a drunken binge with his fellow patients decides to have them perform his delayed operation themselves – the latter scene is the film’s hilarious highlight where, predictably, laughing gas is let loose at the most inopportune moment).

The nominal leads here are actually Terence Longdon as a recovering reporter and gorgeous Shirley Eaton as the idealized nurse, who provide the obligatory romantic interest; Jill Ireland (the future Mrs. Charles Bronson) has one of her earliest roles as the girl who finally ensnares Williams, while both Michael Medwin and Norman Rossington appear briefly – as, respectively, Connor’s manager (a self-proclaimed showman) and a punch-drunk remnant of the boxing profession. Other gags revolve around a snob patient who’s continually embarrassed by his commoner wife, another who’s occasionally compelled to run riot in the corridors, and an impossibly solemn-looking student nurse. Apart from throwing Longdon and Eaton in each other’s arms, the denouement sees the release of several of the ‘star’ patients from the hospital – and culminates with the long-suffering nurses’ revenge on the fastidious Hyde-White, by fitting a daffodil in his rectum instead of a thermometer just as the Matron is making her rounds!

Carry On Nurse was the second of the Carry On movies and also the first of the medical ones.

This one is about life in a ward in Haven Hospital. The patients include a boxer, nuclear scientist and a Major. We get to see one of them snogging a nurse, the Major always calling for help and, best of all, the patients trying to do a bunion operation while breathing in laughing gas! There is also an accident prone nurse to add to the chaos.

I find this to be one of the funnier Carry Ons and is shot well in black and white.

Now to the cast, which includes plenty of well known stars joining the regulars: Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jaques, Kenneth Conner, Charles Hawtrey, Leslie Phillips and the Carry On debuts of Joan Sims and June Whitfield. With Bond girl Shirley Eaton (before she was painted gold in Goldfinger), Bill Owen (Compo from Last Of the Sumer Wine), Norman Rossington, Joan Hickson (Miss Marple), Susan Shaw, Jill Ireland (Charles Bronson's wife) and Wilfred Hyde-White as the Major.

Have a good laugh with Carry On Nurse. Great fun.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

While not a laugh riot, this film about nurses and patients at a ward at Haven Hospital holds your interest because of the endearing characters. Kenneth Williams is his usual fun self, aided by an interest in a young (and fairly beautiful, of course) Jill Ireland. Joan Sims plays a bumbling student nurse perfectly, while Hattie Jacques is near perfect as the unamused matron. The beautiful Shirley Eaton is also in this, any film I've seen her in she has been naturally good. The jokes are not hilarious or anything like that, but the film puts a smile on your face often enough (Charles Haughtry is funny in this). There have been (much) worse Carry On Films and some better, but this is a watchable one I think you'll enjoy but not love.

The next time you're in your hospital bed and two nurses walk in with a long-stemmed daffodil, do not under any circumstance roll over on your stomach.

Carry On Nurse was the second in the Carry On stream of British comedies that began with Carry On Sergeant and lasted for nearly 20 years. You'll either love 'em or you'll hate 'em. You'll love Carry On Nurse, or at least feel a warm, gentle glow of nostalgia break out over you like a rash, if naughty humor based on bedpans, buxom nurses, buttock massages and bunions make you smile. We're in a hospital ward where the male patients are ruled by Matron and where almost every nurse is a knock-out. Naturally, they innocently cause acute adjustment problems for the men who are away from wives and girlfriends. The Carry On gang is represented here by Kenneth Connor as an anxious but well-meaning boxer; Kenneth Williams, all intellectual condescension; Terence Longdon, the good-looking observer; Charles Hawtrey, who made mincing about an art form; Hattie Jacques as the iron-willed Matron; and a number of others, including a solo appearance by Wilfred Hyde-White as a demanding patient who winds up in the best joke of the movie. It involves that daffodil. Among the nurses is Shirley Eaton, guaranteed to disturb any man's dreams.

The story, such as it is, is even slighter than Carry On Sergeant. Carry On Nurse is really a series of episodic vignettes and jokes, leading up to Hawtrey swishing about in a nurse's uniform, Williams brandishing knives and preparing to remove a bunion while reading how to do it, Connor administering the anesthetic which turns out to be laughing gas, and poor Lesley Phillips, who just wanted his bunion fixed so he could get on with a bit of snogging he'd arranged for the next day. The whole thing's a funny set up.

By the gross-out standards of today's movie humor, Carry On Nurse is about as raunchy as Pollyanna. It's vulgar, silly and a lot of fun. Just like the use that daffodil is put to.