(Lisa is once again cleaning out her DVR! She recorded the 1931 film Night Nurse off of TCM on May 3rd.)
Night Nurse follows the sordid nights and quiet days of Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck), a high school dropout who dreams of becoming a nurse. Fortunately, she manages to get hired on as a trainee nurse at a big city hospital. Along the way, she gets a new BFF (Joan Blondell), a potential new boyfriend named Mortie (Ben Lyon), who is not only handsome and nice but a bootlegger too, and valuable life lessons on how to defend herself against smirky male doctors. Yay!
Unfortunately, even if you manage to survive the rigorous training program, the life of a night nurse is never easy. For instance, Lora gets hired to help look after the Ritchie children. The Ritchies may be rich but they’ve got so much drama going on that maybe it would be better if they were poor. The kids, for instance, are always sick and their doctor (Ralf Harolde) is apparently hooked on morphine. The mother (Charlotte Merriam) is always passed out drunk. Meanwhile, the family’s chauffeur, Nick (Clark Gable!), is a total brute who appears to have dangerous plans of his own.
Made in 1931, Night Nurse is a pre-code film, which is to say that it was made before the production code mandated what was and was not acceptable in the movies. Occasionally, among film fans like myself, there’s a tendency to assume that any pre-code film is actually going to be some sort of subversive, over-the-top masterpiece. We always think about the epic orgies that Cecil B. DeMille would slip into his silent films or maybe Douglas Fairbanks playing a constantly sniffing detective named Coke Ennyday in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish or the old stories about anonymous stagehands accidentally getting gunned down during the filming of Little Caesar or The Public Enemy. However, just as often, the pre-code label just means that a film is going to feature a few winky double entendres, a bootlegger hero, and at last one scene of the film’s heroine getting undressed. If you want to become an expert on 1930s lingerie, just spend a weekend watching pre-code films.
That’s certainly the case with Night Nurse, which only takes 7 minute to reach its first scene of nurses changing out of street clothes and into uniform. As for the bootlegger hero, that’s taken care of as soon as Mortie shows up and flashes his charming smile despite having a bullet in his hand. As played by Ben Lyon, Mortie is not exactly the most convincing gangster to ever show up in a pre-code film but no matter! He’s got charm and not every gangster can be Edward G. Robinson…
If it sound like I’m being critical of Night Nurse, I’m not. I watch Night Nurse every time that it shows up on TCM and I actually love the film. It’s a cheerfully silly melodrama, the type of innocently risqué film that could only be made during the pre-code era. Stanwyck and Blondell are a perfect team and whenever I listened to them trade sarcastic quips or watched them as they try to get away with breaking curfew, I couldn’t help but think of my own friends. Seriously, everyone should be as lucky as to have a BFF like Joan Blondell. And finally, you get Clark Gable as the bad guy. Gable is really mean and hateful in this movie and it takes a while to get used to seeing him without his mustache. To be honest, he’s not as handsome without the facial hair. But still — he’s Clark freaking Gable and, even in this early role, he had so much charisma and screen presence that it’s impossible not to watch him.
I was going to start this review by saying that Night Nurse sounded like a good title for an MCU film. However, my boyfriend informed me that apparently, there actually was a Marvel comic book called Night Nurse. Apparently, it had nothing to do with this movie. That’s a shame but hopefully, someone at Lifetime will read this review and decide to remake Night Nurse with an all Canadian cast. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on this one!
Anyway, Night Nurse shows up on TCM constantly. Keep an eye out for it!
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Cory Webster (a young Josh Brolin, who looks identical to older Josh Brolin) is an amateur skateboarder from the Valley who hopes to win a downhill competition and score some sweet corporate sponsorship. Chrissy (Pamela Gidley) is an innocent blonde from Indiana who is staying with her brother in Venice Beach. Cory and Chrissy are in love but there is only one problem. Chrissy’s brother is Tommy Hook (Robert Rusler), leader of The Daggers, a punk skateboard gang. There’s no way Hook is going to let his sister go out with someone from the Valley.
Through the Shattered Lens 