Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: NURSE! Edition Part 3 of 7

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies

NURSE! Edition

Part 3 of 7

Today, we have the third of a seven-part series of posts having all to do with films featuring nurses.

Nurses, those vital, in the trenches Florence Nightingales of the silver screen. Where would we be without them? Our bed pans full? Our elderly in need of a turn? Our temperatures taken and, at times, risen? Our Jello delivered?

Be they sexy, or conniving, whimsical or earnest, humanitarian or pure evil, candy striper or stripper... these nurses are there, in or out of uniform servicing their clientele with the best or worst of intentions. 

So, let's sit back and take a look at these visions in white, these caregivers and occasional life takers as enshrined for all eternity Hollywood-style.

--- ---

Secrets Of A Nurse

(1938)

(When a battered prize-fighter is brought into the hospital, a nurse must leave the bedside of a ailing wealthy attorney who has developed romantic feelings for her. The nurse discovers that the prize-fighter was doped by his handler on instructions from a crooked gambler looking to win a bet from the prize-fighter's manager. The nurse convinces the prize-fighter to retire from the ring and the attorney, who is feeling stung, gets him a job as a bellhop at one of his clients hotel in the hopes of humiliating him. Meanwhile, the crooked gambler has put a hit out on the handler who drugged the prize-fighter in order to keep his mouth shut for good. Shortly after, the prize-fighter gets a call from his former manager who is desperate for money in order to pay-off the gambling debt he owes. The prize-fighter agrees to meet him, only to find the manager dead - killed by one of the crooked gambler's henchmen. The prize-fighter is arrested and tried for the murder. Will justice be served? Will true love win out?)

(Based on the magazine story West Side Miracle by Quentin Reynolds, this sports drama was directed by Arthur Lubin and stars Edmund Lowe, Helen Mack, and Dick Foran.)

(Universal purchased the screen rights in July of 1936, with Arthur Lubin brought on board to direct in September 1938. Filming began on September 26th that same year.)

(Lubin, who had been directing films since 1934, had a lengthy career spanning five decades. He worked with a variety of stars, including Ernest Borgnine, Don Knotts, Herman Hermits, Teresa Wright, Steve Reeves, Ginger Rogers, Carol Channing, Donald O'Connor, Maureen O'Hara, Jean Simmons, Irene Dunne, Burt Lancaster, Ray Milland, Jan Sterling, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Merle Oberon, Nelson Eddy, Maria Montez, Gale Sondergarrd, Jane Powell, Robert Stack, and John Wayne. He is responsible for a series of pictures with Abbott & Costello and the popular 'Francis The Mule' films with Donald O'Connor.)

--- ---

Fight Nurse

(1953)

AKA: Angels Take Over, Angels Over Korea

(A courageous United States Air Force nurse with the Medical Air Evacuation Unit ferries servicemen wounded in combat during the Korean War on a C-47 transport aircraft based out of Japan.)

(This American war drama was directed by Allan Dwan and stars Joan Leslie and Forrest Tucker.)

(Based on the experiences of Captain Lillian M. Kinkela, the most highly-decorated woman in military history and a member of the flight nurses of the 801st Medical Evacuation Squadron. She flew over 175 missions while in Korea, taking part in the evacuation of the Chosin Reservoir, and also in the retreat down the Korean peninsula to Taegu, flying out casualties from Sinanju, Inchon and Wonson. Kinkela served as technical advisor on the film. She would go on on to become one of the first flight attendants for United/Pan Am Airlines. At the time, airlines would only hire registered nurses as flight attendants.)

(The film begins with the dedication: "This picture is respectfully dedicated to that brave legion of military nurses who are serving with the armed forces of free nations all over the world. These angels of mercy – shoulder to shoulder, share the danger and hardships of free fighting men everywhere, with devotion above and beyond the call of duty.")

(The Department of Defense and the United States Air Force contributed greatly to the production. The aircraft featured in the film include the Douglas C-54 Skymaster, Douglas C-47 Skytrain and Sikorsky H-5 helicopter.)

--- ---

Private Duty Nurses

(1971)

(A trio of beautiful private-duty nurses practice more than medicine as they confront underground drug traffickers, racism and murder while on duty at their local hospital.)

(Shot in fifteen days, this sexploitation film was written and directed by George Armitage and is a sequel to The Student Nurses. Producer Roger Corman says they got the idea for the title after being sent a letter of complaint about the first film from the Private Duty Nurses Association.)

Katherine Cannon, Joyce Williams, and Pegi Boucher

(This marked the directing debut of George Armitage, who had appeared in a pair of films for Corman. As Armitage recalls: "Peter Bogdanovich and Francis [Ford Coppola] had left working with Roger, so there was an opening there for directors, I asked him if I could direct, and he said sure. He said: 'Would you like to do a nurse movie or a stewardess move?' I said I'd like to do a stewardess movie, and he said: 'Okay, well then you can do the nurse movie.' Okay! Anyways, I got into it, and I wrote the script, and I got Everett Chambers, from Peyton Place, a crew of some TV guys that I'd worked with, and some young commercial crew. This fellow called Fouad Said had invented this thing called Cinemobile, and I used it to film on location. I did everything on location. I shot the whole movie in the South Bay, Manhattan Beach - it's exactly the same place and time period that Paul Thomas Anderson used in Inherent Vice.")

(Armitage said the film had to feature sex: "I was talking to the girls and they said: 'Hey, why don't you do a guy who's just a lousy lay. Sometimes you run into that.' And I thought that'd be perfect for the South Bay, because it was a pretty crazy culture going on down there at the time, so that's what we did.")

Corman left him alone for most of the film: "He wanted us to do whatever we felt, what we were thinking of poetically, socially, culturally at the time. So I tried to look at it from a woman's point-of-view, adding my own feelings about what was going on. Corman and I got along very well. I didn't like the way Hollywood treated him; he was kind of an underdog and I loved the fact that he would just say, 'Here, go make the movie.' He never came to the set, he totally allowed us to do what we were doing."

Armitage discovered the band Sky playing at a high school and cast them as the house band at a dive bar featured in the film. The band performed their classic ode to oral sex, How’s That Treatin’ Your Mouth, Babe? Incidentally, the lead singer Doug Fieger would go on to form the group The Knack and co-write the song My Sharona.)

--- ---

Secrets Of A Nurse

(1973)

AKA: Bisturi la mafia bianca, Hospitals: The White Mafia

(To the outside world, a surgeon who is also a professor appears to be a generous man, instructing his students to treat the poor the same as the rich, while providing health services to the needy for free. But it's all a front. At the hospital, he rules with an iron fist - working his staff hard, creating a production line like atmosphere as if the hospital were nothing more than a money factory. When a nurse threatens to expose him as a fraud, she finds her life and career in peril.)

(This Italian drama was directed by Luigi Zampa and stars Enrico Maria Salerno, Senta Berger and Gabriele Ferzetti.)

(This film was entered into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.)

Senta Berger

(Berger is an Austrian-German actress who has appeared in films with Robert Vaughn, James Caan, Kirk Douglas, Tony Randall, George Segal, and Max von Sydow. She is a staunch abortion rights activist, runs a production company with her husband, and has appeared in numerous stage productions.)

--- ---

Night Nurse

(1978)

(A young woman wishes to be independent of her ex-boyfriend, an artist. To do so, she interviews to become the private night nurse of a once famous opera singer known as The Diva. Hired, she arrives at the former star's grand home only to experience odd things. The other staff member resents her presence and remains stone-faced. The young woman soon learns that all is not what it seems in the household, leading her to uncover ghastly, dangerous secrets from the past.)

(This Australian television film was directed by Igor Auzins and stars Kate Fitzpatrick, Davina Whitehouse, Kay Taylor, and Gary Day.)

(Produced by Bruning's Gemini Productions, it was one of six movies commissioned by Channel Seven, the largest commitment made by the channel to a single creative entity. It was part of a second batch of films, the first consisted of four films which proved so popular, Channel Seven felt comfortable making the financial commitment. Each of the films were made on a budget of $75,000.)

Davina Whitehouse

(circa 1935)

(In 1978, longtime actress, producer and director Davina Whitehouse won the Best Actress 'Sammy' for her role as the aging opera singer in The Night Nurse at the Australian Film and Television Awards.)

--- ---

And that's all for now.

Tune in next week:

Same time, same channel.

--- ---

Night Nurse - Simply Red feat. Sly And Robbie