Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: NURSE! Edition Part 5 of 7

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies

NURSE! Edition

Part 5 of 7

Today, we have the fifth 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.

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Oh! What A Nurse!

(1926)

(A reporter is assigned to write a newspaper advice-to-the-lovelorn column under the guise of a woman. When he advises a wealthy young woman not to marry a man she doesn't love, it angers the woman's penniless uncle who is in cahoots with the would-be-fiancée to get their hands on young woman's considerable fortune. The two try to track down the advice columnist, forcing the reporter to disguise himself as a nurse. After a series of madcap adventures involving rum-runners and female impersonators, the reporter saves the young woman from a forced marriage by marrying her himself!)

(This silent comedy was directed by Charles Reisner and written by Darryl F. Zanuck. It stars Sydney Chaplin, Patsy Ruth Miller, Gayne Whitman, Matthew Betz, Edith Yorke, and David Torrence.)  

(According to Warner Bros records the film earned $370,000 domestically and $69,000 foreign.)

(Sydney Chaplin was an English actor and the elder half-brother of actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.  Sydney served as Charlie's business manager in later life, negotiating the film industry's first million dollar contract. He also appeared in a few of Charlie's films.)

Sydney Chaplin

(On the left, in drag.)

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Nurse From Brooklyn

(1938)

(When a nurse's younger brother is shot and killed in a shootout between a criminal gang and the police, an officer is falsely accused of shooting him. Knowing that he didn't do it, the cop sets out to find the real killer and clear his good name.)

(This crime drama was directed by S. Sylvan Simon for Universal Pictures and stars Sally Eilers, Paul Kelly, and Larry J. Blake.)

(Sally Eilers made her film debut in 1927 in The Red Mill, directed by Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. She went on to work with Buster Keaton, and for Mack Sennett, aside Carole Lombard. After doing a series of westerns starring Hoot Gibson - whom she married - she found fame with 1931's Bad Girl and love the second time around with producer Harry Joe Brown.)

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Secrets Of A French Nurse

(1958)

AKA: La Bonne Tisane, Zyankali, La Bestia Muore Due Volte 

(When the lives of a desperate gangster and a young nurse cross, all hell breaks loose as the two struggle to resolve the complex issues which plague the gangster's troubled mind.)   

(This French thriller was directed by Hervé Bromberger and stars Raymond Pellegrin, Madeleine Robinson, Estella Blain and Bernard Blier.)

(Based on the 1955 crime novel, La bonne tisane, by Jean Meckert, written under the pseudonym John Amila.)

(This is the second film Hervé Bromberger and Estella Blain would do together.)

Estella Blain

(Estella Blain was a French actress who appeared in more than twenty films from 1954 to 1981. She made her debut as the lead in Hervé Bromberger's 1954 film Wild Fruit. Blain took her own life on New Year's Day, 1982.)

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The Young Nurses

(1973)

(A quartet of sexy young nurses practice a special kind of therapy on their male patients as they conduct their daily rounds. In addition, they must struggle to expose and defeat a drug ring siphoning off pharmaceuticals which is conducting business at the hospital.)

(This exploitative drive-in favorite was directed by actor Clint Kimbrough and stars Jeane Manson, Ashley Porter, Angela Elayne Gibbs, Zack Taylor, Jack La Rue Jr., and William Joyce.  In addition, it features numerous well-known actors including: Alan Franklin Arbus, Sally Kirkland, Nan Martin and Dick Miller in supporting roles. This is the fourth in producer Roger Croman's popular 'nurses' series for New World Pictures.)

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Nurse Report

(1973)

AKA: Sesso In Corsia, Krankenschwestern-Report

(At a dysfunctional hospital in Munich, where the nurses are underpaid and overworked, the only benefit to be had is the sexy fun they enjoy with their patients.)

This West German sex comedy was directed by Walter Boos and stars Doris Arden, Ingrid Steeger,  Karin Heske, Elisabeth Volkmann and Claus Tinney.

(Produced by Wolf C. Hartwig's Rapid Film Company, this film was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the company's similar 'schoolgirl' series.)

Ingrid Steeger

(Ingrid Steeger and fellow co-star Elisabeth Volkmann would find fame and fortune appearing together in the popular German television comedy show Klimbim.)

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel!

Nurse's Office - Melanie Martinez