"Night Nurse" and Forbidden Hollywood

Yes, after many sleepless nights and painful yearning, "Night Nurse" has finally been released on DVD (with four other movies that are almost as good) ...



... and you guessed it! I'm going to make yet another post about it!

In this new Forbidden Hollywood DVD set, you can see some great profane films from the early 1930s, with provocative titles like "The Divorcee", "A Free Soul", "Three on a Match", "Female", and of course, the best one of all, "Night Nurse", which has been restored to astounding clarity of picture. And anything that gives me a crisp and clearer picture of a young Barbara Stanwyck is Grade A in my book.

Aside from simply being a good movie, "Night Nurse" is also an interesting example of efficiency and leanness in filmmaking. It's only 75 minutes long, but the director and actors give us more than our money's worth in those 75 minutes. There is not one boring frame in the entire film. Another thing about this movie is that there is a startling amount of female flesh on display (for 1931 standards, at least). I suspect that is a major contributor to the film's lack of boringness ...





But what is the movie about (besides nurses being out of uniform), you might ask? OK, even if you already know, I'll tell you just so I can use some picturesque verbiage.

A nice young woman named Lora Hart, whose cup of compassion and humanity runneth over, wants to be a nurse at a big city hospital. After a few obstacles and misadventures (see pictures above) she finally makes the grade, and is assigned a job as a night nurse for two sick little girls in a big mansion. The girls' mother is a hopeless drunk, and the chauffeur is an evil schemer who wants to kill the kids in order to get ahold of the money their late father left them.

Along the way, Lora removes a bullet from the arm of a kind-hearted gangster / bootlegger, who throughout the movie tries to get her to go out with him by swearing he has given up his illegal ways and "gone legit".



She doesn't buy it.

Anyway, as the kids she is caring for sink deeper and deeper into ill health, Lora decides to seek out the boozehound mother, who is partying somewhere in the mansion, to explain to her that her children are dying. Here (for the third time on this blog) is a killer clip from this scene, complete with violence, disgust and uncaged nurse fury. This is the kind of clip that you can't see too many times.



The final verdict: What are you waiting for? Buy this thing!