1931 Directed by William A. Wellman
Lora Hart manages to land a job in a hospital as a trainee nurse. Upon completion of her training she goes to work as a night nurse for two small children who seem to be very sick, though something much more sinister is going on.
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Within fifteen minutes Barbara Stanwyck has disrobed twice and jumped into bed with Joan Blondell, signaling the start of our cultural fascination with naughty nurses. There's also a bootlegger with a heart of gold, Clark Gable poured into a chauffeur's uniform as a scummy villain, and a bizarre conflict that feels out of left field (if left field is where people discard their old V.C. Andrews paperbacks). The cherry on top is a mostly off-screen resolution that includes some wacky slapstick comedy cross cut with the revelation of a vengeful homicide. Ah, the pre-code era!
I greatly enjoyed this, especially the first half which is basically just Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell being in nurse training and getting into trouble while being witty, sexy and extremely adorable, but once they're out of school and released into the world the plot gets a little odd (and tonally it doesn't really go with the first half), but worst of all, we barely get to see Blondell again, which is a shame because these two dames had such an amazing thing going. Clark Gable is young and always freaks me out without the mustache, and he's also not very good. I'm currently reading a biography on Jean Harlow's life and it said that Harlow and Gable, like a…
"I'm Nick"
*camera zooms in*
"The chauffer."
Reader, I died. This wasn't even a comedy and that might have been the funniest thing I have ever seen.
clark gable was vile, menacing, and violent but barbara stanwyck stood right up to him and sent him to the morgue. i love pre-code women !!!!
young barbara stanwyck shouting at young clark gable while 2 inches away from his face just rejuvenated me! love me some pre-code mayhem
There are several reasons to love this very pre-code movie! Mainly for enjoying Barbara Stanwyck & Joan Blondell parading in their underwear and for seeing Clark Gable, before he was famous, as the vicious villain who punches old men, old women and Stanwych straight in the face!!! It's rare to see a Hollywood movie from this time with that ruthless violence! Plus a story filled with alcohol, drugged-up doctors, attempted rape and a child killing scheme! There was so much outrageous stuff in this movie! They sure had a lot of ideas for the story, but not one of them finished, leaving the story rather inconsistent and messy. But who cares! This wonderful mess is worth ones time anyway!
The best Wellman film I've seen. Who would have thunk he could direct women so well? Creates the kind of moral morass that pre-code was made for. Its wild-ass hedonism of the uber-rich wouldn't be bested until The Rules of the Game. Gable cracks the screen as a sadistic psycho-sexist "servant." It's a shame Hollywood neutered him to be a star.
Watching Stanwyck get up in Clark Gable's face and give him the business is alone worth the price of admission. Not to mention her punching that one guy, her dragging that one woman, taking bullets out of a bootlegger, foiling attempted child murder, and not once did she ever CALM DOWN. Didn't seem too phased when she was complicit in actual murder, though.
"For a hundred bucks I’d take a couple socks on the chin."
I’m in the mood for a milk bath. A really fun start! Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell as naughty nurses and bed buddies. Blondelle as the jaded, gum-chewer. Stanwyck as the fresh, idealistic meat. Both trying to land a big fish to pay the bills. Both constantly undressing in front of each other. Then they graduate from their apprenticeship into home care, and things get dark. Drunks and rapists and undernourished kids and crooked M.D.s and “chauffeur” Clark Gable in an Asian print robe, punching everyone in sight.
Blondell unfortunately disappears for a pivotal stretch of the finale, but it’s understandable, because this is Stanwyck’s role to carry, whether she’s screaming in Gable’s face, crying at the bedside of a sick child, or laughing and smiling as she’s made aware of her complicity in a cold-blooded murder. Good times.
➡️ Pre-Code Essentials 📚
On the one hand it is a simple, sexy and deliberately outrageous film of the early 1930's, on the other hand it is one of the most pernicious in its aggressiveness as a cruelly pre-code film, reverberant and insistent in its free and reckless script brimming with immorality. It is not entirely a film that has the precise decision to amalgamate the amusingly playful beginning with the melodramatic brutality of the following acts, certainly that is one of its most glaring flaws, but frankly they seem to be unavoidable and quite necessary mistakes in a way. The narrative is an unwitting mess, necessarily starting with how thematically miscellaneous it is, and clearly the narrative structure is fragile and flimsy, not…
Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Clark Gable in a pre-code tale of a nurse who discovers a racket to get at a trust fund. Lots of scenes of Barbara and Joan undressing.
Apparently, nurses had to live at the hospital with strict housing rules until they got qualified and were able to go out and get a job.
Overall OK, but lots of things that could have been explored or exploited more.
