Sunday, January 30, 2011

Movie review – Nurses #2 - “Private Duty Nurses” (1971) *

The first follow up to The Student Nurses gave a directing opportunity to George Armitage, who’d written Gassss for Roger Corman. It uses a similar, with the difference being there’s three nurses as opposed to four. The black nurse romances a black doctor who is facing discrimination; a blonde has a fling with a Vietnam vet; a brunette helps a doctor fighting sea pollution. At the end they throw in a plot about a drug ring as well.

This isn’t a strong nurses film at all – you can tell its made by a man not a woman in that all the girls care about is helping men rather than do things themselves. There’s no sense of camaraderie between the women, either; and to make it worse, they’re bit even that hot – certainly not in the league of the girls in the other films in the series. And there’s another rape sequence and no “light” plot to give some laughs (unless you count that irritating water bed guy). I really enjoyed Amritage’s script for Gasss so this was a disappointment; his writing and direction is flat – the one lively moment was a jump cut involving a couple lying on bed – one minute they’ve got clothes on the next second they’re naked. Amritage is also credited as the script for the much better Night Call Nurses, but apparently it was heavily re-written. The only members of the cast you’re likely to recognise are Paul Gleason (the great 80s baddie) and Herb Jefferson Jn Boomer off the original Battlestar Galactica.

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