Movie review - "The Gentle Touch" (1956) *** aka The Feminine Touch

 Ealing weren't great with female stories, but they did try with this one - its about four nursing students going through the motions.

It took me a while to get into this. The colour photography wasn't great and felt ill at ease with that Ealing documentary style. The movie but this stage felt a few years too old. It doesn't really take into account the new frankness in the way it could. There is a bit where a suicide attempt lady talks about having an affair - what was effective. More of that would have worked.

The lead actors tend to be hard to tell apart - the lead is Belinda Lee, as a good girl; the others are Delphi Lawrence, as someone just there to get a husband, Adrienne Corri as an Irish woman with a broad accent, and Henryetta Edwards as a public school girl. 

Those are four decent types but the playing is indistinguishable. The movie badly needs someone like Diana Dors, with a bit of pep and individuality (she would have suited Lawrence's role; Lawrence seems bored, the character is fun on the page but Lawrence doesn't seem to be having any). Edwards I forgot was in the film when she just quit. Corri doesn't have anything to do except speak in Irish. Surely there were other options around this time? But in fairness to the actors only Lawrence and Lee have much to do.

Every now and then you get a sense of what the movie could be - the girls worried when a colleague go missing, and when one wants to quit. But there's not enough of it. It doesn't compare well to say the 40s war films where there was more camaraderie.

I liked Lee. Her eloquent speaking voice is annoying and she is jolly sensible and no-nonsense, very pretty. George Baker is the doctor with whom Lee falls in love and they make a pleasant couple. Baker didn't have star factor but he was an ideal romantic foil.

The melodramatic bits of this work best - a little girl thinking she's going to die, a life that is saved. There needed to be more of this. Like, kill off a nurse. But the film feels more comfortable in documentary mode - a matron giving a speech, Baker diagnosing an illness. There is some low key feminism in nurses complaining they get the boot if they get married.

But I went with this. I like Lee - this was one of her better parts at Rank.

Diana Wynyard offers strong support as a matron.