Tender is the Night Nurse

Night Nurse (1931) is one of the most famous “pre-code” movies - movies made before the Production Code was in full force. It isn’t all that risqué, but it is a wild movie.

It stars Barbara Stanwyck as a young nurse. Quite a bit of time is taken up with her getting hired, meeting fellow nurse and roommate Joan Blondell, getting hit on and pranked by the interns, and getting undressed down to her undies in several scenes.

She also treats a bootlegger (Ben Lyon) for a bullet wound without reporting it to the police. Having a bootlegger for a boyfriend turns out to be very useful.

Then she gets sent out as a night nurse, to take care of two sick rich kids. Their mother is a widowed party animal, throwing loud booze-ups every night while the children waste away. When Stanwyck questions their treatment, brutal chauffeur Clark Gable (!) makes threats. It becomes clear that the kids are being starved to death to free up their trust fund for Gable. But what can Stanwyck do?

So, director Wild Bill Wellman serves up hospital hi-jinks, lingerie, wild parties, bootlegged booze, and a very butch Clark Gable. That’s a lot of fun in 92 minutes. In fact, it’s a little too much - there seems to be two movies: first, the story of a nurse’s training, then the mystery of the children. The training story, which takes pretty much the first half, is like one of those superhero origin stories that we don’t really need, just taking up time before the action starts.

Still, hard to complain about too much fun, right? Instead, I would like to complain about the bulk and opacity of the undies that Stanwyck strips down to.