Customer Reviews

CARRY ON NURSE (1958-England)

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As this movie was one of my favorite British comedies in my Senior year of college, I was very anxious to purchase this DVD and share the many laughs with my family. I was extremely disappointed that the DVD arrived in a clear slip case with not one line of Bio or "film-facts". But the real shock came when I started to view this film....very bad grainy transfer, but the real killer was that the sound was so poor with constant static-tracking noise that you could not make out the dialogue for the first 2/3 of the movie. Unfortunately policy is that item can not be returned after it is opened, and there was no way of telling the serious faults until you viewed the DVD. A great, funny example of 60's British comedy.but abosolutely useless in its present form. Save your money.

The next time you're in your hospital bed and two nurses walk in with a long-stemmed daffodil, do not under any circumstance roll over on your stomach.

Carry On Nurse was the second in the Carry On stream of British comedies that began with Carry On Sergeant and lasted for nearly 20 years. You'll either love 'em or you'll hate 'em. You'll love Carry On Nurse, or at least feel a warm, gentle glow of nostalgia break out over you like a rash, if naughty humor based on bedpans, buxom nurses, buttock massages and bunions make you smile. We're in a hospital ward where the male patients are ruled by Matron and where almost every nurse is a knock-out. Naturally, they innocently cause acute adjustment problems for the men who are away from wives and girlfriends. The Carry On gang is represented here by Kenneth Connor as an anxious but well-meaning boxer; Kenneth Williams, all intellectual condescension; Terence Longdon, the good-looking observer; Charles Hawtrey, who made mincing about an art form; Hattie Jacques as the iron-willed Matron; and a number of others, including a solo appearance by Wilfred Hyde-White as a demanding patient who winds up in the best joke of the movie. It involves that daffodil. Among the nurses is Shirley Eaton, guaranteed to disturb any man's dreams.

The story, such as it is, is even slighter than Carry On Sergeant. Carry On Nurse is really a series of episodic vignettes and jokes, leading up to Hawtrey swishing about in a nurse's uniform, Williams brandishing knives and preparing to remove a bunion while reading how to do it, Connor administering the anesthetic which turns out to be laughing gas, and poor Lesley Phillips, who just wanted his bunion fixed so he could get on with a bit of snogging he'd arranged for the next day. The whole thing's a funny set up.

By the gross-out standards of today's movie humor, Carry On Nurse is about as raunchy as Pollyanna. It's vulgar, silly and a lot of fun. Just like the use that daffodil is put to.

I first saw this movie in 1959, with a group of fellow student nurses. We laughed so hard and had so much fun. It is and was a great, funny movie.

I've only just seen this, 50 years late, but it was worth the wait. All the regular stalwarts are there, with the exception of Sid James and Jim Dale; but its none the worse for that. In fact its a funny, and for its time quite racy film.

Standout amongst the performances are Hattie Jacques as the 'Matron', who all the hospital staff are terrified of. However even Matron is lost for words when Oliver (played by Kenneth Williams) tells her the truth about 'the rules'. To pick one member of the cast is unfair though, as they are all good and amazingly some are still with us to this day.

The film is also a reflection of its time. Single sex wards and smoking in them as well - surely some mistake!

This is simple film, the like of which are not made today. Buy it and be entertained.