... the director didnt miss a chance to show women getting undressed and walking around in their under-thingies. And such a young clark gable - this was one of his first CREDITED roles... he made 13 movies in 1931 alone.
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This might be my first 'pre-code' movie and I was expecting something a little different....lots more 'smooching' perhaps.
With regard to the help with undressing, I think a lot less "gender limitations/rules" for lack of a better term, were played back in these times. I don't know, but how many older films show men sleeping in the same bed/etc. I could be 100% wrong on this....
So what did youse think of it???? As above, I thought it was a great look at 'the stars' when they were starting out, but the film seemed to be missing something. Not that I hated this movie, I thought it was good....
....just missing something I couldn't quite put my finger on....
Urania to Terpsichore: "You're so quiet. Musing????"
Frankly, I thought the film just wasn't very good. I barely managed to sit through it simply due to historical interest. It had a few cute scenes, like when Stanwyck tries to talk to the stone-drunk mother, but it's pretty dull otherwise, and is shot like a low-budget sitcom, not like a major Hollywood feature. The only remotely interesting shot was the film's opening. The other pre-code film I caught, Three on a Match, was much better, and it was made only a year later. Just being old doesn't in itself make a film good!
shareTaped "Three On A Match" along with this, but just got to watch it. Yes, much better....
Urania to Terpsichore: "You're so quiet. Musing????"
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Three on a Match is one of my favourite movies ever. It definitely outdoes Night Nurse by a mile.
I get the feeling you're violating somebody's basic human rights here...
The dialog and acting at times are just plain awful. Dialog-wise, some have lines that would have been better said by another character. Much of the "acting" is more like people just reading lines rather than actually inhabiting a role. While some scenes are okay, look at the Eagan character's early scenes for examples of the truly bad,
Where's your crew?
On the 3rd planet.
There IS no 3rd planet!
Don't you think I know that?
I think the change in what's acceptable between 1931 and 2009 is why this movie doesn't pack as much of a wallop as people expect.
I can think of 4 things about this movie that makes it risque for it's time.
- The hoodlum bootlegger being the good guy and savior. He put a hit on Nick the Chauffeur after all. According to Hayes Code logic, all illegal activities must be punished.
- The selfish, drunken, party girl mother. I think the unwritten movie rule was that women were fundamentally maternal and would do anything to support and love her children
- I got the impression Dr. Milton A. Ranger was a junkie. His drug habit was the hold the underworld had on him to force him to go along with illegal schemes.
- The child telling the tragic story of the murder/accident of her sister Joan. For some reason, movies like to pretend nothing terrible happens to children or they don't know about horrible things in the world.
The length the powers that be will go to for the "protection" of children is silly to me. For instance, in the book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" , a young girl tells about her experience being molested. But the book's still banned in some places for kids the age or older than the girl in the novel. Doesn't make sense to me but there ya go.
No two persons ever watch the same movie.share
I'm actually surprised at some negative reviews I've read of Night Nurse since I thought it was quite good when I saw it. That's been years ago though on TCM, so maybe I need to check out the DVD (Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3).
Three On A Match is something I need to check out on that same collection. If I have seen it in the past, I don't remember it.
so maybe I need to check out the DVD (Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3).
If I could, I'd like to add to your list of why this IS a re-code:
1) Plenty of dressing/undressing scenes for Stanwyck & Blondell.
2) Bed scenes with Stanwyck & Blondell - oh 100% innocent, but no doubt tingling back then!
3) Illegal alcohol (remember...it's 1931!)
I actually liked this film, I honestly seen worst films from this period than this.
shareWomen dressing and undressing each other is just a male fantasy and this director obviously had a fetish for it. It's silly how many times in the movie this happens (like when the mother is passed out drunk and the first thing the nurse does is start to undress her). If this movie was made today they'd probably do more than just undress each other. As I said, it's a typical male fantasy.
shareIt's going a little far to suggest the director had a fetish. He seemed to be a good business man who understood what the public wanted. If the movie was made today there would be a lot more undressing done a lot more graphicly then anything in this film.
shareAgreed...a little skin and undies was good business then, as well as now!
shareThe mother was dead drunk to the point she passed out, I think the nurse was undressing her in order to put her to bed. What else could she do for her? It wasn't a male fantasy. If it were, more than stockings would have come off within the scene.
shareThe man on woman violence is the first thing that struck me as "pre-code" followed by the booze party and child abuse plus it slammed the medical profession. I mean, Gable winds up and slams a nurse on the jaw and causes her unconsciousness (dumb how people was knocked unconscious with a single punch).During the code years, there was a drive to make the establishment like medical care, law enforcement and the judical system look good.
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Don't see it mentioned in the thread, but another part of the forbidden aspect in this and several other precoders is the implied vulgarity, something Warner seemed to delight in showcasing. It might seem excessive to a modern audience, but even allusions to swears were considered taboo, and that prominently featured "you mother" line is of course a deliberate reference to a slang phrase with which we're all familiar.
However, Warner's crowning achievement in filthy double entendres actually came postcode, in the title of a black comedy based on a play: 1938's The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. Frankly they were just giving Hayes the finger with that one.
Not only the (near) nudity, but the fact the the bootlegger literally got away with murder at the happy ending.
People hungry for the voice of god
Hear lunatics and liars
I don't think it's a particularly good example of a precode because there really isn't much sex or freewheeling morality in it. It's most brazen act would be lost on today's audiences, the booze flows freely in a film when it was made in an era of prohibition when it was illegal. The closest thing to a racy moment is when the drunken mother's boyfriend refuses to leave the room when the nurse undresses her. The girls don't show much skin (we see them in slips but really actresses are less dressed in swimsuits). I do love the intern's blue wisecrack as Stanwyck refuses to undress in his presence, "You can't show me anything new, I've just been in the delivery room!"
It was certainly precode in some respects. I mean you won't even see a movie now days where the hero is a murderer(he did have the hitmen kill Gable). It is rather funny, they are making a joke of the murder of Nick by showing the ambulance take the corpse to hospital, and our happy murderer and wife drive off into the sunset all smiles. Haha! Women getting punched, lingerie seen frequently, useless parent letting her children by purposely starved to death, crooked doctors, and the hero is a gangster, what more could you ask in precode? The sex stuff in tho other precodes is never blatantly obvious. You never see 2 people undressing and getting into bed together, so this movie IMHO is as bad as it gets, and its good!
shareAbsolutely right! All of that stuff was forbidden or restricted under the Code. And seeing a strong man brutally beat a woman was pretty shocking in those days,even more than today,
shareAgreed on all counts. I can only add that the scene where Dr Bell and Laura Hart meet is one of the frankest and fastest movie pickups I've ever laid eyes on, despite its being nonverbal, and that a recently-broke heroine sashaying around in mink stoles when she's working for $56/week clearly indicates she's been very profitable in her dating, to say it kindly. And that's before she ever starts to date the bootlegger, who's only sent her a bottle of rye and a ginormous bouquet up till that point. ;)
shareI liked it and loathe the Code!
shareAnyone else noticed how modern-day Manitoba/Ontario gave it a 14A?
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