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Night Nurse

1931, Movie, NR, 72 mins

Night Nurse: Review

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A somewhat risque pre-production-code story about a nurse (Stanwyck) who uncovers a plot to murder two children, Jones and Graham, fatherless heirs to a large fortune. The children's mother, Merriam, is an evil drunk who plans on starving them to death and then marrying her opportunistic chauffeur, Gable, with the trust fund. Stanwyck confides in her roommate, Blondell, who suggests that she go to the police with the information. Gable, however, threatens to kill her if she starts talking. In order to make his threat more substantive, he delivers a savage fist to her jaw (he would do the same thing some 20 years later in TO PLEASE A LADY). Instead of turning to the law, Stanwyck asks an amiable bootlegger (Lyon) for help. With gun in hand, Lyon confronts Gable, saving the children's lives and winning Stanwyck in the process. The finale has Lyon agreeing to give up his life of crime in exchange for Stanwyck's love. A neglected Wellman picture, NIGHT NURSE followed in the shadow of his PUBLIC ENEMY and was to have been the third Wellman-Blondell-James Cagney picture. Cagney, however, had found such success with PUBLIC ENEMY that he was cast in SMART MONEY instead. On Wellman's urging Gable was loaned to Warners, where he was fitted in a morbid black chauffeur's suit and given a completely villainous role. Luckily for Gable, Warners refused to sign him to a contract which probably would have relegated him to sinister roles. Instead he moved on to MGM. While most critics of the day admitted that NIGHT NURSE found an audience because of Stanwyck's and Blondell's numerous dressing and undressing scenes, Stanwyck disagreed. According to Jane Ellen Wayne's biography, Stanwyck has said, "Joan Blondell and I were in awe. He was just the kinda guy who made you look at him all the time . . . It was Gable who brought the crowds to see NIGHT NURSE because the public couldn't get enough of him." Director Wellman, a busy man, helmed four other features this same year, all of them action-packed, filled with sound and fury. leave a comment
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