NIGHT NURSE (1931) B/W 72m dir: William A. Wellman

w/Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable, Blanche Friderici, Charlotte Merriam, Charles Winninger, Edward J. Nugent, Vera Lewis, Ralf Harolde, Walter McGrail, Allan Lane, Marcia Mae Jones, Betty Jane Graham

Terse, gripping thriller of a nurse who discovers a grim plot, in the household where she works, to murder two small children for their inheritance. Crackling dialogue and vivid acting, with Gable a standout as a particularly nasty hood. More strong stuff from Stanwyck's favorite director, Wellman.

From the Senses of Cinema website (www.sensesofcinema.com), this review of the film by Wheeler Winston Dixon:

“'Oh, ethics ... ethics ... ethics! That’s all I’ve heard. Isn’t there any ethics about letting poor little babies be murdered?' --- Barbara Stanwyck as nurse Lora Hart in Night Nurse.

"There are precious few 'ethics' on display in William Wellman’s brief and brutal film Night Nurse, a bluntly titled and efficiently directed Pre-Code film from Warner Bros., a studio that specialized in hard boiled melodramas with a social message in the early 1930s. Wellman and star Barbara Stanwyck would make five films together, and in this, their first outing, it’s clear that Stanwyck’s innate toughness as a performer, coupled with her unrelenting work ethic, found favor with Wellman, who was a very tough customer himself.

"Known for carrying a loaded gun on the set, and occasionally threatening actors with it if he felt they were sloughing off on the job (as he did with Ronald Colman in his 1939 film The Light That Failed, when Colman deliberately fluffed his lines during a key scene due to a disagreement with Wellman over casting), Wellman knew exactly what he wanted when he walked on the set each morning, and usually got the results in one or two takes.

"This was just fine with Stanwyck, who was known as a 'one take wonder,' capable of memorizing pages of dialogue at the last minute, and then delivering the results in one flawless take after another, and delighted Wellman. He was almost as much of a speed demon on the set as MGM’s W.S. Van Dyke, another rough and ready director who famously shot the hit film The Thin Man in a mere 12 days.

"For above everything else, Warner’s in the early 1930s was a factory, pumping out films at the rate of one a week to keep pace with the insatiable demand of Depression era audiences for something --- anything --- to take their minds off the crushing burden of the nationwide financial collapse.

"Films such as Wellman's Public Enemy (1931). Mervyn LeRoy's Little Caesar (1930), Roy Del Ruth's Blonde Crazy (1931), and Alfred E. Green's Smart Money (1931) set the tone and pace for a series of films that moved with breakneck speed in their narrative thrust, and dealt matter of factly with Prohibition (and the complete failure of that 'great experiment'), murder, rape, drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution and a host of other social ills, pulling no punches in the process.

"In Night Nurse, Stanwyck plays private nurse Lora Hart, who is called in along with fellow nurse Maloney (Joan Blondell) to care for two sick children at the home of their mother, the wealthy alcoholic widow Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam), who cares little about her offspring’s welfare. The unscrupulous Dr. Ranger (Ralf Harolde) is supposedly supervising the children’s care, but Lora soon finds out that Dr. Ranger’s real aim is to starve them to death, so that the brutish chauffeur Nick (Clark Gable, in a very early role) can marry the inebriated Mrs. Ritchey, and thus gain control of a trust fund set up for the children.

"There’s more to the plot, of course, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. The main attraction here is the straightforward violence of the film, which exists in a world of corruption and greed, a moral wilderness all too familiar to 1930s viewers. Dr. Ranger, for example, is clearly a drug addict, all too willing to go along with Nick’s plans to obtain what he needs to get through the day; and Lora, without even a high school diploma to her name, gets her position as a nurse only through the kindly but clearly unethical intervention of Dr. Bell (Charles Winninger), who takes a liking to her early on in the film.

"Lora knows when to look the other way, too, and thus gain allies in her fight to survive. In another early scene, as Lora works in a hospital emergency room on the night shift, she tends to a bullet wound inflicted on Mortie (Ben Lyon), an amiable bootlegger, and at his behest, doesn’t report the incident to the police. Mortie thus takes an interest in Lora’s future. As the narrative unfolds, this comes in handy at a crisis point, when it’s clear that all of Lora’s warnings to the authorities about the children’s condition have been to no avail.

"Wellman took on this film right after the success of Public Enemy, and the role of Nick in Night Nurse was initially assigned to James Cagney. But Cagney’s overnight stardom as a result of his work in Public Enemy ruled that out --- he was clearly destined for bigger things. Thus, the role of Nick fell to Clark Gable, whose performance in Night Nurse will come as a shock to those who only know him from his later, more sympathetic roles; twice, he knocks Stanwyck to the floor when she objects to the 'care' the children are receiving, and he stalks through the film with an air of constant menace. Nick’s one method of dealing with trouble is brute force, and he doesn’t think twice about hitting a woman, or anyone else, who crosses him.

"Then, too, the dialogue is absolutely hard boiled, and the screenplay takes every possible occasion to show either Joan Blondell or Stanwyck in various states of undress. It’s clear that both women live in a world in which on-the-job sexual harassment is the norm --- it's what they expect in an era in which everything is for sale, even the lives of innocent children, who are unable to protect themselves. And, of course, since Lora works the night shift, most of the film takes place in an atmosphere of perpetual darkness, as the characters seem cut off from the rest of the world by the absence of daylight.

"In the end, only violence will help where violence rules, but that’s for you to find out as the film careens toward its inexorable climax. Suffice it to say that in Wellman’s no nonsense direction, Stanwyck’s memorably gutsy performance, and Gable’s surprisingly convincing turn as, essentially, a killer of children for cold hard cash, Night Nurse effectively creates a film in which the normal rules of society don’t apply, if they ever did. It’s everyone for themselves in a world without compassion, or ethics --- something Lora clearly has, despite her protestations to the contrary."

From Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck by Ella Smith: "Night Nurse, at Warners, was Barbara Stanwyck's first film with William Wellman. She was to do five for him in all and become --- as with [director Frank] Capra --- the leading lady he cast the most.

"'Wild Bill' Wellman --- referred to by his actors as everything from 'a sadistic director when it came to realism in action scenes' to 'a ballsy guy, and damn fun to work with' --- made some delightfully crazy pictures with Stanwyck, He was not timid with a gag and --- while Stanwyck did some moving work for him in So Big and The Great Man's Lady --- their other three films together can best be described as 'no holds barred.'

"Night Nurse shook everybody up. It was taken from a novel by Dora Macy which the author said was true, based on the experiences of a night nurse she had known. And one reviewer called it 'lurid, hysterical melodrama, unpleasant in theme, yet well presented' and went on to say:

"Imagine, if you will, a night nurse whose first assignment is on a case where a dope fiend doctor and a murderous chauffeur --- who slugs youth and age indiscriminately --- conspire to slowly starve two darling children in order to thieve their inheritance from a dipsomaniac mother.

"Obviously, the film was ahead of its time.

"Stanwyck trains in a hospital where the only bright spot is her wisecracking roommate, Joan Blondell. There are a number of gags pulled by a fresh interne --- including the placing of a skeleton in Stanwyck's bed. And a young bootlegger, whom she tends in the hospital, becomes her boyfriend.

"When she graduates and goes to her first case, she finds the children starving and their mother spending her time with a bottle and the chauffeur (Clark Gable). A reputable doctor has been taken off the case and replaced by an unknown. A drunken housekeeper keeps her eyes closed and her mouth shut. And wild parties prevail.

"Stanwyck straightens out the mess and saves the children, whose trust fund Gable was after. And the film ends with Gable 'getting his' from her bootlegger friend who has him 'taken care of.' The couple ride off together --- not into the sunset, but into the car parked behind them --- as Wellman pulls the last of his stunts to cheer up a grim melodrama.

"Wellman was the first to make use of the effect that could be achieved by roughing up his small but resilient leading lady. (Capra tried it soon after in Forbidden --- probably a coincidence.) What makes it work is the fact that Stanwyck can give it as well as take it --- and her revenge is always gorgeous.

"In Night Nurse she takes a couple of crashing falls across the floor. Especially sadistic is the sock on the jaw given her by Gable (who beats up anybody in the film who gets in his way). And while she doesn't get to punch Gable back (nobody does, and lives) she does have a great time taking it out on another of her attackers.

"Trying to drag the children's stoned mother to them, Stanwyck is interrupted by a drunken hanger-on who had assaulted her earlier. With no hesitation, she slugs him --- knocking him to the floor. He crawls behind the bar like a wounded dog. And when he makes the mistake of looking out from behind it as she tries to revive the mother with a bucket of water, she lets him have it with the bucket.

"Critics had trouble believing their eyes, and called the picture 'far-fetched and exaggerated.' The nursing profession couldn't be like that. At the same time, they admitted that they didn't understand a lot because they were put off by the candor. Those who got the point found the humor effective.

"Reaction to Stanwyck's work was favorable from all. And, while she still had some distance to go, the hard-boiled side of her image was shaping up nicely --- to the delight of those who liked her as much for her guts as her tears.

"Clark Gable didn't do badly either. Critics singled him out --- as well they might. Joan Blondell remembers that, when she and Stanwyck first saw Gable, they grabbed at each other's pinkies in awe. And Stanwyck has said, 'We all knew he was a striking personality. He commanded attention.'"