Carry on Nurse (1959)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Gerald Thomas

Writers:

Norman Hudis (original screenplay) and
Jack Beale (idea)

Release Date:

21 July 1959 (Denmark)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

From the same stars and team that gave you the sensational comedy success "Carry on Sergeant"

Plot:

Set in Haven Hospital where a certain men's ward is causing more havoc than the whole hospital put together...

Plot Keywords:

Nurse | Orderly | Colonel | Sequel | Medical

Cast

Kenneth Connor	...	Bernie Bishop
Shirley Eaton	...	Staff Nurse Dorothy Denton
Charles Hawtrey	...	Humphrey Hinton
Hattie Jacques	...	Matron
Terence Longdon	...	Ted York
Bill Owen	...	Percy 'Perc' Hickson
Leslie Phillips	...	Jack Bell
Joan Sims	...	Student Nurse Stella Dawson
Susan Stephen	...	Nurse Georgie Axwell
Kenneth Williams	...	Oliver Reckitt
Wilfrid Hyde-White	...	The Colonel (as Wilfrid Hyde White)
Susan Beaumont	...	Nurse Frances James
Ann Firbank	...	Helen Lloyd
Joan Hickson	...	Sister
Cyril Chamberlain	...	Bert Able

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:G | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | UK:PG (video rating) (1988) | UK:U (original rating) | USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Heatherden Hall, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

Beaconsfield Productions

Trivia:

The "Carry On..." debut of Joan Sims. Sims became the longest serving female member of the Carry On team, appearing in 24 of the series from 1959.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the nurse is discovered hidden in the bed, she runs up the stairs in her underwear - but when she next appears both her petticoat and hairstyle are different.

Quotes:

The Colonel: Come come, Matron. Surely you've seen a temperature taken like this before?
Matron: Yes Colonel. But never with a daffodil!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Can We Carry On, Girls? (2001) (TV)

"Come come, Matron. Surely you've seen a temperature taken like this before?"

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.