Private Duty Nurses (1971)

A trio of beautiful private-duty nurses that practice more than the medical arts must confront underground drug traffickers, racism and murder in their local hospital.

Director:

George Armitage

Writer:

George Armitage

Stars:

Katherine Cannon, Joyce Williams, Pegi Boucher

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Katherine Cannon	...	Spring (as Kathy Cannon)
Joyce Williams	...	Lola
Pegi Boucher	...	Lynn
Joseph Kaufmann	...	Dr. Doug Selden
Dennis Redfield	...	Domino
Robert F. Simon	...	Dr. Sutton
Morris Buchanan	...	Kirby
Herbert Jefferson Jr.	...	Dr. Elton
Paul Hampton	...	Dewey
Paul Gleason	...	Dr. McClintock
David Osterhout	...	Hank Ibsen
Cliff Carnell	...	Bartender
Meredith Duncan	...	Angela Selden
George Sawaya	...	Ahmed
Dinah Anne Rogers	...	Nurse Brandt (as Dinah Rogers)

Storyline

A trio of beautiful private-duty nurses that practice more than the medical arts must confront underground drug traffickers, racism and murder in their local hospital.

---

Plot Keywords:

breasts | nipples | sex scene | kissing while having sex | doctor | 

---

Taglines:

It's what they do off duty that's really private!

---

Genres:

Thriller

---

Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to the given release date - 1 September 1971 (USA), and the birth date given in her bio - September 6, 1953, Katherine Cannon was seventeen when the movie was filmed.

---

Connections

Followed by Candy Stripe Nurses (1974)

User Reviews

In brief: perfectly acceptable to put on and completely ignore while you neck with your date

This feels too.... serious-minded. This wasn't really all that much fun to watch (except for the Sky scenes - didn't know till someone on here wrote that the lead singer went on to form The Knack), and there's a somewhat graphic rape scene about 2/3rds into the film that feels like it's there to add extra drama that isn't needed... or, perhaps it *Is*, but not in the way it goes about it. I should like how it's all loose and without needing a solid structure, but its lack of focus is kind of a detriment here. Things just happen, even as there's the loosest of thru-lines in each of the girl's stories as they try to become nurses; one has an environmental kind of narrative, she sees a guy die on a beach due to polluted water and her new boyfriend investigates; one woman; the black one of course, tries to work for the black doctor who tries to, you know, become the first black doctor at the hospital with some difficult results; the other girl... I don't even friggin remember at this point and I just watched this several hours ago!

It hasn't aged well past the music from Sky being decent, though not totally remarkable - an example of what was typical, easy hard rock at the time, not challenging but not overly poppy - and while the acting is passable it's no great shakes. I think the whole thing goes down to the script just being a collection of scenes; this may sound like a complaint that holds no water due to it being a Corman drive-in/grindhouse(ish) quickie meant to ride off the coat-tails of The Student Nurses (ironically the one that kicked things off isn't included in the SHOUT Factory's DVD set of New World movies with Nurses), to the point where the movie got named due to the fact that the only group that complained about that previous movie were the *actual* Private Duty Nurses who wrote a letter to Corman saying that nurses really do a lot of hard work and want to take care of their patients and blah blah etc.

If anything it could've simply used more colorful characters, or more bizarre or inventive things for people to do or say or set pieces (perhaps Armitage understood this and did better, in collaboration with Jonathan Kaplan, a year later in Night Call Nurses). It's impossible not to feel a bit like a snob trying to poke holes in this, but it's not about that; I know this is trash and know that it knows it as well. But... it's forgettable, and, aside from that rape scene I mentioned earlier, it doesn't feature anything that makes it stand out that could be considered as, well, a *positive* image of womanhood or femininity (sure, the movie points out, or one of the characters does, that she is trying to be a nurse since she can't become a doctor, but... why can't she exactly? Women became doctors back then, didn't they? Sometimes?)

In brief: perfectly acceptable to put on and completely ignore while you neck with your date. Perhaps the intention after all, but it doesn't work as something you got to pay attention to past the nudie bits (which are fine) and the rock and roll. But above all it's a bummer, and, as a "serious" movie, not very interesting or presented with skill or cleverness.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 September 1971 (USA)

Also Known As:

Young L.A. Nurses 3

Filming Locations:

Manhattan Beach, California, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$202,802

Company Credits

Production Co:

New World Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1