The raucous one-liners never end in this outlandish 1931 Pre-Code, set in private health care hell. You get ethical bootleggers, lascivious drunks, lingerie clad nurses (like gum smacking, and forever glove fiddling, Joan Blondell), and a menacing, yet dashing, future heartthrob hell bent on diabolical child abuse. Although the hospital staff seem rather dubious, ...their ambulance is a real vintage vehicle beauty and it's always thrilling to watch old time street scenes as the drivers roll through pre-recorded authentic American traffic. I'm a dedicated lover of looking out the back window during any films moving cab or car scene to view locomotion from past decades. It's truly astonishing that automobiles have evolved so much over the years. Best of all is young Clark Gable as a slick, dark haired, sexy brute throwing his nefarious weight around and spouting witty dialogue like "Hi, I'm NICK, the chauffeur!". Although dressed head to toe in a villainous black uniform complete with high top riding boots and a fist that doesn't flinch when slugging women, (even at Night Nurse Barbara Stanwyck's chin), I almost slid off the couch in a sinuous faint for that hunky he-man Mr. Gable! "In a big way, sister" ...especially garbed in that sexy form fitted chauffeurs uniform. The entire 72min of questionable milk baths and Murphy drips, along with a few of MGM's upcoming stars at the dawn of their careers, is worth a gander. Where else can you hear an actress proclaim "I'm a dipsomaniac, ...and I LIKE IT!" AND "I'm a nymphomaniac, ...and PROUD OF IT!"? Censor boards be damned and a pre-code film means just that, ...lots of saucy dialogue. Have at it folks!

" . . . can keep her mouth shut," we learn in NIGHT NURSE. Discretion is nine-tenths of the law, according to the Florence Nightengale Code recited in unison by a class of graduating nurses early in this movie. Barbara Stanwyck's "Nurse Lora" character is the fly in the ointment here, unwilling to play ball according to the Rules of Big Medicine. She cannot seem to remember that everyone has to die sometime, and that the Medical Profession needs to turn a handsome profit, just like any other. America's serial killers often gravitate to Her nursing homes, veteran's hospitals, and extended care facilities. It's an unwritten rule that nobody should get their noses out of joint UNTIL the miscreant has offed 35 to 40 patients OR a former U.S. President--whichever comes first. Doctors' country club fees don't grow on trees, so the NIGHT NURSE's boss physician naturally is upset when she resists his careful planning in starving two thrown away toddlers to control their trust fund. Hasn't Lora ever heard the expression, "Doctor knows best"?

"The Public Enemy" director William Wellman tackles the issue of medical ethics in this blue-collar melodrama. A young Barbara Stanwyck stars as the crusading nurse heroine who sets out to save the children from the despicable likes of Clark Gable--in a loan-out role--as a slimy small time hood who has no qualms about slugging women. This snappy 72-minute, black & white expose about hospitals and nurses is gripping but often sordid tale. Wellman doesn't appropriate the usual romantic conventions. The romantic scenes between them as they flirt are put on the back burner in favor to the graphic plot about children-in-jeopardy. Barbara Stanwyck's performance seems callow and uncertain at time, nothing like she was later in "Baby Face," but Joan Blondell is her usual jaunty self. It is exciting to catch Clark Gable at this point in his illustrious career before he made good at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He delivers an electrifying performance as a hood that stands out above all else."Night Nurse" emerges as a departure from the typical Hollywood production in the wake of the silent picture. Pay attention to all those tracking shots when Wellman moves the camera. Early Hollywood sound pictures were primarily static because producers and directors were fearful of generating sound when they moved their cameras. Moreover, Wellman recorded live audio when he moved his cameras which was something of an innovation. He was one of the first filmmakers to dangle a microphone from a boom. If you have any doubts about the use of boom mikes, look for the tell-tale shadows of the boom mikes. The opening shots lensed through the windshield of an ambulance careening down one street then another to a hospital emergency room is pretty invigorating stuff, enough so Wellman ended "Night Nurse" with this same sequence.Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck)wants to be a nurse. She nearly misses the chance because she lacks a high school diploma. Wellman and his scribes make her sympathetic from the start because her mother's death forced her to drop out of high school. Since she doesn't have the diploma, a stern-minded nurse refuses to accept her. Fortunately for Lora, the man hurriedly entering the hospital's front entrance revolving door catches her as she exits and knocks her handball to the ground. This callous gentleman turns is the influential Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger of "Nothing Sacred") and he persuades the Superintendent of Nurses, Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis of "Intolerance") to give Lora a chance. "Rules are important," Dillon dictates, and "Night Nurse" is about about breaking rules, not only in the medical field but also in the movies. Dillon assigns another nurse, Maloney (Joan Blondell of "Three on a Match"), to show Lora the ropes, and those ropes are tightropes.First, Maloney warns Lora not to fall in love with either doctors or interns. Cynically, Maloney recommends patients with dough. Second,the nurses must follow strict rules or lose their jobs. For example, she has one hour to herself and must work until 7 pm. As long as she is in bed with lights out by 10 pm, she has nothing to fear. Moreover, if they are caught out of bed after 10 pm, they face the prospect of additional night shifts. Later, Lora learns that she earns a paltry $56 per week. A cocksure intern, Eagan (Edward J. Nugent of "Prison Shadows"), pulls a practical joke on Lora. Eagan stashes a human skeleton in her bed. Lora screams and he pokes his head in to laugh at them. Meanwhile, the scream has awakened Miss Dillon who storms into their room. Maloney mistakes Dillon for Eagan and flings a slipper at her. Dillon makes Lora take two weeks on the night shift at the emergency clinic. Eventually, Lora graduates from the nursing program and gets a night nurse job with an unscrupulous Dr. Milton A. Ranger (Ralf Harolde of "Killer Shark") who explains that the best nurses is keep her mouth shut.One evening, Lora patches up a wounded bootlegger, Mortie (Ben Lyon of "Indiscreet"), who persuades her not to report his bullet wound. They become friends, and Mortie saves Lora later when she finds herself in a tight spot. Maloney handles the day shift, while Lora works the night shift,attending to two children, Nanny (Marcia Mae Jones of "The Champ") and Desney (Betty Jane Graham of "Alias the Doctor"), suffering from malnutrition.One evening, when she tries to help the drunken Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam of "Alimony Madness"), Lora is assaulted by the drunken boyfriend and Nick, the Chauffeur (Clark Gable of "Gone with the Wind") intervenes. Lora is about to call the police, but Nick clobbers her on the chin. When Mrs. Maxwell, the Housekeeper (Blanche Friderici of "Thirteen Women") lets slip that Dr. Ranger and Nick, the Chauffeur are in cahoots to kill them for their trust fund money, Lora goes to Dr. Bell. Bell warns her that nobody will believe her hysterical accusations about Ranger. When Lora wants to quit, Bell convinces her to continue to work so she can gather evidence to be used against Ranger and Nick. Lora and Mrs. Maxwell are trying to save Nanny with a milk bath when Nick intervenes. There is a wonderful close-up of the bath tub being emptied out into the silk with the doll that Nanny had that sums up the old saying do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Anyhow, things are touch and go until Mortie shows up with a pistol in his pocket and sends Nick packing."Night Nurse" is an interesting and entertaining Pre-Code film where convenient things happen.

**SPOILERS** Shocking film involving the brutal and Neanderthal Nick, Clark Gable, the family chauffeur and his partner in crime the unscrupulous Dr. Milton Ranger, Ralf Harolde, planing to do the unthinkable; Starving two little girls Densey & Nanny, Betty Jane Graham & Marcia Mea Jones, to death in order to get their greedy hands on the girls trust fund money!Getting the two girl's widowed mom Mrs. Ritchey, Charlotte Merriam, good and drunk Nick and Dr. Ranger also known as "Twitchy" cut down the food intake for Desney & Nanny slowly having them die from malnutrition. That's until the in house night nurse Lora Hart, Barbara Stanwyck, shows up on the scene. Trying to get the two girls help, and away from Dr. Ranger, Lora is threatened with bodily harm or worse from the brutish Nick who's, from judging his gangster-like manner, killed before and, with little provocation, will kill again!**SPOILER ALERT** Lora herself ends up on the receiving end of a straight right, that almost knocked her bottom teeth out, courtesy of Nick when she dared to try to call the police to get them to rescue little Desney & Nanny. Despertely Lora finally gives in and gets her bootlegger boyfriend Mortie, Ben Lyon, to do the job that nobody seems to want to do! Put and end to Nick's reign of terror, on the Richey household, by finally putting him out of operation and in his place: The City Morgue!Electrifying performance by a very young, just out of her teens, Barbara Stanwyck as the heroic as well as abused, by her boss Dr. Ranger, nurse Lora Hart. Risking both her job as well as her health, in volunteering for a massive blood transfusion, Lora went out of her way to save the little girls who had only days if not hours left to live. It was when Lora's good friend, who got her the job as a nurse in the first place, the kindly but looking the other way, in what Dr. Ranger was doing, Dr. Arthur Bell, Charles Winninger, finally grew a pair of you know what and not only came to Desney and Nanny's rescue, in defiance of the evil Dr. Ranger, that this horror or horrors the wanton starving of the little girls finally came to and end! Together with that motley crew of murderous sickos weirdos and drunks like Mrs. Ritchey and her always boozed up boyfriend Mack, Walter McGrail!