I Watch Films: Carry On Nurse

 

Carry On Nurse

The second Carry On film. The film revolves around a ward in a hospital, with the main characters being the male patients and the staff (mostly the female nurses, with Mick the orderly). Supporting characters include the visitors and the doctors. The film begins and ends with the stay of journalist Ted York. It doesn’t have much of a plot: Ted and his editor take the opportunity for him to write about hospitals, which goes nowhere; Ted and Nurse Denton flirt and it turns out to be more serious than usual in the end. A second plotline is Student Nurse Dawson, who gets everything wrong gaining some self-confidence, but again this just sort of happens when we’re not looking. Mostly it’s about the various eccentric characters having hospital-related incidents that are more or less amusing.

The Colonel has a private room at the end of the ward and is always calling, wanting to talk to Mick the Orderly, who is placing bets for him. One of the things he bets on is the length of Matron’s inspection, the setpiece where every patient gets to do a bit, the Ward Sister transforms from strong and in charge to worried and Nurse Dawson inevitably messes up.

Towards the end a bit of action occurs; Jack Bell is in to have his bunion removed but it keeps getting delayed, which is putting off him flying away with his ladyfriend. Rather than waste the champagne the main male characters drink it, then come up with the idea of doing the operation themselves. This is suitably farcical, involving actor Charles Hawtrey cross-dressing for the first time in the series, as well as some nonsense involving laughing gas.

That it’s got no particular plot might even work to its advantage, allowing the film to just look at the daily routine of the hospital and find some entertainment there. There’s a couple of good knob jokes, the nurses, even Dawson, all dealing with male genitals in a matter-of-fact way.

Watch This: Old-fashioned yet classic comedy, sketch-style hospital film
Don’t Watch This: The best jokes have been adapted later, and there’s no plot