"Carry On Nurse" 1959

By all accounts the film that really made the series, becoming a hit in America and assuring the filmmakers that the "Carry On…" series would work. I’m not entirely sure exactly how "Carry On Nurse" achieved this. I always used to maintain that it was the worst in the series, too dull for words, with only two decent jokes. Watching it today under heavier scrutiny I found it to be far more enjoyable than I’d previously regarded it, but it’s still a huge step-down from "Carry On Sergeant". The style is the same, the opening theme tune is the same, the jokes are on the same line, and it even reuses almost every cast member from that earlier gem. But it’s somehow less satisfying.

Part of this problem is down to the narrative structure – basically, it doesn’t have one. Whereas "Sergeant" had a force acting it on (Hartnell trying to train his platoon to become champions), "Nurse" isn’t afforded this luxury. There is little noticeably different at the end of this film compared to the beginning, and it certainly lacks a finale as warming as it’s predecessor. "Nurse" is really a long series of sketches, all of which typically end on a slapstick stunt, with only a few character relationships being built up on throughout, and only one ambling plot line being introduced about 20 minutes from the end. The running time is perhaps the shortest of the entire series at only 82 minutes, and yet half an hour or so could easily be culled, making it a snappier, shorter and far less boredom-inducing affair. It really runs as just an appendix (a-ha-ha-ha) of every hospital related joke the writer could find at the time, and it suffers for this. Whereas, for instance, "Carry On Matron" has a setting and a plot to go with it, and bases it’s jokes around this, in "Nurse" the plot IS Joan Sims walking into a tea trolley, or Charles Hawtrey falling out of bed whilst pretending to play the piano.

It also doesn’t seem to know where it’s going with its characters. Terence Longdon is a new patient to the male ward at the film’s opening, and one expects for the film to begin with the other patients "showing him the ropes", telling him the schedules, who to keep out of the way of, which nurses to keep on eye on and so forth. Instead, no one does this. Longdon appears to be being set up as the star of the film, and within 8 minutes and 30 seconds of being there has fallen head-over-heels for Nurse Shirley Eaton, who barely returns his glances. One then thinks "OK, fine, the film is going to involve Longdon trying to get his hands on Eaton". Well, not really, no. Like the romance between Eaton and Bob Monkhouse, it’s shifted to one side after about 25 minutes, and hardly ever referred to again until the conclusion (in which they walk off, arm in arm, despite Eaton having been pining for a completely different character up till then). Indeed, the same could be said for the two characters themselves – despite star billing on publicity material, Shirley Eaton seemingly exists purely as someone for Longdon to talk to, and once he gets ignored in favour of Kenneth Conner and the others, Eaton disappears also. It’s not the most subtle of romances anyway (he remarks "I think you’re wonderful," after having been in her company for less than 15 minutes), and so it isn’t much of a loss to the viewer that the idea is dropped in favour of better material. Longdon is curiously stilted also, and only manages to deliver one gag right (when answering a survey form: "Religion?" "Which lot has the best record of recovery?"). In a way, it’s not surprising they were dropped from the next film, before making minor appearances in "Constable" (and "Regardless" for Longdon) and then vanishing forever from the "Carry On…" fold.

The film really has no star – characters are continuously introduced, and then fade into the background for a spell. Kenneth Conner, playing a boxer with a broken fist, has a great line when he arrives that harks back to his character in Sergeant ("Not going in there, it’s full of sick people!"), and then indulges in some not particularly subtle "topical" conversations with Kenneth Williams’s intellectual, swotting up on nuclear physics for an examination:

"I’m a boxer."

"How savage."

"No more savage than what you’re doing mate…" (cue short ramble about scientists fiddling with people’s faces, giving them five eyes and such)

After that he floats about, appearing in a lot of scenes but never really drawing your attention. It is really a very subtle performance, and probably one of his best in the series. There’s a particular scene in which we can see Conner for the great actor that he was – it’s when his wife visits him in hospital, and he asks her if she’d prefer it if he never fought again. When she answers that she doesn’t like him fighting, but wants him to be happy, he replies "I’m glad I married you, Jane," with a quiet but noticeable break in his voice. It really is a very heart warming little scene.

Bill Owen is back, playing a droll annoyed bloke with a broken leg, who makes dry observations throughout, and has a rather nice bit with wife Irene Handl (one of the best actresses of the era). Owen also gets perhaps the best joke of the film, replying to one of the sisters:

"It’s Matron’s round!"

"Well mine’s a pint!"

Also confined to a bed is Charles Hawtrey, still turning up the jitteriness a bit too much, and criminally wasted in a small role that merely asks for him to listen to a radio and mime piano playing. However, his laughter at a radio comedy when unknowingly confronted by the Matron is infectious, and Hawtrey gets the first instance of transvestism in the series, when he is made to dress as a nurse during a secret operation towards the end of the film. I have a theory that at least 75% of the "Carry On…" films have transvestism in them. I’m not entirely sure why; the sight of a man dressed as a lady doesn’t exactly make one fall off one’s chair with merriment, and truth be told only a few actors can really get away with it. The fact that Hawtrey actually looks fairly normal when dressed as a nurse says quite a lot about his characterisation of these early ones; interestingly, though he’d camp it up more as time went on, he seemed to play characters with clearly heterosexual ambitions increasingly regularly.

One also cannot review "Nurse" without mentioning one of the most iconic figures of the series; that of Hattie Jacques’ Matron (and, for the record, the exact phrase of "Oooo, Matron!" isn’t uttered once during this film). You might be surprised to learn that she only appears in a handful of scenes (I’d guess that she has no more than 10 minutes of screen time), and doesn’t exactly play it as the dreadful harridan you often hear about; that’s one myth about these films quashed. The Matron is a stickler for rules, and slightly aloof, but she is not unreasonable, and Jacques plays her as someone who is simply lost in her high standards. Though not exactly a character to sympathise with, she’s far warmer than you expect her to be, and her little smile at the end of the film, having extricated a daffodil from Wilfred Hyde-White’s backside, allows her to finally show us that, yes, she’s a human being too.

However, there are two actors who in particular steal all of their scenes, and are positively electrifying. Not literally, of course. That would be silly. Anyway, the first of these is Kenneth Williams.

Williams is still playing the slightly snobbish superior, nose firmly in the air a lot of the time. He begins by launching into a rant about the inefficiency of the hospital and the infuriating influence of the Matron, directed mostly to no one but himself, before turning to Kenneth Conner and starting introductions. He is wrapped up in his educational endeavours for much of the film, and is often emotionally distanced from the other male characters. This is most obviously seen in a section where a beautiful nurse walks through the ward; we see reaction shots of most of the patients ("Cor!" "That’s a bit of all right!"), which are capped off with a quick cut to Williams (bizarrely in a completely different section of the hospital), who looks up from his book, and utters that immortal phrase "The sex mad fools!" I loved this line so much on first viewing that it became a regular catchphrase of mine on the Outpost Gallifrey message forum, back in the days when I used to think pretending to be someone completely opposed to matters of a sexual manner was endearing (the joke was on me). Williams is also firmly against meaningless bureaucracy, and stands up to the authority of the Matron at all times, belittling what he sees to be rules of no value and of no point.

"I’ll explain, Matron. If a doctor asks me to hang from one arm from the ceiling, wearing an aqualung, with my birthday tattooed on my left buttock, in shorthand, I’ll do it. He aims to cure me. Your rule has nothing to do with my cure and therefore has no meaning in here."

However, this is far from a one-note caricature. Williams displays tenderness (more on this in a minute), a wish to help, arrogance, and humility. In a scene where the patients have supposedly consumed several bottles of champagne, Williams is the only one who acts drunk with any conviction (indeed, aside from Hawtrey, he’s the only one who actually tries to act drunk at all!) Later, when the group find an operating theatre, Williams having agreed to get rid of Leslie Phillips’ bunion personally, the expression on his face as he surveys the theatre is fascinating, dissolving from awe, to glee, and to an almost malicious integrity in his new surroundings; this is his world now, and he can do what he likes. Coupled with a doom laden musical track, it’s a very sinister opening to a very macabre scene, in which he prepares to operate whilst Conner fills the room with laughing gas (who utilises the phrase "Frying tonight!" years before it became synonymous with "Carry On Screaming!"); the sight of a masked Williams, sharpening two knifes, whilst unconsciously laughing hysterically is both funny and scary at the same time.

One surprising aspect of "Nurse" is that Kenneth Williams is given a love interest! Though this happened occasionally once he became the mincing machine of the late 60s and the 70s, there it always felt bolted on just so that he could gasp at an outrageous pun before the film ended. However, here, at the genesis of the series, the romance is handled extremely well, far more so than the Longdon/Eaton affair. Williams, swotting up for his physics exam, is visited by his friend’s sister (played by Jill Ireland) who brings him some books to read. The two have met before, and so we have none of that questionable "love at first sight" guff; indeed, Ireland later says "I haven’t stopped thinking about you ever since we first met", or words to that effect. Williams is initially unaware of her feelings towards him, though smiles and chats politely to her as a natural manner of course. It is only when told by Kenneth Conner that "she’d like to be [your girlfriend]" that Williams realises, and eagerly awaits her company on the next visiting hour. Though their scenes together only equal four in total, you really feel as though they think the world of each other: "For the first time in my life I don’t know what to say… Wonderful, isn’t it?" It’s a superb pairing, and I think this goes down as Kenneth Williams’ best acting role in the entire series.

The other actor who I mentioned as being one of the very best is, of course, the great Leslie Phillips. He doesn’t actually turn up till half way through, but as soon as he walks through those doors with a "Hello chaps!" and a "Ding dong, you’re not wrong!" directed to a pretty nurse, you begin to grin. He just exudes a confident charm that never slips into arrogance – he’s a man who wants to have fun, and, by golly, he’s going to have it! He is never lecherous, and his chat up lines and flirting come over as purely harmless fun ("Nothing to eat for you, Mr. Bell." "No, of course not darling. Ah, er, Nurse!") He’s never totally serious when he flirts with the nurses, as he’s completely devoted to his girlfriend/wife (a young June Whitfield), who visits him twice during the course of the film, and who he has planned to have a naughty week with in a hotel he’s already booked for. His exasperation as he has to spend yet another day in the hospital is a delight to witness, and as he plans to get away from the place by expediting the medical process with help from Williams ("He drinks my bubbly, oh yes, but he won’t remove my bunion!") you can easily sympathise with his position.

As Phillips enters the film, you can feel the tone and style of the series begin to change. Up till now it’s been wholly innocent, gentle fun, with no serious undertones, and everything being played for what it is in a holier than thou way – chaps only plan to have it away with a gal once married. You can sense Terence Longdon knowing that he’s been recast – his suave jackal belongs to the 50s, and has no place in a "Carry On…" Instead, we have Leslie Phillips, pretty much playing the same part, but with far more flair. He sparkles, he’s fun to be around, every line of his lifted by that wonderful accent. His mind is more obviously on a bit of the other, and he strives to get some in the most tasteful way possible. He signifies the shift from light-hearted fun to bawdy, classic, innuendo-filled comedy, though unfortunately only sticks around for three films and so doesn’t get to front his revolution for long. Of course, there would be one final change – just as Longdon morphs into Phillips, so Phillips morphs into Sidney James, he of the dirty chuckle, and arguably the star of the series; you can’t see Leslie taking Sid’s place in something like "Carry On Again Doctor". Phillips is however the linchpin in terms of the evolving agenda of what the films were really about. I also prefer him to Sid James, but that’s just me.

It is unfortunate then that such an important film, and one that has so much to offer, is dragged down by a situation that goes nowhere, and some misjudged and stale gags. There’s an over-reliance on physical comedy, usually accompanied by irritating sound effects (such as a "wah-wah-wahhh" trumpet), or needless reaction shots; for instance, the porter hits the cleaning lady on the backside by accident with a broom. They both fall over. Cut to a close up of the lady saying "Do you mind?!" It’s not funny, and it doesn’t work, and makes the joke bomb – unfortunately a stylistic choice that remains on and off throughout the rest of the series. I firmly believe that the "Carry On…"s would be far more respected if the sound scores were completely redone and toned down. We don’t near to hear a "Whoops!" style sound effect when a character knows she’s made a cock-up, or a "Doing!!!" at a supposedly cheeky moment; it’s just embarrassing.

Innuendo is relegated to one badly delivered line – when Kenneth Conner has his trousers forcibly removed by a nurse, she says "All that fuss about such a little thing!", placing a strange emphasis on the word "thing", and killing off the joke straight away. One gets the feeling then that Hawtrey’s excited "I shall be at it the moment I get out!" having heard a radio broadcast is purely unintentional. Some jokes are rather contrived; for some brain-dribbling reason the button for the visiting-hours bell is placed right next to that for the fire alarm, just so that Joan Sims can press the latter and start up some stock footage of fire engines, and all for an "Oh crikey!" pay off. The scenes with Wilfred Hyde-White are intrusive, and don’t really add anything, as splendid an actor as White is; they simply interrupt the flow (such as it is). And whoever let Rosalind Knight near this film ought to be shot.

I mean, look at her!!! She looks like the forgotten lovechild of Eric Morecambe and Dame Edna Everage. Knight is apparently a student nurse, and so the sisters give her the unenviable job of simply keeping watch over a sleeping patient. This she does in as exaggerated a fashion as possible, keeping a constant vigil, eyes never leaving him, even when she’s being passed a cup of tea. This, one suspects, is the joke; a nurse being giving a boring job, but performing it beyond the call of duty. However, in Knight’s hands this role becomes a death sentence for the film for a good five minutes. When she reports that the patient "opened his eyes!" and proceeds to demonstrate, any goodwill one has towards the film shrivels up and dies. Thank God Leslie Phillips makes his entrance shortly afterwards.

So, it’s not perfect, and certainly needs a more concrete story, and better conclusions for its plot threads. I’m not too fond of the film overall, barring a superb performance from Kenneth Williams; it’s just way too dull. However, it’s can’t be debated how important the film was to the series financially, and stylistically, Leslie Phillips almost single-handedly spearheading a comedy renascence. And, hoorah, he’s in the next film too! Ding dong!

Next up: Carry On Teacher