Fifty Classic British Films, 1932-1982

A Pictorial Record

Anthony Slide

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486148519
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Artes escénicas

200 striking photographs, in-depth commentaries, plot synposes, contemporary reviews, and more — about 50 British classics from yesterday and today. Preface. Text. Alphabetical list of films. Bibliography.

CARRY ON NURSE

Produced by Peter Rogers for Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy. Released 1959, Anglo Amalgamated Film Distributors (U.K.); 1960, Grosvenor Films (U.S.). 86 minutes. Black and white.

 

Director: Gerald Thomas. Screenplay: Norman Hudis. Cinematography: Reg Wyer. Art Direction: Alex Vetchinsky. Music: Bruce Montgomery. Film Editing: John Shirley.

 

CAST:

Patients

Kenneth Connor (Bernie Bishop); Kenneth Williams (Oliver Reckitt); Charles Hawtrey (Hinton); Terence Longdon (Ted York); Bill Owen (Percy Hickson); Leslie Phillips (Jack Bell); Cyril Chamberlain (Bert Able); Brian Oulton (Henry Bray); Wilfrid Hyde-White (The Colonel); Sidney James (Gladstone Screwer); Ed Devereaux (Alec Lawrence); Frank Forsyth (John Gray); John Mathews (Tom Mayhew); Graham Stewart (George Field); David Williams (Andrew Newman); Patrick Durkin (Jackson).

 

Visitors

Jill Ireland (Jill Thompson); Susan Shaw (Mrs. Janie Bishop); Irene Handl (Mrs. Marge Hickson); June Whitfield (Meg); Marianne Stone (Mrs. Alice Able); Hilda Fenemore (Mrs. Rhoda Bray); Martin Boddey (Perkins); Michael Medwin (Ginger); Norman Rossington (Norm).

 

Hospital Staff

Hattie Jacques (Matron); Joan Hickson (Sister); Shirley Eaton (Nurse Dorothy Denton); Susan Stephen (Nurse Georgie Axwell); Joan Sims (Nurse Stella Dawson); Susan Beaumont (Nurse Frances James); Ann Firbank (Nurse Helen Lloyd); Rosalind Knight (Nurse Nightie Nightingale); Marita Stanton (Nurse Rose Harper); Florence Knight (Nurse Willing); Harry Locke (Mick); Leigh Madison (Miss Winn); Stephanie Schiller (new nurse); Christine Ozanne (fat maid); Shane Cordell (wow-of-a-nurse); John Van Eyssen (Stephens); John Horsley (anaesthetist); Lucy Griffiths (civilian saleswoman); Anthony Sagar (first ambulance man); Fred Griffiths (second ambulance man); Charles Stanley (porter).

 

SYNOPSIS: An episodic, comedic study of life in the men’s wing of a large public hospital, where everyone is ruled by the stern and forbidding Matron, and the patients include a boxer with a broken wrist, a building worker with a broken leg, a prissy little man, a bookworm, and a Colonel who, from his private room, directs the nurses to place bets for him. Also among the patients is a newspaper reporter, Ted York, gathering material for an article on hospital life, who falls in love with the prettiest of the nurses, Dorothy Denton.

 

COMMENTARY: British cinema in the fifties and sixties offered a variety of comedy series, not all of which look fresh today. With Trouble in Store (1953), Up in the World (1956), The Square Peg (1958), and Follow a Star (1959), Norman Wisdom (b. 1920) endeared himself to the public as the British film industry’s answer to Charlie Chaplin, blending slapstick and sentiment in uneven doses, and crooning his theme song, “Don’t Laugh at Me ‘Cause I’m a Fool.” At the same time, handsome juvenile Dirk Bogarde (b. 1920) provided lighter, very innocuous humor with the “Doctor” series, based on the novels by Richard Gordon. Although successful in their day, Doctor in the House (1954), Doctor at Sea (1955), and Doctor in Distress (1963) now seem sadly dated and lackluster.

The one comedy series begun in the fifties which has remained vibrant (and vulgar), and which has never died, despite the demise of many of its regular players, is the “Carry On” series. All produced by Peter Rogers and directed by Gerald Thomas, the “Carry On” films continue the tradition of British music-hall humor; they have all the knockabout fun of the Crazy Gang shows, all the vulgarity of a Max Miller or Max Wall monologue. Whether verbal or visual, the humor is unfailingly vulgar. Even the titles smack of vulgarity, such as Carry On Cruising (1962), Carry On Camping (1968), Carry On Dick (1974), Carry On Behind (1975), and Carry On at Your Convenience (1971). (“Convenience” is the British name for a public lavatory.)

In The Carry-On Book by Kenneth Eastaugh, series regular Jim Dale explained the humor: “If on screen you see the front of a home and somebody opens a door and there’s a field behind, that’s American humor. If, when the door is opened, there’s a field with a lavatory in it, that’s French humor. If there’s a field with a lavatory and somebody sat on it, using it, that’s a ‘Carry On’ film.”

The hospital setting of Carry On Nurse provides endless opportunities for gags in this episodic feature—toilet paper becomes streamers, pubic hair is shaved with gusto, suppositories inserted with glee. One classic gag involves the Colonel, whose constant demands on the nurses drive them to seek revenge. They tell the Colonel that they must take his temperature prior to his release, and although the Colonel’s posterior is never seen, obviously there is a substitution for the anal thermometer. As the nurses prepare to photograph their unsuspecting victim, Matron enters and upon demanding what is going on is told by the Colonel, “Surely you’ve seen a temperature taken like this before.” “Oh, yes, Colonel, many times,” replies Matron, “but never with a daffodil.” The medical profession provided the “Carry On” team with two further features, Carry On Doctor and Carry On Again Doctor.

Carry On Nurse features many of the regulars of the series: Kenneth Connor, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, and Joan Sims. Other series regulars include Sidney James, Barbara Windsor, Peter Butterworth, Terry Scott, Jack Douglas, and Bernard Bresslaw. The music, interestingly, was composed by Bruce Montgomery, better known to readers of mystery novels as Edmund Crispin.

The first “Carry On” feature was Carry On Sergeant, released in 1958. (Twenty years later, there would be a “Carry On” compilation, That’s Carry On.) Carry On Nurse, however, was the first of the series to be released in the United States. No New York exhibitor would initially book the film, and so it opened, without reviews, in Los Angeles, running there for twenty-seven weeks. When reviews did appear, they were lukewarm. Florence Fletcher in Cue (September 10, 1960) was probably the most enthusiastic: “The witticisms in this British hospital men’s ward romp are right out of old-time vaudeville and the acting is broad enough to make sure that everyone gets the anatomical point.” Carry On Nurse became something of a cult favorite and indirectly paved the way for the American successes of the Monty Python troupe and Benny Hill.

Hospital visitors include Norm (Norman Rossington, left) and Ginger (Michael Medwin); on screen from the mid-forties, Medwin became a leading British producer as co-owner of Memorial Productions.

The love interest in Carry On Nurse is provided by Terence Longdon and Shirley Eaton as Ted York and Nurse Denton.

Matron (Hattie Jacques) confronts patient (Charles Hawtrey).

Wilfrid Hyde-White as the Colonel and Terence Longdon as Ted York.

SATLIRDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING

Produced by Harry Saltzman and Tony Richardson for Woodfall Films. Released 1960, British Lion/Bryanston (U.K.); 1961, Continental Distributing (U.S.). 89 minutes. Black and white.

Director: Karel Reisz. Screenplay: Alan Sillitoe (based on his novel). Cinematography: Freddie Francis. Art Direction: Ted Marshall. Music: Johnny Dankworth. Film Editing: Seth Holt.

CAST: Albert Finney (Arthur); Shirley Anne Field (Doreen); Rachel Roberts (Brenda); Hylda Baker (Aunt Ad...