Private Duty Nurses (1971)

Private Duty Nurses (1971). Private Duty Nurses: Directed by George Armitage. With Katherine Cannon, Joyce Williams, Pegi Boucher, Joseph Kaufmann. 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.

“This feels too…. serious-minded. This wasnu0026#39;t really all that much fun to watch (except for the Sky scenes – didnu0026#39;t know till someone on here wrote that the lead singer went on to form The Knack), and thereu0026#39;s a somewhat graphic rape scene about 2/3rds into the film that feels like itu0026#39;s there to add extra drama that isnu0026#39;t needed… or, perhaps it *Is*, but not in the way it goes about it. I should like how itu0026#39;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 thereu0026#39;s the loosest of thru-lines in each of the girlu0026#39;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 donu0026#39;t even friggin remember at this point and I just watched this several hours ago!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt hasnu0026#39;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 itu0026#39;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 isnu0026#39;t included in the SHOUT Factoryu0026#39;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.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIf anything it couldu0026#39;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). Itu0026#39;s impossible not to feel a bit like a snob trying to poke holes in this, but itu0026#39;s not about that; I know this is trash and know that it knows it as well. But… itu0026#39;s forgettable, and, aside from that rape scene I mentioned earlier, it doesnu0026#39;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 canu0026#39;t become a doctor, but… why canu0026#39;t she exactly? Women became doctors back then, didnu0026#39;t they? Sometimes?)u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn brief: perfectly acceptable to put on and completely ignore while you neck with your date. Perhaps the intention after all, but it doesnu0026#39;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 itu0026#39;s a bummer, and, as a u0026quot;seriousu0026quot; movie, not very interesting or presented with skill or cleverness.”