It might not have been the best idea to watch all four of the "Nurses" movies that were packaged by the Shout Factory on DVD a few years ago one after another in the space of a week. At a certain point, especially considering how Corman and wife/producer Julie had a well-oiled machine as far conventions go, they started to blend together with the characters all being two white women and one black or Hispanic woman (sometimes there could be a fourth woman, but usually it was three), and while the black/Hispanic would be involved in an "issue" storyline, the others would have either a man they would be on/off with or other dramas going on. Only here and there would things take place *in* the hospital. In the case of The Young Nurses what helps a great deal is that the script is tightly plotted, there's good cross-cutting between the three stories, and it builds to things and is rarely boring.
Does that mean it's any great shakes or high art? Good lord no. But I enjoyed the actresses here and what they were tasked to do - Kitty (Jean Madison) fools around and maybe falls in love with a guy who has a boat (there's a lot of boat sailing and the like here); Joanne (Ashley Porter) wants to become a doctor and will do a lot to become one (nothing too dirty I think); and Michelle (Angela Gibbs) is seeing there's a drug ring at the hospital she'll try to bust - and I liked that Michelle's plot wasn't *as* much related to being about her race. The director Kimborough may not have the kind of material that made, say, Night Call Nurses memorable for its datedness (there's no wild filmmaking to try to show what a drug trip is), but that's to the movie's benefit - it comes in, does its thing, and gets out.
One note of interest for 'cineastes' out there: the magnificent director Samuel Fuller, of the tough pictures Pickup on South Street, Shock Corridor and the Big Red One, appears in a small role as a rather scummy character; he was one of the things that picked up the interest for me in the story, and among the cast he was one of the better (small-scene) players. If he had been in it more it might have risen even further above its limitations. But as it is, I liked where the stories went and that was enough to carry me through the material, even as the direction didn't stand out like Kaplan's entry in this (un-canon) series.
Does that mean it's any great shakes or high art? Good lord no. But I enjoyed the actresses here and what they were tasked to do - Kitty (Jean Madison) fools around and maybe falls in love with a guy who has a boat (there's a lot of boat sailing and the like here); Joanne (Ashley Porter) wants to become a doctor and will do a lot to become one (nothing too dirty I think); and Michelle (Angela Gibbs) is seeing there's a drug ring at the hospital she'll try to bust - and I liked that Michelle's plot wasn't *as* much related to being about her race. The director Kimborough may not have the kind of material that made, say, Night Call Nurses memorable for its datedness (there's no wild filmmaking to try to show what a drug trip is), but that's to the movie's benefit - it comes in, does its thing, and gets out.
One note of interest for 'cineastes' out there: the magnificent director Samuel Fuller, of the tough pictures Pickup on South Street, Shock Corridor and the Big Red One, appears in a small role as a rather scummy character; he was one of the things that picked up the interest for me in the story, and among the cast he was one of the better (small-scene) players. If he had been in it more it might have risen even further above its limitations. But as it is, I liked where the stories went and that was enough to carry me through the material, even as the direction didn't stand out like Kaplan's entry in this (un-canon) series.
