FT Top 100 Films
66: CARRY ON NURSE
During the drunken session that created this list, there was some suggestion that Carry On Nurse did not even exist as a film. This idea was very attractive to us, what better to represent the nebulous, huge canon of Carry On films than one which exists of half remembered snippets of all the doctor episodes. Because there were a few.
Carry On Doctor Again
Carry On Doctor
Carry On Matron
Not to mentiont he entire Doctor At Large series with Dirk Bogarde which are almost honorary Carry On films.
Carry On Nurse is in black and white and therefore less seen than most. It was also the second Carry On which, if you consider the idea of perfecting a formula, may well make it the best of the Carry On’s. It certainly has the cast for it. A clumsy young Joan Sims, the two Kenneth’s and of course Hattie Jacques masterful Matron. It is without Babs Windsor and Sid James though which perhaps reduces its claim to be a representative Carry On film.
Can I remember any of it? The hospital based Carry On’s are impossible to remember separately. There will be rectal invasion jokes, ridiculously complex set pieces which involve syringes,and much male humiliation at the hands of the nurses. No real engaging plot, and probably less jokes than you would imagine. But late fifties suggests the smut level will be low and probably there will be a better attempt at turning it into a reputable comedy. The plot of a young, pretty nurse trying to make her way in her new job is much sweeter than many of the later excuses for a get together, but in the end it is a Carry On film. It might be the best, but then a lot of us did not even believe it existed. Take from that what you will.