Night Nurse

The pre-Code Night Nurse’s feminist credentials announce themselves immediately in a head nurse’s admonition, “The successful nurse is one who keeps her mouth shut.” Tell it to Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell. The distinction between professionalism and ethics is central to Night Nurse, which delivers a sharp critique of Hippocratic hypocrisy while also providing plenty of occasions for nurses Stanwyck and Blondell to appear in dishy dishabille. Grace Perkins Oursler, who published the 1930 novel under the name Dora Macy, was the grandmother of artist Tony Oursler.