Carry On Nurse

Shirley Eaton - Nurse Dorothy Denton
Kenneth Connor - Bernie Bishop
Charles Hawtrey - Hinton
Kenneth Williams - Oliver Reckitt
Hattie Jacques - Matron
Leslie Phillips - Jack Bell
Terence Longdon - Ted York
Joan Sims Nurse - Stella Dawson
Susan Stephen - Georgie Axwell
Bill Owen - Percy Hickson
Wilfrid Hyde-White - The Colonel
Susan Shaw - Mrs. Jane Bishop
Irene Handl - Madge Hickson
Michael Medwin - Ginger
Norman Rossington - Norm
Rosalind Knight - Nurse Nightingale
Jill Ireland - Jill Thompson

The immense success of the first Carry On film came as a huge surprise to most of the people concerned. Once it became clear that their first fully-fledged comedy film was a hit, Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas set about planning a further project. Carry On Nurse once again used a familiar setting, the jokes were corny, and the emphasis was on lavatorial humour.

The combination of a cheery community of male bonding and lustful dreams, the man in the street battling against authority (this time the stern figure of Matron Hattie Jacques), regular chats with jolly rogue Leslie Phillips and nurses such as the gorgeous Shirley Eaton is almost enough to break your leg for and get in. However, it falls to Connor, Hawtrey and a maniacally anxious Williams to bombard the medical profession with camp innuendo, pathetic whining, one-upmanship and childish play. The Carry On regulars again roll out the stereotypes, Hawtrey minces and giggles from his hospital bed while locked into his radio headphones for most of the film, Connor stumbles and bumbles as an unwilling and sexually uneasy boxer with a broken hand and Williams plays his big-headed bookworm with sardonic relish. Williams throws himself energetically into a battle of wills with frosty Hattie Jacques. Nurse was a major success both in England and, amazingly, America. The film became the highest grossing in Britain for 1959.
Review© Robert Ross: Carry On Companion.