User Reviews

This was a savvy little number that exists in the alternate universe of pre-Code. It is in no way connected to the real world, which makes it significantly more enjoyable. Bebe Daniels and the cast of nurses are are nicely naughty. The film is immoral at its core (happy ending achieved by the manipulated suicide of the mentally ill husband - not totally comfortable with that).

The highlight of the entire enterprise occurs when the madam and the head nurse discuss the challenge of keeping their "best girls" under employ. Luckily, their businesses just "...run on and on and on and on..." Viewers will recognize many great character actors in this movie. Mayo Methot (the third Mrs. Bogart), Minna Gombel from The Thin Man and The Best Years of Our Lives, the jug-earned wonder that is Vince Barnett from The Killers, and Lyle Talbot from 42nd Street, Glen or Glenda, and Plan 9 From Outer Space. (You've got to give it up to Mr. Talbot. He did not completely embarrass himself, even in Ed Wood movies. The man had a gift. Plus, he helped found the Screen Actors Guild and was a good unionist.)

During the economic depression, socially conscious movies exposing the shenanigans of big business, prisons etc became popular and doctors and faceless hospitals also came under attack - "Men In White", "Private Worlds" etc. Then there were films like "Registered Nurse" who didn't know what it wanted to be - it seemed to settle for glossy soap opera!!!

With opening music more fitting to "Showgirls on Parade" than "Registered Nurse", not even finding that John Halliday or even Minna Gombell are in the cast is very comforting. Although they do try and Minna comes up trumps, even with the sudsy storyline she is given (she is engaged to a policeman and they are desperately saving for a little house in the country until one fatal night when he confronts an armed robber...you get the picture!!) That scenario must have turned the hard boiled Miss Gombell's stomach!!!

Sylvia Benson (Bebe Daniels) is married to belligerent drunk (Gordon Westcott) but after a violent quarrel which results in a car crash, she decides to go back to nursing. Three years later Benson is the best nurse at the hospital, all the doctors think so including dedicated surgeon Dr. Hedwig (John Halliday) and chronic skirt chaser Dr. Connolly (Lyle Talbot) who claims "First base - I'm still on the bench with her"!!! She is fighting them both off but she seems to be falling for Connolly's "charms"!! I thought a lot more could have been made of Mayo Methot's character, a tough nurse who is finding it hard letting go of Connolly. She was quite capable of being nasty to Benton and I was waiting for the old Mayo to spring into action. But Florey, usually so good, substituted comedy for dramatics - even stalwart, dependable Beulah Bondi was caught in the middle of a wrestling match between patients. This was not Florey's finest hour!!

Sylvia has a secret!! Yes, after the car crash her husband went insane and is now in an asylum. That's why any mention of insanity causes the usually efficient Benson to go into a dead faint!! and also why she is keeping the doctors at arms length whenever they mention marriage. Suddenly he escapes and finds himself at the same hospital where Sylvia is stationed (he doesn't know that) wanting an operation to return his sanity so he can make up to his wife for all those bitter years. A chance conversation with an interfering patient paves the way for Sylvia to find true happiness with......

"42nd Street" gave Bebe Daniel's career a new lease of life. All through the 20s she had been one of Paramount's brightest stars until sound came in and suddenly the head honchos didn't want to know. She showed them what for with "Rio Rita" and "42nd Street" which proved she could sing as well as act. "Registered Nurse" was one of the last movies Bebe made before she and her husband Ben Lyon made their home in England.

After a car accident leaves her alcoholic husband madder than a hatter, party girl Bebe Daniels returns to her former profession of nursing and quickly gains a reputation for her cool and caring bedside manner. With the young Dr. Lyle Talbot and the aging Dr. John Halliday vying for her affections, Daniels deals with difficult patients, heading into where angels fear to tread. In what appears to be a single night, she deals with a variety of wacky patients including an unmarried couple (Sidney Toler and Irene Franklin), a bunch of rambunctious wrestlers, and the issues of several of her fellow nurses. Then, in the midst of all this drama, her estranged hubby comes in, leading to her past being revealed and a dramatic climax.

Although this was years before the "Dr. Kildare" series of MGM films and the many television shows about life in a hospital, this seems rather ordinary and sort of soapy, as if it was a live version of some radio serial. Daniels is likable, but the situations aren't really believable, and the lecherous attentions she gets from the older Halliday just seem creepy. Veteran character actress Beaulah Bondi is wasted as a kindly head nurse. A subplot about a panicking nurse and a doctor loosing his nerve while in surgery are never fully developed. This seems like part of the script was finished and everything else was just rushed together.

The main thing I don't like about "Registered Nurse" is the title. To me it conjures up an image of a selfless nurse in some small town or rural community who is working hard to help a fascinating cross- section of patients recover their health or cope with various disabilities. But, Bebe Daniels, our registered nurse here (her beauty mostly hidden by her uniform), is head nurse in a large city hospital. Well, this could be a promising storyline too, but it doesn't work out that way. For one thing, Lyle Talbot is not my idea of a charismatic leading man, let alone a skilled surgeon. But far more disturbing are several extremely violent episodes (one involving the actor who usually plays Charlie Chan) which are treated as comic. I don't see anything funny about ending up in hospital beds with serious injuries, even if the protagonists are mentally defective. Yes, this is a hospital that tolerates extremely low standards of behavior. But there is even worse to come. In order to tidy up the plot… well, I won't reveal what they did, but to me it's totally unacceptable behavior. If it happened in real life, the three lead characters, played here by Daniels, Talbot and John Halliday, would face such serious charges, they would not only have their certificates revoked but end up in jail. Well, I'll admit a really smart and super-expensive lawyer could probably get the Halliday character off the hook. He could escape with just having his license to practice revoked and being kicked out of the hospital. But the Daniels and Talbot characters, as well as other members of the hospital could be facing serious charges of manslaughter.

If "Registered Nurse" were the only information we had about the 1930's I'd say it was a terrible era to live in. If this movie were indicative of life at that time I'd say what neanderthals we used to be.

A man put a woman in the hospital by breaking her ribs and blacking her eye, and it was made to seem like she was the type to deserve it. A woman couldn't get a divorce from her psychologically deranged husband because the law wouldn't allow her to. Slapping a woman on the ass was normal work procedure along with doctors hounding nurses for dates and sexual favors.

Check this out:

Sylvestrie (played by Sidney Toler) who hospitalized Sadie (Irene Franklin) was in the hospital himself with a broken leg. He told the nurse that Sadie was the cause, then followed it up with a proud, "Wait til you see her. I wrecked her," and it was as if he said nothing at all. As if he said he swatted a fly.

That same nurse, Nurse Benton (Bebe Daniels), told him, "If it'll help any, you can slap me now," as if that was standard protocol for nurses to calm ailing patients.

Good Grief. Maybe this was common and I'm just naive.

The main character, Sylvia Benton, separated from her husband Jim Benton (Gordon Westcott) after the two were in a terrible car accident due to his drunkenness. She got back into nursing and landed in a hospital with doctors Hedwig (John Halliday) and Greg Connolly (Lyle Talbot). Sylvia was a young attractive woman, so naturally both doctors wanted her.

Of the two doctors, Dr. Connolly was the youngest and most aggressive... ahem... forward. The more Sylvia rebuffed him, the more he wanted her. He understood that her rejections were not definite "Nos," they were just, "I-want-to-but-I'm-not-sures." As Dr. Connolly kept pressing Nurse Benton and forcibly kissed her, we find out that he's not the problem, the problem is that she's still married. She would divorce her husband, but her husband is clinically insane and she just couldn't do that to him, even IF the law allowed it.

It turned out she wouldn't have to worry about a divorce anyway. Her husband showed up at her very hospital looking for an operation to cure him of his madness.

I know, what are the odds?

While he was waiting for surgery he was paid a visit by Sylvestrie. Sylvestrie is that swell fellow I told you about who broke a woman's ribs. Well, he had the bright idea to swing by Jim's room and pretend like he didn't know who Jim was or that he was married to Sylvia. Sylvestrie went on to suggest that "if I was her husband I'd just jump out of a window" to give Sylvia her freedom.

Never underestimate the power of suggestion because that's exactly what Jim did. Love triangle fixed. Sylvia was then free to marry Greg Connolly if she so desired.

Plot twist. She didn't marry Greg. Greg proved himself to be a selfish a-hole, which we, the viewers, knew but thought he may have found the woman to cure him of that. She wound up with Dr. Hedwig (John Halliday), who had proposed to her before then respectfully gave her her space when she declined his proposal.

In general, I didn't really like this movie, however, I did like that Nurse Benton gave Greg (Lyle Talbot) the brush off in favor of the more respectful and less handsy Dr. Hedwig.

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