By Richard Winters
My Rating: 4 out of 10
4-Word Review: Sex on the job.
Three friends (Katherine Cannon, Joyce Williams, Pegi Boucher) join the nursing field and get their first jobs at a local hospital. Together they must deal with the pressures of the profession as well as the dating scene and some of the lecherous, cheating men that come with it.
If one approaches this thing with extremely modest expectations then it is not too bad. It is compact enough and moves at a decent pace and while not exactly compelling it isn’t completely boring either. The girls deal with a lot of problems that every generation goes through particularly on the relationship end, which gives it a certain relevancy. It is also nice see them doing some actual medical duties and in one case even saving a young child’s life.
Where it fails is in its misguided idea of trying to tackle ‘serious’ issues. The story thread dealing with Spring’s (Cannon) romance with biker Domino (Dennis Redfield) who has had several serious head injuries and is told if he gets just one more it could prove fatal and yet continues to race anyways is predictably overwrought. The thread dealing with racism has been done so much better in far superior productions that it seems almost pointless here and the way it gets resolved is a bit farfetched. The third story having to do with water pollution takes on too much and has a wrap-up that is too tidy. The dialogue during a lot of these scenes is corny and the characters are all cardboard.
The three female leads look gorgeous both with their clothes on and off. All three of them appear nude although it is basically just from the waist up. However, if you are a breast fan you should like the scenes here particularly those who enjoy ones that are natural and firm. The nudity is not prevalent, but should be enough to satisfy the skin aficionados. There is also a rape scene near the end that seems to come out of nowhere and gets a bit explicit.
The Shout factory deserves a ‘shout-out’ for their transfer. Although the sound quality isn’t the best and does feature a faint and constant clicking sound during the last half-hour the picture quality is superb. The colors are bright and vivid without any of the faded or grainy look that usually permeates most low budget transfers from the 70’s. To certain extent it comes off looking like it had just been filmed yesterday.
My Rating: 4 out of 10
Released: September 1, 1971
Runtime: 1Hour 20Minutes
Rated R
Director: George Armitage
Studio: New World Pictures
Available: DVD (The Nurses Collection)
Scopophilia 