The Nurses / (Terry Sullivan, Athena Films / SWV)
So THE NURSES was made for a tiny audience, hence on a low-budget. What is striking, however, is that it plays like a real film, albeit a very poor one. It does not resemble the hundreds of "1-day wonders" one sees in video reissues stemming from the 1970-71 early days of porn. Same team made a followup for Sherpix called YOUNG STARLETS, which I'm anxious to see, expecting pretty much more of the same.
I'm reviewing the DVD-R issue from Something Weird; more recently it has been revived on DVD in a "Naughty Nurses" double feature from After Hours Cinema.
Set in a hospital, film is a series of vignettes with very little carry-through storyline. While played straight (most of the cast can't act worth a lick, hired for other reasons), many scenes are conceived on the level of a burlesque sketch, as in the opener of a poor schmo ordered to deliver a semen specimen, and getting the pretty femme lab assistant in the next room to "help out".
Problem of course is that lack of talent, both behind and in front of the camera, results in unfunny episodes. Sure, you can see where the joke is intended, but only groans are possible. Some of the women are marginally good-looking, but none of the stunning beauties from the softcore era nor the striking good-lookers like Suzanne Fields and Rene Bond from the XXX days are present. The guys are strictly no-namers too, and unusually hairy (all-over), perhaps a turn-on for some fetishist but hardly what proved to be successful in porn.
Though made for slightly wider release than a storefront movie, THE NURSES is still technically crude, with the loud sound of the camera motor evident in many scenes. It is not very arousing either, as in one slo-mo ejaculation closeup that comes off as comical. Even the lesbian scene by one aggressive Head Nurse Flanders lacks the usually sensual overtones that were standard in such scenes during the softcore heyday.
A couple of kinky scenes left me cold. In one, a young nurse applies an enema to her patient, while simultaneously having intercourse with him. Another extended gynecological exam has all the demerits of the soon-to-be overdone "gynecological closeups" approach to porn, without any of the pluses. Both scenes come off as literally clinical.
Overall THE NURSES shows filmmakers fumbling around seeking a new art form, awaiting the arrival of auteurs like Gerard Damiano with his great cameraman Joao Fernandes to show them how it's done.
MediaInfo:
Video: 694x464 (4:3), 29.970 fps, AVC
Format: Matroska
Duration: 01:10:17
FileSize: 1.2 GB
The_Nurses_SD.mkv