The Student Nurses (1970)

THE STUDENT NURSES is not a typical sexploitation movie. Sure, the nudity and sexual openness is there, but it's not all for laughs. Stephanie Rothman scripted a socially compelling, well-written tits & ass movie which confronts the topics of racism, socio-economic inequalities, rape, abortion, medical ethics, public health issues, human rights, the Vietnam war, free love, LSD and drug experimentation. Four sexy college roommates are taking their nursing internships at the same time. Sharon (Elaine Giftos) is assigned to the terminal care ward, Lynn (Brioni Farrell) to public health administration, Priscilla (Barbara Leigh) to gynecology and Phred (Karen Carlson) to psychiatry. These four beauties have ample opportunities to disrobe and fornicate, of which they take advantage, much to the delight of male viewers. These are liberated women at the height of the sexual revolution, after all, and are as intelligent as they are horny and beautiful. Visceral yet low-budget action sequences are interspersed throughout. There's a very bloody gunfight at the resistance movement headquarters in which two policemen are shot and killed, along with several members of the group. An anti-(Vietnam) war protest consisting of spookily-dressed young people of all races painted like skeletons becomes violent, with cops beating protesters. The effective trip sequence on the beach consists of beautiful, weird and confusing sensory and memory montages with hyper-sensual overtones. In short, THE STUDENT NURSES is a thoughtful and compelling reflection of the times, expressed through real women's perspectives (since it was written and directed by a woman). But, it's still fun and titillating, despite its sobering treatment of subject matter.

As usual, I only bought this film off ebay because Richard Rust is in it...as Les, the motorcycle vegan drug dealer, which makes not much sense, but one of the characters asked him how he can be a drug dealer AND a vegan and he had a pretty good answer. I was not disappointed, once again AS USUAL because he was not only HANDSOME but interesting in this movie, which although not an excellent film, is mildly amusing. I'm pretty sure I DID see it in the drive in, and was not surprised to see it called a Drive In Movie here and there on the internet. I have to admit I laughed out loud a few times. That's worth something! And truthfully, since there were a lot of movies like this one at that time, it has to be considered a genre! I would actually recommend this movie to some people.

IMDb mark: 3This is a '70s type of film, all the way. Even though it was produced by Roger Corman's company, I don't think it is exactly the type of film people expect when they hear his name. Very likely, this blandness, as some might call it, has something to do with the fact that a woman directed the movie.-Cast: I only heard of Elaine Giftos, whom I saw in a couple of episodes of 'Three's Company'. Other than her, I have never heard of any of the others. 2/20-Nudity: I think Phred is the blond one; she is nude three times. Priscilla has the best nude scene, however. And Sharon is briefly topless, also. 14/20-Ending: I wasn't crazy about the ending at all. Of course, taste varies. 4/15-Acting: The acting in Corman's movies is usually very cheesy. So, maybe it's not surprising that it seemed cheesy here, too. 2/11-Plot: Here are these 4 nurses, who are studying to become nurses. Dumb, isn't it? While doing so, they work and play, get tangled with the wrong people and, naturally, get involved with men. Each one of the four has like her own subplot. 2/10-Theme: Don't mix business with pleasure. At least, that's what I make of it. 4/10-Soundtrack: I couldn't say I liked it. 2/10-Genre: This is a drama. 1/4-->Overall: 31/100Apart from the fact that the nurses are easy on the eyes, I couldn't possibly see why anyone would be compelled to watch this movie. It's a really bad sort of drama. From Swordlord, 2 swords down!

In about 1984 this movie was re-released under the name Young L.A. Nurses. It's the same movie with the title changed.This movie is rated at about 5 our of 10. I think the people doing the rating are being very generous. It's pretty bad.Still, the girls are pretty. And I guess there is somewhat of a story.