Who on Earth would want to be a nurse? Underpaid, working bizarre hours, mopping up all manner of bodily excretions and projectiles, being the butt (wahey!) of more unsavoury jokes than perhaps any other occupation and, possibly worst of all, having films like Carry on Nurse as some of the only thanks for all that remarkable selflessness.

The second in a somewhat gargantuan procession of films that became renowned for their touches of “ooh-err missus, fnarr-fnarr� “humour�, 1959’s Carry on Nurse was remarkably successful at the time – after all, everybody’s interested in hospitals, right? It even somehow got voted ‘Best British Picture’ for the year. Obviously it was a very lean 12 months…

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, fnarr-fnarr, ooh-err crikey missus, etc.

Basically the tale of a bunch of wussy blokes in the King George V ward for men, there’s very little to impart plot wise as, well, there’s very little in the way of plot. The ward’s inmates all carry on (ho-ho!) somewhat, dropping the occasional sexist “gags� and letting loose some mild innuendo, while a bunch of poor harried nurses tend to their every ridiculous need – all in fear of the hospital’s big, beastly matron’s daily visits.

There’s the odd touch of slapstick, the odd touch of “ooh, crikey� and, naturally, the odd touch of behind – however very little to raise this above a rarely amusing, rarely engaging piece of 40-plus year old filmic ephemera with little to offer entertainment-wise for anybody other than nostalgia buffs. Or perhaps somebody I used to know who thought Carry on Columbus was the pinnacle of cinematic excellence…

Lolloping onto our screens in the original ratio of 1.66:1 (non-enhanced), Carry on Nurse actually scrubs (ha!) up pretty well. The black and white image gives us pleasantly deep blacks and whites that are as white as hospital sheets, with a reasonable amount of detail and contrast. Not surprisingly there are film speckles here and there as well as the odd more invasive blob, and the odd bout of colourisation occurs via shimmering clothing, however in all anybody who bemoans this considering the film’s age just may need their head examined.

Not surprisingly sound is firmly mono, delivered via a Dolby Digital stereo mix which offers nothing in the way of excitement. Dialogue is generally clear, although the sound does tend towards the slightly tinny end of the scale at times, not least of all the quite Looney Tunes-esque score from Bruce Montgomery.

All the extras died on the operating table, so couldn’t make it to this DVD release.

While many a film from the ‘50s and earlier still has ever so much to offer audiences of today, Carry on Nurse flatlines save for a daffodil shoved up somebody’s clacker – now THAT’s entertainment! Banal, clichéd, predictable, excruciating and unfocussed, it’s hard to believe they dared use the tagline “By far the screen’s fastest, funniest farce�, and ultimately it’s just another sign of how much times have changed. It seems progress isn’t all bad then.