There are some nice historical details in this movie about the miserable conditions for student nurses in a wartime hospital in London during the Blitz. Rosamund John is a likeable heroine, although at the end you're left wondering if she's made the right choices and why she even had to make them at all. This part of the plot seems dated, until you look at it from the historical aspect--women didn't have careers AND a married life too often in those days. Definitely worth the look, if for nothing else than for a sample of the times.
5 Reviews
Life is all about choices
Paularoc19 July 2012
Warning: Spoilers
I do not recall seeing Rosamund John in a movie before so watched this one on TCM because of Stewart Granger. A few days later TCM aired the Gentle Sex – this time I recognized John and she was quite good in both movies. This movie is low key and a rather quiet movie but still interesting for the light it sheds on the apprenticeship of, and demands on, aspiring nurses. John plays Hilary Clarke, a successful career woman who feels a calling to become a nurse – a grueling career choice if there ever was one. She is a very strong and forthright student nurse – something that does not always sit right with her superiors. She falls in love with Stewart Granger (whose role is really secondary here) and he with her. So she must make a choice – stay in nursing or marry a man she loves. I do know that in the U.S. certain professional women – teachers, nurses, librarians and perhaps others – often, but not always, had to leave the job when they married. Evidently that was the case in Britain through the Second World War; at least it's so in this movie's hospital. That practice is fortunately in the past but that doesn't mean that people don't still have to make choices of this magnitude. They do. And John made the choice that she felt was best for her and who is to say it wasn't? I noted the movie included a woman doctor, which surprised me and perhaps shouldn't have. What I didn't notice at the time was that the doctor was played by Joyce Grenfell (as Joyce Greenfell), and I am still kicking myself for totally missing this and for not checking the credits before deleting the movie. One question I have with the movie is that business of nurses removing their cuffs before certain activities. I have seen sleeve protectors used by other professions in movies but I couldn't figure out the pattern of when cuffs should be worn and when not. John was often criticized by the Matron for the inappropriate wearing (or not wearing) of cuffs and I just didn't get it. Annoying. All in all, this is a pleasant movie with an excellent cast.
Tribute To Nurses?
malcolmgsw11 March 2013
I saw with some surprise that the 3 reviews were from people abroad so thought it time that someone from the UK should review this flag waver for nurses.One assumes that coming in the 4th year of the war this film was supposed to inspire women in the audience to come forward as recruits to the nursing profession.However what they saw in this film must have put them off for life.The student nurses seemed to be bound to obey a strict tradition which seems to have no regard to the change in circumstances.It appears to accept as norm that a woman had to choose between a career and marriage.The authority of matron and her sisters seems to be severely undermined by the pettiness of the rules.It is rather difficult then to understand why Johns should want to give up a job as an architect and start all over as a nurse particularly when she feels that she cannot abide the rules.I have a friend who was a nurse and she confirms that Matrons were very similar to those depicted in this film.
saints ordered about by villains
karlericsson23 November 2008
Warning: Spoilers
This story is like a miniature on society or, at least, could be seen like that. Here we have the nurse, who wants nothing else than dedicate her life to the survival of others, kicking personal s.c. "happiness" in the butt, if they don't coincide with her saintly goal. At the same time we have the usual scoundrels doing "business" of everything and being as far away of that saintly nurse as you could possibly get. And, of course, these scoundrels are always in charge - in this particular film they are however not seen and only referred to as "government". When will we ever get rid of this sickness of bad people telling good people what to do? When will we ever have exterminated the last trace of power amongst us? Until then we will never be saints or anything grand we would ever want to be.
So realistic, it hurts!
JohnHowardReid9 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Director: MAURICE ELVEY. Screenplay: Elizabeth Baron. Additional scenes: Roland Pertwee, Major C. Nelson. Based on the 1941 novel One Pair of Feet by Monica Dickens. Photography: Robert Krasker. Film editor: Frederick Wilson. Music composed by John Greenwood, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Muir Mathieson. Art director: Alex Vetchinsky. Camera operator: Jack Hildyard. Technical advisers: Captain H. Brierley, house governor, and Miss C.H. Alexander, matron, of the London Hospital. Assistant director: William N. Boyle. Production manager: Vincent Permane. Sound recording: John S. Dennis. Western Electric Sound System. Associate producer: Phil C. Samuel. Producer: Leslie Howard. A Two Cities — Leslie Howard Production, presented by J. Arthur Rank.
A Tribute to All Those Who Nurse, made with the assistance and collaboration of the Ministry of Health.
Not copyrighted or theatrically released in the U.S.A. Released in the U.K. by General Film Distributors: 29 November 1943. Australian release through G-B-D/20th Century-Fox: 21 December 1944 (sic). 8,367 feet. 93 minutes.
NOTES: Leslie Howard's final film. When the Germans learned he was a passenger on an unarmed, civilian flight from Spain, a neutral country, the plane was shot down in flames. All lives were lost. At the time, the German authorities claimed the strafing of the plane was a genuine mistake. It has since come to light that the "mistake" was a deliberate act of revenge for Howard's "Pimpernel Smith" which had infuriated Hitler.
VIEWERS' GUIDE: Although not directly shown on camera, one of the film's surgical procedures is too frightening for younger children.
PROPAGANDA: Explicitly, nursing is a noble, completely self- sacrificing profession. Implicitly, civilians are undaunted by wartime problems in general, bombing raids in particular.
COMMENT: Maurice Elvey's second-last big hit. Elvey made more features than any other British director. After a most successful career in "A" features, around this period he turned to the "B", finishing his career in the 1950s with some really atrocious quota quickies. Because of this, and the unavailability of his earlier work, he was despised and neglected by the auteur critics of the 1960s. The young men with tape recorders made not a single interview, even though he was readily accessible, lecturing at the London School of Film Technique until his death in 1967.
Now that Elvey's major films are again being screened, we can see what a wonderful opportunity to gain insights into the world of British movie-making, was deliberately missed. "The Lamp Still Burns" is a good example of his later "A" style, with meticulous attention paid both to background detail and performances. The emphasis is on realism, the style naturalistic and for the most part self-effacing, almost text-book in its methods.
Each scene is observed with a preliminary long shot that often runs for a whole minute or two before the camera cuts to either two-shots or close-ups. There is very little camera movement, not usually during dialogue (unless the director wishes to make a point). On the few occasions the camera tracks, it is usually during the scene- setting long shot. This economical and non-showy style focuses the camera fully on the dialogue and players, most of whom stand up well to this scrutiny, speaking their realistic lines with conviction and sincerity.
Rosamund John, although not always flatteringly photographed, come across believably, though the film's stand-out portrait is painted by Cathleen Nesbitt as the no-nonsense matron. With one exception, all the players are likewise effective. Stewart Granger lets the side down a bit, though he does have a difficult role. He plays too colorlessly here to excite interest. If he'd come to the part later in his career, he'd have given it more shading and charisma.
The script is leavened with a bit of humor, provided mostly by Dr. John Laurie (of all people), patients Leslie Dwyer and Wylie Watson, and hospital chairman Ernest Thesiger.
Some critics would say that the film is at its best not during the romantic or even humorous episodes, but in its documentary record of day-to-day hospital life with all its petty restrictions, strict class distinctions, and unnerving operations (in which the tension is increased to an almost unbearable level by a bombing raid). Nursing in fact is unglamorous, unrewarding, unbelievably hard- working and distinctly Dickensian.
So real is the atmosphere that it seems to me the film was not created only in the studio but shot largely on location in a real hospital, presumably London. The sets often look just too authentic to be anything but real. The brilliant cinematographer Robert Krasker was a lifelong specialist in using real locations (Brief Encounter, Odd Man Out, The Third Man) though this film lacks the attractive sheen he gave later productions. He had not yet mastered his technique, but the very grayness of the images here does reinforce the documentary realism of "The Lamp Still Burns".
A Tribute to All Those Who Nurse, made with the assistance and collaboration of the Ministry of Health.
Not copyrighted or theatrically released in the U.S.A. Released in the U.K. by General Film Distributors: 29 November 1943. Australian release through G-B-D/20th Century-Fox: 21 December 1944 (sic). 8,367 feet. 93 minutes.
NOTES: Leslie Howard's final film. When the Germans learned he was a passenger on an unarmed, civilian flight from Spain, a neutral country, the plane was shot down in flames. All lives were lost. At the time, the German authorities claimed the strafing of the plane was a genuine mistake. It has since come to light that the "mistake" was a deliberate act of revenge for Howard's "Pimpernel Smith" which had infuriated Hitler.
VIEWERS' GUIDE: Although not directly shown on camera, one of the film's surgical procedures is too frightening for younger children.
PROPAGANDA: Explicitly, nursing is a noble, completely self- sacrificing profession. Implicitly, civilians are undaunted by wartime problems in general, bombing raids in particular.
COMMENT: Maurice Elvey's second-last big hit. Elvey made more features than any other British director. After a most successful career in "A" features, around this period he turned to the "B", finishing his career in the 1950s with some really atrocious quota quickies. Because of this, and the unavailability of his earlier work, he was despised and neglected by the auteur critics of the 1960s. The young men with tape recorders made not a single interview, even though he was readily accessible, lecturing at the London School of Film Technique until his death in 1967.
Now that Elvey's major films are again being screened, we can see what a wonderful opportunity to gain insights into the world of British movie-making, was deliberately missed. "The Lamp Still Burns" is a good example of his later "A" style, with meticulous attention paid both to background detail and performances. The emphasis is on realism, the style naturalistic and for the most part self-effacing, almost text-book in its methods.
Each scene is observed with a preliminary long shot that often runs for a whole minute or two before the camera cuts to either two-shots or close-ups. There is very little camera movement, not usually during dialogue (unless the director wishes to make a point). On the few occasions the camera tracks, it is usually during the scene- setting long shot. This economical and non-showy style focuses the camera fully on the dialogue and players, most of whom stand up well to this scrutiny, speaking their realistic lines with conviction and sincerity.
Rosamund John, although not always flatteringly photographed, come across believably, though the film's stand-out portrait is painted by Cathleen Nesbitt as the no-nonsense matron. With one exception, all the players are likewise effective. Stewart Granger lets the side down a bit, though he does have a difficult role. He plays too colorlessly here to excite interest. If he'd come to the part later in his career, he'd have given it more shading and charisma.
The script is leavened with a bit of humor, provided mostly by Dr. John Laurie (of all people), patients Leslie Dwyer and Wylie Watson, and hospital chairman Ernest Thesiger.
Some critics would say that the film is at its best not during the romantic or even humorous episodes, but in its documentary record of day-to-day hospital life with all its petty restrictions, strict class distinctions, and unnerving operations (in which the tension is increased to an almost unbearable level by a bombing raid). Nursing in fact is unglamorous, unrewarding, unbelievably hard- working and distinctly Dickensian.
So real is the atmosphere that it seems to me the film was not created only in the studio but shot largely on location in a real hospital, presumably London. The sets often look just too authentic to be anything but real. The brilliant cinematographer Robert Krasker was a lifelong specialist in using real locations (Brief Encounter, Odd Man Out, The Third Man) though this film lacks the attractive sheen he gave later productions. He had not yet mastered his technique, but the very grayness of the images here does reinforce the documentary realism of "The Lamp Still Burns".
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