'The Student Nurses' was perhaps surprisingly directed by a woman, Stephanie Rothman who is still with us at 84. Made for Roger Corman's New World Pictures the film was a surprise success, and launched a wave of 'nurses' themed exploration features over the next several years.
This films kind of a weird beast, built around some low common denominator studio dictates, lots of skin, occasional nudity, and violence. We see the breasts of three of the four principle student nurses and there is an attempted rape less then four minutes into the picture. Yet it's transgressively progressive in other ways, containing a pretty non judgmental abortion story line, mater of fact depictions of drug use and sympathy towards semi-militant minority youths. It's like a period medical anthology was run through an HBO filter.
Some of the acting and writing is pretty bad, and the tone is a little all over the place. However at the time this was an achievement, using a spoon full of pruience to help the social awareness go down, in a most delightful way. **1/2
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