User Reviews

Peter Roberts narrates this RKO Screenliner short about the training of a nurse. It's shot wild (that is, without sound), and Roberts' voice and a score are the only sounds.

This looks to have been intended largely for high schools, to show students who were wondering what they were going to do with their lives until they get married -- this is the 1950s, after all -- telling its audience that all one needs is the skills you got helping mother at home..... but you have to be attentive and detail-oriented.

An eight-minute short subject made in 1956 on the nursing profession cannot possibly do justice to the field of nursing.

We get a brief glimpse of the training that nurses undergo to qualify as white-capped nurses, but the whole process of becoming a nurse is simplified. It looks as though they study a little through a microscope; put some bandages on patients; measure the amount of dosage for medicine; turn a patient over in bed; learn how to take blood pressure, and presto, suddenly become nurses capable of caring for the sick, injured and dying. It's really not a topic that can be covered in an 8 minute short.

It has them becoming full-fledged nurses by following the routine of nurse Betty Hess who is honored at the end with a candlelit ceremony and a nurse's cap for her dedication to learning the ropes.

Summing up: Not too illuminating.

An RKO-Pathe Screenliner Short Subject.

Throughout the history of medicine, in wartime & peace, it has been HER HONOR, THE NURSE who has been the indispensable backbone of the healing arts.

This very interesting little film follows young Betty Hess, a very competent nurse trainee, as she studies the courses & procedures necessary to graduate and join the staff of a large hospital.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

Her Honor, the Nurse (1956)

** (out of 4)

Another rather boring short from RKO-Pathe. This time out we take a look inside a nursing school where various women are trying to learn everything they'll need to know for their future careers. We see women learning how to properly clean and sterilize equipment, check blood pressure and how to properly look after the sick. If you're a fan of Turner Classic Movies and shorts then you've probably seen several of these "docu-drama" shorts from RKO-Pathe. They rank from very bad to the best ones only being fair and this one here suffers from the same problems as others in the series and that's there's just not any major interest here. Yes, a documentary on becoming a nurse could have been entertaining but this 9-minute short moves very slowly and not once do they spark any life or energy into the story. We really don't learn anything that you couldn't have guessed on your own and the entire film just seems very rushed as if the studio needed to get a short before their feature and they didn't care what the quality was.