At 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen Night Nurse (William A. Wellman, U.S. 1931, 70 min., 35mm).

Fresh from nursing school, idealistic young trainee Barbara Stanwyck has her work cut out for her with her first assignment: caring for two children mysteriously suffering from malnourishment. With their drunken and mostly unconscious mother more interested in partying than in her children's well-being; a menacing, manipulative chauffeur (an early role for Clark Gable, without a mustache or dimpled charm); and a shady but helpful bootlegger (played by Ben Lyon) whom Stanwyck meets while patching up his gunshot wound in the emergency ward, you have all the ingredients for one of the tastiest pre-Code films produced by Warner Bros. A gum-chomping Joan Blondell is delightfully on hand as Stanwyck's nursing school pal who knows the score. This was the first of five films director Wellman made with Stanwyck, and they loved working together. Wellman was also quick to recognize the talent he saw in Gable and urged Warner Bros. to sign him to a contract. They didn't, and he soon moved on to MGM where he steadily put his star power to work at the box office for them for the next twenty years.

[source: Dryden website, 2015-May-18]