The Nurse's Secret (1941)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fantastic!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Regis Toomey, Lee Patrick, Julie Bishop, and Clara Blandick star in "The Nurse's Secret," a 1941 remake of Warner Brothers' "While the Patient Slept" The story concerns a suicide that Inspector Patton (Tooney) thinks is murder. The members of the household all act strangely, and Patton (Toomey) sends in his girlfriend, nurse Ruth Adams (Patrick) to take care of the elderly woman in the home (Blandick) who broke down after finding her nephew's body and to see what she can find out. There are plenty of suspects, as well as things that go bump in the night.Average film, and I frankly wasn't sure at first if it was supposed to be funny or not as it was so over the top. Patrick had a nice, energetic personality, but it felt like these people were directed to act as if they were on stage rather than before a camera. Way too big.You'll see lots of familiar faces in this, though: Julie Bishop, George Chandler, Charles Trowbridge, Virginia Brissac - names that might not mean much to you but the faces are instantly recognizable.It's just okay.

A nurse goes to a mansion to care for an elderly woman who has had a breakdown after finding the body of her nephew – was it an accident? Suicide? Or murder? Who cares? Suspicious characters abound - the butler, the maid, the lawyer, the young woman who is lurking about... Although I'm a fan of 30s and 40s mysteries, this one was just not very entertaining. Lee Patrick and Regis Toomey are good actors but just not convincing as the leads. Patrick has a few snappy lines but not enough to lighten up this movie. Julie Bishop did a nice job in her role as the jealous Florence Lentz. I sure didn't recognize "Aunt Em" in Clara Blandick's portrayal. All in all a pretty pedestrian mystery movie.

This film is a remake of the 1932 Warner Brothers film "Miss Pinkerton". Warner Brothers was a major recycler of movie material with the same movie sometimes being remade twice during the 30's and 40's. The original film did not really have any precode moments to speak of. It was just a creaky old house murder mystery with Joan Blondell in the role of the nurse of the old lady who had the terrible shock of discovering her nephew's body. George Brent played the inexperienced police detective who was out to solve the crime.In this film Regis Toomey is the inexperienced detective and Lee Patrick is the nurse. Regis Toomey is better at playing a bumbling detective than George Brent - Brent just played the part too deliberately. On the other hand I think I prefer Blondell in the original as the nurse. Lee Patrick certainly could play the "wise cracking dame" pretty well, but she was 40 when this film was made versus Blondell who was 26 when she played the role and was more age appropriate for the part.The one thing that has improved over the years were production values - the sound recording is better, and you can see detail better even though this is an old dark house. Still, I think there is nothing of note that this remake adds to the original. If you haven't seen "Miss Pinkerton" I think you'll like it, but if you have seen the original I'd just stick with that.

This is a nice little mystery from Warner Brothers in the 1940's and I thought it was much more enjoyable than the original version that was made by the same studio in the 1930's. I always thought that Lee Patrick was much underrated as an actress, but this is just another good movie for a very good actress.