Nurse to You!

Charley Chase in my opinion made the best comedy shorts of any comedy act in the 1930’s, solo comic or group. NURSE TO YOU happens to be one of his very best as an ultra cheapstake whose rather eccentric doctor Billy Gilbert gets his name confused with an elderly patient named “Case” and gives him the latter’s grim diagnosis of six months to live (though maybe one should know to avoid a doctor who tells him he can eat ginger snaps but not apples or bananas!) With seemingly nothing to lose, Chase scuddles his mild-mannered personality and fights fire with fire and then some when facing with annoying, aggressive people including a belligerent street cop and his long-bullying boss Clarence Wilson.Charley is such an endearing and hilarious comedian it’s incredible he is rarely considered one of the comic greats of the industry. His acting is always superb, his humor still as sharp and witty as it was eighty years ago. He also almost always has top notch supporting players and certainly does here, notably the wonderful unsung character actor Clarence Wilson, who basically created the mean, little elderly boss man stock character in scores of films that Charles Lane would later be well known for in later decades. Despite it’s theme this is in no way a “black comedy”, it’s 19 minutes of giddy fun.