Radcliffe ructions : a drama of (un)real life.
- Date:
- [between 1950 and 1959]
- Videos
About this work
Description
This is an amateur spoof film in the style of a 1920s comedy melodrama which starts with the premise that the Radcliffe Infirmary needs more nurses. Rosina is the unwilling object of Desparo's attentions. Escaping from Desparo, she receives a letter from a friend in Oxford telling her that the Radcliffe Infirmary requires more nurses; she then heads to Oxford. Rosina as well as the matron in this film are played by men in drag. Desparo is a veterinary pharamacist and he uses his knowledge to nefarious ends; he drinks an agent marked 'Harpic' and tries to poison a patient.
Publication/Creation
[Place of publication not identified], s.n.], [between 1950 and 1959]
Physical description
1 Digibeta (12:40 mins) : silent, black and white; PAL.
1 VHS (12:40 mins) : silent, black and white; PAL.
1 DVD (12:40 mins) : silent, black and white; PAL.
1 VHS (12:40 mins) : silent, black and white; PAL.
1 DVD (12:40 mins) : silent, black and white; PAL.
Copyright note
Nuffield
Notes
Conservation and access copies made from the film collection comprising of 55 items donated by Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, Oxford, to the Wellcome Trust in 2008. In 1937, Lord Nuffield established a clinical chair of anaesthesia in Oxford amidst some controversy that anaesthesia was even an academic discipline. The collection is a mixture of clinical and educational films made or held by the department to supplement their teaching dating from the late 1930s onwards.
This film plays to the stereotypes of nurses falling in love with doctors and patients as well as featuring a ferocious matron. The Radcliffe Infirmary, established in the 1770s, has a well documented history of domineering matrons described in 'Tales from the Archives' on the Oxfordshire Health Archives website. Films of this nature often feature many 'in' jokes - to the participants. See: http://www.oxfordshirehealtharchives.nhs.uk/tales%2Dfrom%2Darchive/pretty_awful.htm
Creator/production credits
By courtesy of the matron, the GWR & Others, Produced by United Residents, Directed by RG Black-Death, Cast (Slightly Granular), Ginger Knowles as Rosina Budd, Franchor Tilley as Silas K Higgs, Rudolph Bevan as Desparo Chaser.
Type/Technique
Languages
Subjects
Where to find it
Location Access Closed stores4173SNote
Location Status Access Closed stores4173D