# Rosie Dixon – Night Nurse

Rosie Dixon – Night Nurse is a 1978 British comedy film directed by Justin Cartwright and starring Debbie Ash, Carolyne Argyle, Beryl Reid and John Le Mesurier. It was written by Christopher Wood and Cartwright based on the 1974 novel Confessions of a Night Nurse by Wood (under the pseudonym Rosie Dixon).
The film is one of several softcore sex comedies released in the 1970s to cash in on the success of the Confessions series (also written by Wood under the pseudonym Timothy Lea). Like the Confessions films, it was adapted from a book, the author's credit going to the fictional Rosie herself. It is the only one of the nine Rosie Dixon novels to be adapted into a movie. The character of Penny Sutton – Rosie's best friend in the movie and in the books – is the star of an earlier series of similar novels that depict Penny as an airline stewardess.
Debbie Ash was a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip. Her sister Leslie Ash plays Rosie's sister Natalie.

## Plot

A new student nurse at a hospital attracts interest from the staff with hilarious consequences.

## Cast

* Beryl Reid as matron
* John Le Mesurier as Sir Archibald MacGregor
* Arthur Askey as Mr. Arkwright
* Debbie Ash as Rosie Dixon
* Liz Fraser as Mrs. Dixon
* Lance Percival as Jake Fletcher
* John Junkin as Mr. Dixon
* Bob Todd as Mr. Buchanan
* Carolyne Argyle as Penny Green
* Jeremy Sinden as Dr. Robert Fishlock
* Christopher Ellison as Dr. Adam Quint
* Peter Mantle as Dr. Tom Richmond
* Ian Sharp as Dr. Seamus MacSweeney
* Leslie Ash as Natalie Dixon
* David Timson as Geoffrey Ramsbottom
* John Clive as Grieves
* Patricia Hodge as Sister Belter
* Peter Bull as August visitor
* Glenna Forster-Jones as Staff Nurse Smythe
* Harry Towb as Mr. Phillips
* Joan Benham as Sister Tutor
* Sara Pugsley as night sister
* Jon Lingard-Lane as traction patient / Barnabus Medic
* Claire Davenport as Mrs. Buchanan

## Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This basic hospital comedy closely follows the minimal lines of scriptwriter Christopher Wood's Confessions movies. Characterisation – or rather caricature – is of the crudest variety and the narrative only just strong enough to support a string of antique situations long since drained of the little humour they may once have contained. Now that nudity – rather decorously rendered here – has become part of the stock in trade of this sort of comedy, the fusillade of innuendos which formerly provided slight if incidental pleasure seems to have been abandoned in favour of cartoon-style exaggeration: thus, a writhing couple cause their vibrating bed to explode. The lack of exuberant ensemble playing is the film's most telling fault."
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "It should give you some idea of the mire into which the British film industry had plunged itself during the 1970s when you read such names as Beryl Reid, John Le Mesurier and Liz Fraser on the cast list of this bawdy hospital comedy. Debbie Ash (sister of Leslie) suffers countless indignities in the title role, but it's Arthur Askey who stoops the lowest, as he resorts to pinching uniformed bottoms to get the cheapest of laughs."