Life in Her Hands (1951)

Directed by

Philip Leacock

Genre

drama film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

58 min

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A woman blames herself for her husband's death in a car crash. She becomes a nurse to deal with her guilt. The film shows what nursing was like in British hospitals at the time.

instructionalearnestsombermeasuredmatter-of-factmildly tenseperiod-typical

What happens

Life in Her Hands is a 1951 drama film sponsored by the British Ministry of Labour with the aim of recruiting women to the nursing profession. It was produced in response to addressing the short supply of qualified nurses in Britain after the Second World War, caused to some degree by the needs of the newly founded National Health Service (NHS). It was produced by the Crown Film Unit and distributed widely across all major cinemas by United Artists. The film was written by Anthony Steven and Monica Dickens, and directed by Philip Leacock. The cast included Bernadette O'Farrell, Jenny Laird, Jean Anderson and Kathleen Byron. Byron, well known at the time for her role in the 1947 film Black Narcissus, plays the protagonist Anne Peters, who wrongly believes herself to be responsible for the death of her husband in a car crash. She subsequently decides to become a nurse to assuage her guilt. In addition to the fictional content, the film conveys a picture of life in British hospitals, the difficulties and compensations of nursing work and related attitudes and practices of the day, such as the rigid nursing hierarchy and gender roles. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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