The Flag of Humanity

Nana Bryant as Clara Barton argues down generals and saves the lives of dying soldiers with a kindly word in this ridiculous yet heartfelt accolade for the founder of the American Red Cross.

Life most of Warner Brothers' pre-war Technicolor shorts, this one shows off the process beautifully. Director Jean Negulesco and cinematographer Charles Boyle. light the battlefield shots so the faces as the sources of light in a dark world. The scenes set nominally in Europe wind up looking like fine lithographic work. While most of this is a talking-heads hagiography, the visuals are not neglected.

This was a less than exciting short film I saw between features on Turner Classic Movies recently. While the film popped out due to its very intense Technicolor, the film itself just wasn't that moving and at times the plot looked pretty cheesy--like this was made for classroom use and capturing the attention of a wider audience WASN'T even a consideration. In particular, I really hated how many times in the film things were reiterated--such as when the characters talked to her, they usually said "Clara Barton" instead of "ma'am", "Miss Barton" or "Clara". Plus, one sickly confederate soldier said that he was a "Johnny Reb, A Confederate a Rebel,..."--almost like he was the cartoon character Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff Girls. This was just sloppy writing--period.

It was interesting to see John Hamilton (later, "Perry White" on the SUPERMAN TV show) in a beard as President Garfield. Yep--it's him under that beard.

Maybe a thoughtful concept, but the execution was mediocre at best. The direction was stiff, the script overly sentimental, and the players over-acted by a country mile. The dialog was out of a Hallmark greeting card--sappy and affectatious. Tremendous dramatic license was obviously taken.

I really had difficulty finding anything redeeming about it, and my vote (of 5) was generous, to say the least.

Made by Warners, surely they could have turned the idea over to their script department and given it some real flesh--the idea really deserves to be a feature length film as the story is one we are familiar with, and the characters are historical. Perhaps in the hands of MGM or Paramount, who had a much better sense of history, it could have had more merit.

Effort aside (This isn't a review about good intentions, its about the final product), this film is poorly written, overacted, and poorly directed. The story obviously had potential, but that story is nowhere present in this film.

Clara Barton was a human being. She had passions, desires, love, pain, embarrassment, weakness, and self doubt just like the rest of us. You would never know that from this film of the lead actress's performance. In fact apply that to every character in the film, but in Barton's case: Every sentence is a speech. An epic over the top speech as though from an inhuman robot. In fact the only scene that plays well in one in the board meeting, and I realized thats because she's making a speech! Every idea she has is unbelievable in its context and she comes up with ideas that sound like they take a lifetime of soul searching right on the spot. For example, when she sees a wounded man, she'll start pontificating about the needs of the battlefield and to protect soldiers and putting up white flags, etc. As played in the film, there's no WAY she could come up with such a detailed well thought out idea in seconds.

IN conclusion, this film robs Clara Barton of her struggles. It robs her of her humanity, and it inherently cheapens all she did because the script is written in clichés. The writer doesn't know Clara Barton, and seems to have based his script on an encyclopedia Britannica article. (yes they had those back then) But hey, nice Technicolor! (who cares)

With the approaching war, this short goes back to 1861. Clara Barton (Nana Bryant) fights off rigid Army rules to help the battle wounded. She would later help usher in the birth of the American Red Cross. She continues to fight for an international treaty and help in times of disasters until her death in 1912.

With war engulfing the world, this educational short is shown in theaters. I do wish they show more advanced planes in the opening scene. This plays like one of those educational shorts shown to high school kids on a slow day. It is very standard and very old fashion without any edginess.