The White Angel

In the grand tradition of biography pictures that sanctify their subjects comes "The White Angel," the "true" story of the lady with the lamp, the nurse who revolutionized nursing, Miss Florence Nightingale. Why does Hollywood insist on sanitizing and sweetening the lives of real people? The most blatant example of this is probably "Private Parts"- the life story of Howard Stern- which turns America's favorite sexually-stunted shock-jock bully into a misunderstood merry prankster, a teddy bear of a man fighting the good fight against prudes and censors. Right.

I caught "The White Angel" on TCM late one evening. It begins with Florence Nightingale- "Flo" to her contemporaries- rejecting tradition and refusing to marry and settle down. She senses a greater purpose and a place for women in military medicine. [In actuality Florence and her sister were encouraged to pursue education by their forward-thinking father.] As played by Kay Francis, Ms. Nightingale is a humorless, passionless saint with absolute confidence in her methods and philosophy. Kay plays the role as if she's riding a heroin high- deeply centered and somewhat removed. With the success of the film riding on this lead performance, we're left with a fascinatingly anti-climactic picture.

There is little if any dramatic conflict in the film- it has all the suspense of a book report. The encounters between Florence and other characters are all laughably wooden. Her antagonists openly profess their resentment of her to her face and she sits stoic, with eyes-wide, accepting the abuse and calmly declaring her intentions to proceed. In one particularly action-less sequence, Florence and her nurses storm the supply tent after the clerk tells them it's closed. "Does the war close at seven?" Florence asks, "Do they stop bringing in the wounded at seven?"

Before the bureaucrat gets the chance to answer, Florence has delicately and glamorously stepped past him, forcing her way inside with the help of the other nurses.

That's the most exciting moment in the movie.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow stops by to gawk at her heroism and write the poem that would immortalize her. Crusty wounded soldiers smile at her tenderness as she walks the hospital halls at night checking on her patients. I had trouble keeping mine.

The story seems SO glossed-over and tidy (even for a biopic of the 30's) that one can't help but feel cheated by fabricated elements as well as the absence of significant actual events. When Florence arrives at the military hospital a soldier informs her that 57% of all wounded men die even under medical care... the trouble is we're never given an updated number as to a soldier's chance of survival. This is especially ironic due to the fact that a)Florence's Nightingale's arrival and improvement of the military medical system surely improved the survival rate and b) Nightingale herself was famous for her statistical analysis and record-keeping of mortality rates and other social phenomenas. Disappointing.

The film is ultimately a waste; it is predictable and pre-digested, not even diverting enough to hold my attention. Who knew changing the world could be so boring?

Grade: C

I come from a family of nurses, so I watched this film with interest.

Kay Francis plays Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. Mostly the film covers her work in the Crimea.

This is a typical '30s movie - Nightingale meets with a great deal of resistance, which she probably did in real life. The villains here are somewhat cliched in their nastiness and refusal to help her make any progress. A typical good vs. Evil fight.

I read a lot of criticism about Kay Francis - this was an unusual role for her, where she's not playing a woman of the world. I thought she portrayed a quiet strength and dignity.

Someone said Bette Davis would have been better. Bette Davis was wonderful, but I didn't feel Nightingale needed a fiery portrayal. As far as criticism of Francis, Francis' interpretation was correct in that she was well-educated and came from a wealthy family.

Granted she's portrayed as a saint, but that's the fault of the script. I do believe that Nightingale, given her upbringing, was a strong and determined woman who used a velvet glove rather than an iron hand.

I found the film very absorbing and poignant.

... in that the only reason I can figure this film is legendary as a bomb is that Kay Francis was not accepted in her role just as Clark Gable was not accepted at the time in Parnell.

Francis was normally the leading lady in sparkling romantic comedies, her most prolific years being the precode ones. She also played the tragic figure in romantic dramas where she might sacrifice to protect a child, or she was misunderstood and believed to be unfaithful and ostracized, or was partnered up with an abusive man. But playing 19th century pioneering nurse Florence Nightingale? This was a complete departure and would be as odd as seeing Errol Flynn play Abraham Lincoln.

Plus Kay doesn't project much genuine emotion during the film. Somebody Florence might have married had she taken the conventional path dies right before her eyes and ... nothing? No tears? Since director Dieterle also directed Paul Muni in The Story of Louis Pasteur the year before, there is no explanation for what happened here.

This film actually didn't bomb, but it was the beginning of the end of Kay at Warner Brothers as her relationship with Jack Warner quickly deteriorated and he realized that Bette Davis was the studio's female star of the present and future.

One thing the film did particularly poorly - All of those intertitles! Some of them are so busy it is like reading a book. Eight years past the transition to sound and this device had been largely abandoned as directors learned to change scenes without it.

This one is worth your time if you forget your preconceived notions about its classification as a bomb and just give it a fair chance.

Kay Francis was cast as Florence Nightingale and the film shows Florence from the time just before she dedicated her life to nursing to just after her return from the Crimean War. Francis' acting and that of most of the supporting actors was good--the dialog and details left a bit to be desired.

Hollywood sure loved bio-pics in the 30s and 40s and churned out gobs of them. The problem, though, is that while many were very entertaining, they also played rather fast and loose with the facts as well as had very, very high "schmaltz" levels on many occasions. In other words, the celebrities being portrayed were very often over-idealized and seemed more like living saints than 3-dimensional heroes. While Florence Nightingale was an absolutely amazing woman and deserved to have a film made about her, all too often the film degenerated into idol worship. My favorite over-the-top moment was when Flo entered the dilapidated hospital and the man ran screaming "water!!!"--what an amazingly unsubtle moment! While the general facts in the film are correct, the way they were realized on screen, at times, made me laugh. This is really a shame, as the real story of this woman should be good enough! As for me, I'd like to see a more realistic and less predictable treatment of her long life.

With a title like The White Angel, you kind of know what you're going to get, if you'll excuse the pun, a whitewash. Of course a person like Florence Nightingale should be celebrated for her achievements but this film presents her as a saint rather than a living, breathing and flawed human being. Again, no joke intended but the characters for her are depicted as heroic and those against her, villainous, so, rather black and white. A more serious biopic might have been entitled The Lady With the Lamp and indeed a passage of the film where various characters read out Longfellow's poem of the same name is one of the most effective and moving scenes of the film. German director, William Dieterle, known for many great movies such as the beloved 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and more significantly, for me, 1941's masterpiece, The Devil and Daniel Webster, is a sure hand on the tiller and moves things along with pace and interest but is fighting a battle with the script. The best you can say of it, is it is of it's time. The worst affected is the star, Kay Francis, a fine actress who delivers with conviction but is encumbered with po faced and twee lines that beggar belief. Her talent is evident in that she still manages to make her role engaging. Fortunately, she also has a sterling cast to play alongside her; on the 'good' side the redoutable Halliwell Hobbes brings charisma in spades as Lord Raglan and Ferdinand Munier is enjoyably whimsical as the camp cook, Soyer. On the distaff side, Donald Crisp is effectively cold as Dr Hunt, Montagu Love, suitably oily as Bullock and Nigel Bruce, my reason for watching, is hugely pleasurable to watch as the pompous and condescending Dr West, and unlike the other two antagonists, manages to be likeable into the bargain. All three represent the crushing patriarchy that our heroine needs to overcome both in England and the Crimea. Striking a false note is Billy Mauch as drummer boy, Billy, so very American and so very twee that his appearances jar and take you out of the story. Talking of twee, the appearance of Queen Victoria's arm and her arm only, takes the biscuit! But to conclude at an hour and a half with first rate acting and direction this is a good biopic and with a stronger script could have been a excellent one.