... 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.
