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This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The good news -- it's a relatively interesting film where you can learn a little superficial history about Florence Nightingale and the time period in which she lived.The bad news -- this is an unimpressive performance by Kay FCrancis.In regard to Kay Francis, she is one of those actresses who were very famous in the early days of the American sound cinema. She turned in fine performances in many films. However, bu 1936 she was on the verge of being identified as "box office poison". During the time frame that this film was being made, she was complaining to Warner Brothers about the scripts being given to her. In this case, however, I feel that Francis' performance here is shallow and stereotypical...at some points almost verging on being corny.In other regards, however, it's quite a good film. It has rather high production values. And, while they take liberties with history, the film still gives one a fair understanding of the general situation of women in medicine of that era.The supporting cast fares better than Ms. Francis. Ian Hunter plays a journalist, and while not a big part, he does nicely. Nigel Bruce doesn't play the fool here...just an incompetent. Donald Crisp plays a military official who bitterly opposes Nightingale's efforts. Henry O'Neill also does well playing a doctor who enthusiastically supports Nightingale.This is an okay film if you like old-fashioned biopics.

Kay Francis stars in this biopic of Florence Nightingale. I love old Hollywood biopics. They get a lot of flack today by certain types for embellishing some facts of these people's lives. Seems to me biopics today have even worse flaws. Instead of embellishing positively they embellish negatively. In other words, instead of focusing on inspiring uplifting strengths and virtues they focus on the faults and vices of historical figures. To each their own but personally I will take the rousing biographical films from back then over the salacious and often slanderous ones of the modern era.Rant aside, this is not the strongest biopic but it is a decent one. Kay Francis works against type quite well. She's helped by an amazing supporting cast. To name a few: Donald Crisp, Nigel Bruce, Donald Woods, Henry O'Neill, Ian Hunter, Halliwell Hobbes -- they all give first rate support.Overall it's an entertaining film. I recommend it to people who are interested In the story of Florence Nightingale and anybody who enjoys Golden Age of Hollywood biographical dramas.

It's a sort of cartoon version of a famous figure. Florence Nightingale -- a real and self-sacrificing individual who brought fresh ideas and fresh sheets to the suffering wounded of the Crimean War around 1855 -- is turned into one of those saints who rejects marriage and family in order to follow her calling as a nurse. Along the way she battles the medical community, mostly in the person of Donald Crisp, who feels that a wounded soldier SHOULD suffer -- makes a man of him, you know.This was all before Lister, Pasteur, the germ theory of disease and all that nonsense. What she accomplished, aside from the warmth shown towards the wounded and ill, was done by simple methods of public health. She swept the floors, got rid of the rats, provided clear drinking water, washed the sheets, used new bandages and so forth. It's a point in the movie's favor that the sick aren't neglected. As in the American Civil War, more soldiers died from infectious diseases like cholera than from battle wounds. Not much earlier the docs were still prescribing arsenic and using leeches to bleed the sick. When a wound or amputated limb became infected, the "laudable pus" was seen as a sign of normal healing.Where was I? Yes, the movie. Alas, considering how important and celebrated a figure she was, this story of "the lady with the lamp" is written as if it were a Classics Comic Book. The dialog is stilted. "Thank you so much. I'm sure I shan't regret it." Donald Crisp as the main antagonist, the moron who feels that adversity brings out the best in people, is properly ligneous. But Kay Francis, quite attractive in her own conventional way, torpedoes the movie with her inexpressive performance. She smiles once in a while but when she does she exudes the warmth of an ice cooler.At that, she's nicer than some nurses I've had to deal with. The last one, a real battle axe, about to perform a colonoscopy on me, shouted "RELAX!" as she violated my body sheath. As long as I'm editorializing, the Crimean War was really stupid -- even more stupid than most. The Ottoman Empire, centered on Turkey, was weakened and on the verge of collapse. Translation: neither Russia nor the European powers were about to let all that territory go unoccupied. Oh, a beautiful job of mismanagement. Ever read Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade"? Anyone interested in the conditions under which Florence Nightingale worked can find a gripping documentary of the Crimean War on YouTube.

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.