Florence Nightingale 1985 83
Beaulah Mozie
Quite frankly, I didn't know what to expect when I sat down to watch this 1985 TV biopic. The supporting cast certainly sounded intriguing, and who doesn't adore the lush, limpid, stunning Jaclyn Smith? But while Smith's talents perfectly fit the television medium, and she proved her facility (and popularity) with big-budget TV projects and miniseries time and time again in the 80s and 90s, I wondered how she would fare with a film obviously patterned on the more literate, upscale products of British serial TV, such as the phenomenally successful Brideshead Revisited (which had been a ratings smash on PBS just a few years prior). And while some viewers may feel that a British actress would have been a better fit for a character so quintessentially English, it's highly doubtful ABC would have committed major dollars and a three-hour block of time on their prime-time schedule for a story about the birth of modern nursing in the 1850s, with a heroine who rejects almost all romantic advances, had the bankable Smith not been headlining the project. I can't speak with any authority as to Florence Nightingale's historical accuracy (a cursory background check seemed to gibe fairly closely with the script's highpoints), but the character's resistance (as written here) to engaging in the more familiar romantic conventions of biopic docudramas must have also driven ABC to find a sure-fire star as a safety net for this unconventional project.
And since this particular movie succeeds or fails largely on the efforts of the lead actress (Smith is in every scene of the 140-minute film), it's appropriate to discuss Smith's portrayal right up front. The most literate script, the finest supporting cast, and the most sensitive, imaginative director in the world couldn't make Florence Nightingale work if Suzanne Somers was cast as Flo. Add to that the fact that the lead character is "iconic" in the truest sense of that word (her very name is used to this day as shorthand to convey the accomplishments of her philosophy), and you have a fairly daunting challenge for a TV actress still best known in 1985 for palling around with two other gorgeous women on a bubble-gum action series. It is slightly disconcerting at first to listen to Smith try and master a convincing English accent. It comes and goes throughout the film, but that isn't the problem with it. The problem is that it's more...careful than it is believable, and soon, you recognize that carefulness in Smith's overall portrayal, as well. It's as if she's hoping soft enunciation and proper posture will hide that fact that she's not nearly as technically proficient as her better-trained English cast. And almost immediately, we start to feel she's in over her head. Her initial scene with Dalton (soon to debut as Bond that year; he's both feline and bored at the same time here) has some awkward exchanges, and an early sequence where Florence soothes a severely burned peasant is made up of some truly hilarious (unintentionally, of course) reaction shots. But a curious thing begins to happen about a half hour into the movie: Smith starts to grow along with the part. Intriguingly, Smith's technical inexperience (nowhere in her bio did I read she actually studied acting) among these rigorously-trained Brits actually begins to work to her character's advantage. Smith is a naturally likeable performer (men like her cool sexuality and devastating looks, and yet women aren't threatened by that attraction; they enjoy her inherent ladylike demeanor), so we're pulling for her to succeed among her vaunted company...just as we begin to pull for Florence in the story. Sincerity goes a long way in a film like this, and one can see that quality in Smith's performance. By the final hour of the film, Smith is quietly dominating the film with an honest performance that surprised me (her near-death scene with Chase, where he asks her to let him love her, shows Smith naked vulnerability - something I hadn't seen with this usually reserved beauty).
I've been meaning to return soon to the subject of my TV on DVD Wish List, and was delighted to discover that two fondly remembered TV-movies from the '70s and '80s have made their way to DVD.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (1985) stars Jaclyn Smith in the title role. (Click title of post for the DVD link.) Smith starred in several colorful TV-movies and miniseries in the early '80s; GEORGE WASHINGTON (1984), starring Barry Bostwick in the title role, is high on my wish list, and I'd also enjoy seeing JACQUELINE BOUVIER KENNEDY (1981) again.
Smith wasn't the world's greatest actress, but she had a certain reserve which worked well in these parts, and -- as demonstrated by FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE -- she was surrounded by excellent actors and production values. FLORENCE NIGHTGALE had a top-drawer cast including Claire Bloom, Timothy Dalton, Timothy West (EDWARD THE KING), and Jeremy Brett.
The 1979 TV version of THE MIRACLE WORKER (DVD link here) has also been released.
This film is a bit unique in that Patty Duke, who played Helen Keller in the 1962 original, here plays Annie Sullivan, with Melissa Gilbert (LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE) as Helen. The movie also stars Diana Muldaur.
This was the first of a string of very good TV-movies Gilbert made when on hiatus from LITTLE HOUSE. In 1980 she starred with Maximilian Schell and Joan Plowright in an excellent version of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, and in 1981 she tackled SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS with Eva Marie Saint and Ned Beatty.
Gilbert also played missionary Jean Donovan in CHOICES OF THE HEART (1983) and starred in one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasure TV-movies, BLOOD VOWS: THE STORY OF A MAFIA WIFE (1987). (Depressing ending, but compulsively watchable. It's even got Talia Shire, straight out of the GODFATHER cast; Joe Penny is a charismatic actor whose career as a leading man was far too short.) Apparently BLOOD VOWS was available as a DVD import at one time, but no longer.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE and THE MIRACLE WORKER are each available for under $10 from Deep Discount and can also be rented from Netflix.
Emily Loveridge founded the Good Samaritan School of Nursing in June 1890, making it the first school of nursing in the Northwest. In those days, the hospital was a wooden building housing 50 beds made of straw. It lacked electricity and instead utilized candles and gas lamps. As superintendent of the hospital, Emily Loveridge facilitated the progression of the hospital and nursing school over the years, documenting the exciting introduction of new technology such as an elevator and x-ray machine, the move from a wooden building to a brick building, and the tremendous changes that took place within the nursing field. When Miss Loveridge retired in 1930, she had successfully overseen the growth of the Good Samaritan Hospital from a small, struggling endeavor to a respected and well-known institution. Through the decades, the Good Samaritan School of Nursing worked through the Great Depression, aided in World War II efforts, and traversed the turbulent 60s and 70s with significant increases in student rights and personal freedoms. In 1985, in response to the national trend in nursing education to place the education of nurses in institutions of higher learning, Emily Loveridge's Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing became the Linfield College-Good Samaritan School of Nursing under the auspices of Linfield College.
The Iconographic Collection spans the years 1848-2005 with the bulk of materials dating between 1940 and 1985, and includes black-and-white and color photographs, negatives, slides, contact sheets, photograph albums, and microfiche. It is an artificial collection created to document the facilities, key events, advertising highlights and corporate culture of the J. Walter Thompson Company (JWT). Domestic and international offices are included, with the New York, Chicago and London offices being the most heavily represented. Key executives include James Walter Thompson, Stanley and Helen Landsdowne Resor, Don Johnston, Dan Seymour, Norm Strouse, and E.G. Wilson. Client advertising includes Ford, Kodak, Chesebrough-Pond's, Lever Brothers (Unilever), and Warner-Lambert. Notable photographers whose work appears in the collection include Fabian Bachrach, Ralph Bartholomew, Cecil Beaton, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Philippe Halsman, Horst P. Horst, George Hurrell, Yousuf Karsh, Baron Adolf de Meyer, Bill Ray, Jean Raeburn, Edward Steichen, Thomas Veres, Brett Weston and Dorothy Wilding.
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