The Lady with a Lamp

{{About|the 1951 film|the painting|Miss Nightingale at Scutari, 1854|the person so nicknamed|Florence Nightingale}}

{{Infobox film

| name = The Lady with a Lamp

| image = "The_Lady_with_the_Lamp".jpg

| caption = Australian daybill poster

| director = Herbert Wilcox

| producer = Herbert Wilcox

| writer = Warren Chetham Strode

| based_on = The Lady with a Lamp by Reginald Berkeley

| starring = Anna Neagle
Michael Wilding
Felix Aylmer

| cinematography = Max Greene

| music = Anthony Collins

| editing = Bill Lewthwaite

| color_process = Black and white

| studio = Imperadio Pictures

| distributor = British Lion Films

| released = {{film date|df=y|1951|10|22|London}}

| runtime = 110 minutes

| country = United Kingdom

| language = English

| gross = £151,091 (UK)Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p495

}}

The Lady with a Lamp is a 1951 British historical drama film directed by Herbert Wilcox and starring Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding and Felix Aylmer.{{Cite web |title=The Lady with a Lamp |url=https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150032389 |access-date=17 April 2025 |website=British Film Institute Collections Search}}{{cite web|url=http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/39605 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090114002859/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/39605 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-01-14 |title=BFI | Film & TV Database | The LADY WITH THE LAMP (1951) |publisher=Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk |date=2009-04-16 |access-date=2014-06-21}} It was written by Warren Chetham Strode based on the 1929 play The Lady with a Lamp by Reginald Berkeley. The film depicts the life of Florence Nightingale and her work with wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War.

Plot

Illustrating the political complexities the hard-headed nurse had to battle in order to achieve sanitary medical conditions during the Crimean War. Opposed in the uppermost circles of British government because she is "merely" a woman, Florence Nightingale is championed by the Hon. Sidney Herbert, minister of war. Herbert pulls strings to allow Nightingale and her nursing staff access to battlefield hospitals, and in so doing changes the course of medical history.{{cite web|url=http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-lady-with-a-lamp-v98554 |title=The Lady with a Lamp (1951) - Trailers, Reviews, Synopsis, Showtimes and Cast |publisher=AllMovie |access-date=2014-06-22}}

Main cast

Anna Neagle as Florence Nightingale
Michael Wilding as Lord Herbert
Felix Aylmer as Lord Palmerston
Gladys Young as Mrs Bracebridge
Julian D'Albie as Mr Bracebridge
Arthur Young as William Gladstone
Edwin Styles as Mr Nightingale
Helen Shingler as Parthenope Nightingale
Rosalie Crutchley as Mrs Sidney Herbert
Clement McCallin as Richard M. Milnes
Helena Pickard as Queen Victoria
Peter Graves as Prince Albert
Sybil Thorndike as Miss Bosanquet
Monckton Hoffe as Lord Stratford
Cecil Trouncer as Sir Douglass Dawson
Michael Craig as wounded soldier

Production

It was shot at Shepperton Studios outside London. Location shooting took place at Cole Green railway station in Hertfordshire and at Lea Hurst, the Nightingale family home, near Matlock in Derbyshire. The film's sets were designed by the art director William C. Andrews.

Recepotion

= Box office =

The film was popular at the British box office.{{cite magazine|url=https://archive.org/details/Screen_Volume_32_Issue_3/page/n17|magazine=Screen|page=258|volume=32|issue=3|title=The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry|first=Janet|last=Thumim}} It was judged by Kinematograph Weekly as a "notable performer" at British cinemas in 1951.{{cite magazine|magazine=Kinematograph Weekly|title=These were the winners in 1951|date=20 December 1951|page=9-10}}

= Critical reception =

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "What the handling and the performance conspicuously and disastrously lack is the quality of toughness – physical, mental and moral – which was the basis of Florence Nightingale's character. ... Anna Neagle's performance, although marked by obvious sincerity of intention, has softened the redoubtable Florence Nightingale into a figure of dull and conventional nobility. These defects in conception apart, the film is a slow, sedate, refined chronicle which rises to drama only on the very rare occasions when the material itself takes command."{{Cite journal |date=1 January 1951 |title=The Lady with a Lamp |volume=18 |issue=204 |pages=341 |id={{ProQuest|1305814259}} |magazine=The Monthly Film Bulletin}}

TV Guide gave the film three out of four stars, and noted, "the contrast in settings--between stately British homes and the squalor of the hospital--focuses the viewer's attentions on what the real battles were. Honorable mention should be given to Lewthwaite's editing of the war sequences."{{cite web |title=The Lady With A Lamp Review |url=http://movies.tvguide.com/the-lady-with-a-lamp/review/103686 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721145925/http://www.tvguide.com/movies/the-lady-with-a-lamp/review/103686/ |archive-date=21 July 2015 |access-date=2014-06-21 |publisher=Movies.tvguide.com}}

Leonard Maltin also gave the film three out of four stars, noting a "Methodical recreation of 19th- century nurse-crusader Florence Nightingale, tastefully enacted by Neagle."{{cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/556482/the-lady-with-a-lamp |title=Lady with a Lamp, The (1951) - Overview |publisher=Turner Classic Movies |access-date=2014-06-21}}

Variety observed, "Anna Neagle adds another portrait to her screen gallery of famous women. Her characterization of Florence Nightingale is a sincerely moving study...Michael Wilding is not too happily cast as Sidney Herbert, War Minister. Within limitations, he makes the best of this part. The strong feature cast includes Felix Aylmer, with an exceptionally good study of Lord Palmerston. Herbert Wilcox, as always, directs in a plain, straightforward manner."{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/1950/film/reviews/the-lady-with-the-lamp-1200416857/ |title=The Lady with the Lamp |publisher=Variety |date=1950-12-31 |access-date=2014-06-21}}

According to academics Sue Harper and Vince Porter, "The film is poor on characterization and concentrates on Nightingale’s powers of social consolidation by combining female energy with an insistence on ‘duty’. This was Wilcox’s last attempt to play innovation against tradition. After this, his films always embraced traditional structures of feeling with disastrous box office results."{{cite book|title= British cinema of the 1950s : the decline of deference|last1=Harper|first1= Sue|last2=Porter|first2=Vincent|date=2003|publisher= Oxford University Press|page=156}}