The Lady with a Lamp *** (1951, Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding, Gladys Young) – Classic Movie Review 8038

The romantic team of Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding returns in director Herbert Wilcox’s engrossing 1951 historical drama The Lady with a Lamp, an episodic and stately biography of the great English pioneer lady of nursing.

Neagle is well cast if a bit too regal as angel Florence Nightingale who went to the Crimean War in the 1850s and reformed the then primitive state of the nursing profession. Wilding plays Sidney Herbert, Lord Herbert of Lea.

Though sometimes lacking in spark, The Lady with a Lamp is still entertaining and informative, with fairly careful work all round. Warren Chetham Strode’s serviceable screenplay is based on Reginald Berkeley’s stage play. Among a fine vintage British cast, the standouts are Felix Aylmer as Lord Palmerston, Arthur Young as William Gladstone, Helena Pickard as Queen Victoria and Peter Graves as Prince Albert.

Neagle was famous for her own performances as Queen Victoria in Victoria the Great (1937) and Sixty Glorious Years [Queen of Destiny] (1938).

Also in the cast are Gladys Young, Dame Sybil Thorndyke, Nigel Stock, Rosalie Crutchley, Julian D’Albie, Helen Shingler, Monckton Hoffe, Cecil Trouncer, Barbara Couper, Edwin Styles, Maureen Pryor, Henry Edwards, Gordon Jackson, Andrew Osborn, Edie Martin, Basil Dignam and Charles Carson.

Felix Aylmer was reprising his role as Lord Palmerston following Victoria the Great (1937) and Sixty Glorious Years [Queen of Destiny] (1938), with Anna Neagle as Queen Victoria.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8038

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com