Florence Nightingale (1985)

A young woman (Jaclyn Smith), born into an aristocratic family, forsakes her privileged background and dedicates herself to improving patient care and conditions in British hospitals. Based on the life of Florence Nightingale and directed by Daryl Duke (THE THORN BIRDS). This is a straightforward telling of Nightingale's tenacious pursuit of her passion in spite of family and societal disapproval. It's watchable and certainly not dull but it's a generic made for television biography. Something as routine as this might have been helped by a strong central performance but the lovely Jaclyn Smith (whose English accent comes and goes) isn't a very interesting actress and a project like this really needs a star performance. The film is divided into two parts. The first half focuses on her struggle to be taken seriously and a romance with a supportive suitor (Timothy Dalton) and the second part focuses on her time during the Crimean War and the resistance and hardships she and her nurses faced in Turkey. With Claire Bloom, Brian Cox, Jeremy Brett, Peter McEnery and Timothy West.