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Title: WILD FLOWERS OF PALESTINE

Reference number: 0348

Date: 1949*

Director: filmed by Dr. Herbert Watt Torrance

Sound: silent

Original format: 16mm

Colour: col

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 7.00 mins

Description: Films taken by Dr. Herbert Watt Torrance of the Scottish Mission Hospital, Tiberias, and family life during the years 1930-1950.

Commended at Scottish Amateur Film Festival, 1952

Credits: Commended entry at SAFF 1952

Shotlist: Credits (.24); Palestine, Galilee, Tiberias. Galilee - sub-tropical region with a profusion of wild flowers. Nurses walking in gardens of hospital (.32); Galilee - the country where Jesus grew up. Local person in field of flowers (.39); Flowers which are grown in gardens at home run wild in Galilee like these far spreading lupins. Camel train and driver on hillside, nurses picking lupins. Camels on track (1.16); Jesus said "Why take ye thought for raiment. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these". Nurses pick flowers (1.39); Wild flowers like these red anemones are the 'lilies of the field" to which Jesus referred. Nurses with armfuls of anemones (1.51); The colour of these silene fields reminds the Scot abroad of the heather-clad hills of his native land. Fields of flowers, town skyline on hill, close-up of the flowers (2.10); Egyptian Pink Campion, ancestor of our carnations. Local woman breaks up soil in field of flowers (2.16); Hollycock and corn poppies. Close-ups (2.21); Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one, any one of these wild flowers of Palestine. Close-ups of blooms (2.41); By the lakeside 2000 feet below. Shots of same (2.55); Horned sea poppies. Blossoms (3.15); The children's "soldier sailor". Same (3.29); Broom rape, a parisitic plant with absolutely no green leaf. It is all root and flower. Close up (3.45); "For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth". Local people in fields of flowers (3.58); "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the work of our God shall stand forever". Church, cemetery (4.09); Galilee is a land of striking contrasts Here the modern meets the ancient world. Piles of oranges on ground and in a truck, woman and baby on donkey on road (4.37); Life in Galilee provides illustrations for the Bible. A mother with two turtle doves. Man and child on a donkey, woman walks behind carrying shoes on her head and two doves in her hand (4.46); In strange contrast to the beauty of the flowers. Scenes from life in Tiberias hospital. Boy with injuries to foot and hand is attended to by nurses (5.00); In this Church of Scotland Medical Mission treatment is given to the halt, the maimed and the blind. Young girl with badly scarred back is spoon fed (5.21); Native treatment for wounds and disease is crude and cruel. Group of local people run round boy with injured knee bandaged in leaves. Baby with scratched skin (5.38); Christian love and medical skill works wonders. Local woman holds baby with distorted face (5.52); Same child after hospital treatment for eye trouble. Mother, child and nurse (6.05); The added touch. Girl goes home cured with doll sent from Scotland. Girl clutching doll (6.32); In the new state of Israel the Scottish Medical Mission at Tiberias has been given a unique opportunity. Baby plays with fruit (6.48); Working in Jesus' name to make the children of his own land as beautiful as the flowers. Shots of baby and close-up of flowers of all kinds (7.07)