White Banners is a 1938 Warner Brothers drama film starring Claude Rains, Fay Bainter, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville, Henry O'Neill, and Kay Johnson. Directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Henry Blanke and Hal B. Wallis, the screenplay was adapted by Lenore J. Coffee, Abem Finkel and Cameron Rogers based on the 1936 novel of the same title by Lloyd C. Douglas. The movie, Fay Bainter and others of the cast received very good reviews in the Los Angeles Times. Bainter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance as Hannah Parmalee. White Banners is set in a small town in Indiana, in 1919. On a dreary, cold and snowy day a peddler named Hannah Parmalee (played by Bainter) appears at the door of a kind couple, Paul Ward (played by Rains) and his wife, Marcia (played by Johnson), selling apple peelers. Asked by Mrs. Ward to come inside and warm up, Hannah sees they are struggling financially and are in need of some domestic help. She offers her services and becomes their cook and housekeeper for room and board. Mr.