Hey zim,
Its hard to tell from the screenshot, but i can see a couple rules to follow from it.

The "base" curve should be placed with the object to flow as you want it to end up on the surface. So if you look at frenchys image, his straight curve is laying directly at the base of the object. Yours seems to be situated some distance away? The flow calc will read this distance.

The other is the orientation. It will be best to have things pointed "up" to do the flow...(up being the z axis).

aha!
Thanks!

I was not aware of the distances causing the object to distort
(I hadn't gotten far enough to notice that one yet).
I was also not aware it was best to flow with the object lying
down. Thanks.

I then suppose there is something wrong with my object that
causes it to bend in two directions?

I can get a simple shape to bend the way I want but for some
reason this frame seems to refuse to bend only the way I
want it.

http://i64.tinypic.com/2ut50et.jpg

http://i67.tinypic.com/33p8umo.jpg

Try putting your target curve outside of the bounds od the object and base curve.

Attach the 3dm file for better help.