Carve Her Name with Pride (1958) on Netflix
In wartime London, Violette Bushell marries Etienne Szabo, a French officer killed in North Africa. Recruited by the Special Operations Executive, she goes into occupied France under Tony Fraser.
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Plot summary
Violette Bushell, the daughter of an English father and a French mother, lives in London in the early years of the Second World War. She meets Etienne Szabo, a French officer serving in the city, and they marry and have a daughter, Tania. Etienne is killed fighting in North Africa, and Violette and the child move into her parents' home. Her grasp of French brings her to the Special Operations Executive, which recruits her as an agent for work in France. On her first mission she serves under Captain Tony Fraser, whom she had met socially before. A small plane carries her into France, and she rides a train toward Rouen in a compartment with German soldiers. Their first task is to contact what remains of the Resistance group Fraser set up in Rouen.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The poem "The Life That I Have" was not written for the film: it was the real code poem SOE cryptographer Leo Marks gave Violette Szabo in March 1944, written on Christmas Eve 1943 in memory of his girlfriend, who had died in a plane crash, and Marks allowed its use only on condition his authorship was not revealed.
- Rank had Virginia McKenna under contract and insisted that director Lewis Gilbert cast her as Violette Szabo, but Gilbert thought she was wrong for the part and wanted someone rougher, like Diana Dors, because the real Szabo was a Cockney from Brixton.
- Leo Marks, a technical adviser on the film, had written the code poem in real life, and the film made the poem enormously popular. During editing, Daniel Angel introduced Marks to director Michael Powell, the collaboration that led to Peeping Tom.
- Paul Scofield's character Tony Fraser was created for dramatic purposes, but is based on Violette Szabo's real male colleague on her missions in France, Philippe Liewer, who organized the Salesman circuit and was known as 'Major Charles Staunton'.
- Virginia McKenna prepared to play Violette Szabo by learning judo, how to shoot a Sten gun and parachute jumping; she said she did quite a lot of research.
