Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)

Carve her name with Pride is directed and co-written by Lewis Gilbert. Gilbert is one of the unsung heroes of British cinema who has directed on of the best James Bond film ever made.The film is based on true events. Violette Szabo (Virginia McKenna) is half French (French mother) and after a whirlwind romance she marries a French officer who dies in North Africa.Widowed with a two year old daughter she joins up with the British Special Operations Executive to be a spy. This includes undertaking a tough and rigorous training regime where her trainer reckons she is not up to the task.Violette is sent into occupied France in 1944 to work under an experienced SOE agent Tony Fraser (Paul Scofield.) After a successful first mission she is captured after a more dangerous endeavour.She is tortured by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp where she is executed. After the war her daughter received a posthumous George Cross in recognition of her mother's bravery.This is a crisp film without much pomp but plenty of clipped accents. It does feel a kind of old fashioned. There is a hint of a burgeoning romance between Fraser and Szabo but you get a hint of the horrors Szabo endured in the interrogation scenes and the concentration camp segment where there is effective use of make up to make Szabo looked haggard and even though you feel it is restrained those scenes still look harrowing.This film along with Odette shows the roles and sacrifices made by women in the war which unfortunately some men will love to airbrush out. Just look at the frothing of the mouth in modern action films that has a female heroine!Virginia McKenna gives a solid and stoic performance, there is a strong performance by Scofield. There are small supporting turns from Jack Warner and Bill Owen.

During WWII, a British woman marries a wimpy French soldier after a courtship of about three days. He then dies and she goes off to fight the Germans in his honor, leaving behind their little girl. McKenna is much too cheerful for someone experiencing so many hardships. The film consists of random scenes and veers from dull to corny to ridiculous. There's a scene where McKenna, hopping around on one good leg, engages in a machine gun battle with dozens of German soldiers. She manages to mow down half of them before they are able to capture her. Gilbert, who provides the uninspired direction here, went to on to direct films featuring another British agent, James Bond.

SPOILER AT THE END OF THIS! Sorry to go against the tide, but this flick almost put me to sleep. It is extremely slow-moving and dull, with many scenes that stretch believability and common-sense. The lead, Virginia McKenna, always looks as though she's just stood up from the make-up and hairstylist's chair, everything just-so, pert & pretty. Her acting is wooden. I just cannot get over thinking of her as a dress model. The direction helped to sink this film, boring, unimaginative. On the plus side, I do have a liking for 1940s/50s B&W British movies, war stories especially. That's probably why I sat through this -- at home. In a movie theatre, I'd have walked out for sure. I could recommend this film only to die-hard Virginia McKenna fans, or those who simply must see every British WW2 movie ever made. The 4 stars I have this movie are generous, mainly for atmosphere and for the fact that the terrible actor playing her husband died very early on.

Central and RADA actors provided the backbone of British cinema during the 50s and were noted for their awful "cockerney" accents. McKenna is no exception and she is a bit all over the place where she might have been better sticking to her own voice. However she and Schofield along with Jack Warner give good performances.The development of the back story is overly long by modern standards and the scene in France rushed and lacking in action. The rebuilding of the resistance network and the operations in her first drop seem to have been more extensive. In the film you almost feel like she's done a weekend Eurostar shopping trip to Paris.