Overrated and overhyped

Let's be realistic.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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.

Comedies such as 'ALLO 'ALLO have a lot to answer for. While watching some of the scenes where Violette Szabo (Virginia McKenna) is interrogated by the Nazis, I couldn't help recalling parallel scenes where Herr Flick (Richard Gibson) did exactly the same thing, aided (or is it abetted) by the leggy Helga (Kim Hartman) in the Lloyd/Croft British sitcom. This offers a good example of how time can modify our perceptions of a text.On its own terms, however, Lewis Gilbert's film is a quietly understated biopic of a naive girl with a French mother (Denise Grey) who marries a Frenchman (Alain Saury) in a whirlwind romance. He loses his life at El Alamein, and Violette responds by becoming an agent parachuted into occupied France. Together with her partner Tony Fraser (Paul Scofield in one of his rare screen appearances) they accomplish one mission successfully, but things go horribly wrong when Violette embarks on her second, more dangerous assignment.The film has some good action sequences, shot in and around Pinewood Studios, but Gilbert's principal focus centers on the characters' interrelationships - between Violette and her father (Jack Warner), who knows what she is doing, but agrees voluntarily to keep it a secret. Violette's relationship with Tony could bloom into love, but both know that they could lose their lives at any moment, so they agree to keep it platonic. McKenna portrays the central character as an ordinary woman with an extraordinary inner strength giving her the courage to undertake the missions while remaining determined to resist any attempts to force vital information out of her.Her transition from ordinary homemaker to toughened agent is lucidly handled, as she is at first intimidated by and then learns to cope with her uncompromising NCO instructor (Bill Owen). It is a tribute to her strength that she learns to cope with various ordeals, of being ducked in the river, of walking home on a filthy wet night, and handling a shotgun. The training proves invaluable for her later on, when she has to take on a platoon of pursuing Nazis virtually single-handed.Despite her hopes, Violette Szabo never made it back from the War, leaving her daughter Tanya (Pauline Challoner) to collect a George Medal from King George VI. As Tanya returns to her quiet suburban home with her grandmother and grandfather, we can but reflect that it was chiefly due to Violette's selfless efforts that Britain and the Allies managed to emerge triumphant from six years of conflict.

There was a recent news item on UK TV here, commemorating the life of war heroine Violette Szabo (which included a lengthy interview with her now elderly daughter, only two at the time of the events depicted) and this so interested me that I naturally had to watch this potted biography of her very short life (she was only 23 when she died) which the BBC aired soon afterwards. Directed and part-written by a pre-Bond Lewis Gilbert, the film itself is a typical example of British film-making of the 50's. Very much studio-bound, everyone talking in very clipped British accents using very polite and refined language ("doing one's bit"), nevertheless the film breaks these limitations by the power of Mrs Szabo's story, faithfully told, I trust, a brisk narrative style injecting action and tension at the right moments and best of all two fine performances in the leads, Paul Scofield as Tony, Violette's commander in the field, a brave spy himself and of course Virginia McKenna as Violette herself. Fresh-faced and innocent at the start, she throws herself into the physical demands of the part and is completely convincing as we follow her journey ultimately and sadly to its conclusion at the hands of a German firing squad. There's good acting back-up besides from UK stalwarts both established, (Jack "Dixon" Warner), and emergent (Bill Owen and Billie Whitelaw). While humour and romance play a part in early proceedings, particularly her short-lived husband's courtship of Violette with Whitelaw's Winnie as perennial gooseberry and Violette and her female colleagues' (it's important to be aware that Violette was only one of many brave UK women pressed into this dangerous work) training-ground encounters with bluff sergeant Owen (of course they win him over), the film progresses through reasonably suspenseful and exciting sequences, particularly in the chase sequence as Violette and her French resistance colleague try to escape from their German pursuers. He makes it, she doesn't and after Violette and her female colleagues selflessly spurn an escape opportunity on board the train taking them to the German prison camp by getting water for the gasping male prisoners, they meet their end with bravery and dignity (no screaming or begging for life by any of them). A remarkable story, which I'm the better for knowing and a jolly good UK war film to boot.

Never had the opportunity to view this 1958 film, however, I did have knowledge of the story behind Violette Salbo,(Virginia McKenna) and the wonderful poem she used as a code to destroy the Nazi's during WW 11. This picture clearly shows the horror of Hitler and his bunch of goons killing innocent men, woman and children in concentration camps and behind closed doors. Virginia McKenna gave an outstanding performance of Violette Salbo as a very brave woman who stood firm against the strong forces of evil and went on to be remembered in the hearts and minds of many generations to come. Don't miss this film, it is truly a great film Classic, however, it is very down to earth and rather sad and yet happy.