My obsession with the women operatives of the SOE began when I heard an archive recording - from the sixties - of Odette Churchill talking about being tortured by the Nazis, and how she was able to disassociate herself from what was being done to her by floating out over the trees of the Bois de Boulogne. 'Woman's Hour' was never more interesting.
I don't really know Anna Neagle, but this is a Neagle-Wilcox production (they were married in 1943); she was a big star especially in WW2. This is an authentic-feeling depiction of Odette Churchill's wartime exploits, given added verisimilitude by the presence of the real Maurice Buckmaster, head of operations of section F at Orchard Court. Location filming in France helps - it's a most impressive film shoot from Max Green aka Mutz Greenbaum. What, I wondered, did the French make of seeing Nazis in Marseille in 1950?
And a good cast - Trevor Howard, Peter Ustinov, Marius Goring and Bernard Lee. Written by Jerrard Tickell and Warren Chetham Strode.
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