Odette (film)
| Odette | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Herbert Wilcox |
| Produced by | Herbert Wilcox Anna Neagle |
| Screenplay by | Warren Chetham-Strode |
| Based on |
Odette: The Story of a British Agent by Jerrard Tickell |
| Starring |
Anna Neagle Trevor Howard Marius Goring Bernard Lee Peter Ustinov |
| Music by | Anthony Collins |
| Cinematography | Mutz Greenbaum (credited as Max Greene) |
| Edited by | Bill Lewthwaite |
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Production
company |
Wilcox-Neagle Productions
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| Distributed by |
British Lion Films (UK) Lopert Pictures (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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124 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | ₤269,463 (UK) |
Odette is a 1950 British war film based on the true story of Special Operations Executive French-born agent Odette Sansom, who was captured by the Germans in 1943, condemned to death and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp to be executed. However, against all odds she survived the war and testified against the prison guards at the Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials. She was awarded the George Cross in 1946; the first woman ever to receive the award, and the only woman who has been awarded it while still alive.
Anna Neagle plays Odette Sansom and Trevor Howard plays Peter Churchill, the British agent she mainly worked with and married after the war. Peter Ustinov plays their radio operator Adolphe Rabinovitch. Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, who was head of the SOE's French Section, played himself in the film, as did Paddy Sproule, another FANY female SOE agent.
The film was directed by Herbert Wilcox, and the screenplay by Warren Chetham-Strode was based on Jerrard Tickell's non-fiction book Odette: The Story of a British Agent. It was jointly produced by the husband and wife team Herbert Wilcox and Anna Neagle.
Both Odette Sansom (by then Odette Churchill) and Peter Churchill served as technical advisors during the filming, and the film ends with a written message from Odette herself. Samson and Neagle spent considerable time in France, visiting locales associated with the story. Samson later said that Neagle "was absolutely into it. In fact it took one year after the end of the film to get back to normal, she was more upset by doing that film than I was reliving the experience." Samson said that she lobbied intensely for the film not to be made in Hollywood, for fear that it would be fictionalized, and that she was pleased by the result.
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