Carve Her Name with Pride

Carve Her Name with Pride
Original film poster
Directed by	Lewis Gilbert
Produced by	Daniel M. Angel
Written by	R.J. Minney (book) Vernon Harris Lewis Gilbert
Starring	Virginia McKenna Paul Scofield
Music by	William Alwyn
Cinematography	John Wilcox
Edited by	John Shirley
Distributed by	Rank Organisation
Release date	18 February 1958
Running time	119 min.
Language	English French German

Carve Her Name with Pride is a 1958 British war drama film based on the book of the same name by R.J. Minney.

The film, directed by Lewis Gilbert, is based on the true story of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo, GC, who was executed after serving in Nazi-occupied France. Szabo was played by Virginia McKenna.

Violette Bushell is a young woman whose father is English and mother is French, living in London early in the Second World War. She meets French Army officer Etienne Szabo, stationed in the city, and they become engaged to be married. They have a daughter, Tania, but Etienne never sees the child as he is killed fighting in North Africa; Violette Szabo and her daughter move into her parents' home.

Because of her linguistic skills, the widowed Szabo is recruited as a spy by the British government for operations in France. On her first mission, she is teamed with Captain Tony Fraser (Paul Scofield), a man she had met earlier socially and liked. She arrives by small plane in France, and shares a train compartment to Rouen with curious Nazi soldiers. The French Resistance group Fraser had set up in Rouen has been betrayed. The job of the new arrivals is to contact any survivors and to blow up a major railway viaduct. One Resistance member who Szabo contacts tells her that another survivor, a garage mechanic (André Maranne), is suspect, but Szabo takes the risk of meeting him anyway. He informs her that only three of 98 group members remain. Nonetheless, she persuades him to try to blow up the viaduct. Szabo is picked up and questioned by the Gestapo. She is released and meets in Paris with Fraser, who congratulates her: the viaduct was destroyed.