Odette **** (1950, Anna Neagle, Trevor Howard, Peter Ustinov, Marius Goring, Bernard Lee) – Classic Movie Review 9143

Anna Neagle shines in her producer-director husband Herbert Wilcox’s 1950 British wartime drama Odette.

Based on the book by Jerrard Tickell, there is a sterling tale of Resistance heroics in Nazi-occupied France in this stirring dramatisation of the inspiring true story of British agent Odette Sansom (later Odette Churchill), the French woman living in England who volunteered to join the British Intelligence Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War Two, was flown into occupied France and fought with the French Resistance against the Third Reich, but was captured and hideously tortured by the Gestapo, refusing to identify her accomplices.

This moving and powerful tale is only competently presented here as a piece of cinema, but Neagle is outstanding, and British stalwarts Trevor Howard Captain Peter Churchill, Peter Ustinov as Lt. Alex Rabinovitch, Marius Goring as Colonel Henri and Bernard Lee as Jack all give of their estimable best.

Above all, its good heart and sincerity come over loud and clear.

Odette was captured in 1943 and sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp to be executed, but she survived and testified against the prison guards at the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials. She was awarded the George Cross in 1946 as the first female recipient and the only woman awarded it while alive.

Trevor Howard plays Peter Churchill, the British agent Odette mainly worked with and married after the war. Peter Ustinov plays their radio operator Alex Rabinovitch. Colonel Maurice Buckmaster, who was head of the SOE’s French Section, plays himself as does Paddy Sproule, another First Aid Nursing Yeomanry [FANY] female SOE agent.

The screenplay by Warren Chetham-Strode is based on Jerrard Tickell’s non-fiction book Odette: The Story of a British Agent.

Also in the cast are Maurice Buckmaster, Marie Burke, Gilles Quéant, Guyri Wagner, Wolf Frees, F R Wendhausen [Frederick Wendhausen], Alfred Shieske, Marianne Walla, Catherine Paul, John Hunter, Campbell Gray and Derek Penley.

The real Odette suggested that Neagle play her. Odette and Peter Churchill were technical advisors during filming, and the film ends with a written message from Odette: ‘I am a very ordinary woman to whom a chance was given to see human beings at their best and at their worst. I knew kindness as well as cruelty, understanding as well as brutality.’

Odette and Neagle spent time in France, visiting locations associated with the story. Odette said Neagle ‘was absolutely into it. She was more upset by doing that film than I was reliving the experience. It took one year to get back to normal.’ Sansom lobbied for the film not to be made in Hollywood and she was pleased by the result.

It premiered as a Royal Command Film Performance before King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at London’s Plaza Cinema on 6 June 1950.

It was the fourth most popular movie at the British box office in 1950 and Wilcox said it was his most profitable film.

Odette is directed by Herbert Wilcox, runs 124 minutes, is made by Wilcox-Neagle Productions, is released by British Lion Films, is written by Warren Chetham-Strode, based on Jerrard Tickell’s book Odette: The Story of a British Agent, is shot in black and white by Mutz Greenbaum [Max Greene], produced by Herbert Wilcox and Anna Neagle, and scored by Anthony Collins.

The cast are Anna Neagle as Odette Sansom, Trevor Howard as Captain Peter Churchill, Marius Goring as Colonel Henri (Hugo Bleicher), Peter Ustinov as ‘Arnaud’ (Alex Rabinovitch), Bernard Lee as Jack, Maurice Buckmaster as Himself, Alfred Schieske as Camp Commandant Fritz Suhren, Gilles Quéant as Jacques, Marianne Walla as SS Wardress, F R Wendhausen as Colonel, Marie Burke, Guyri Wagner, Wolf Frees, Catherine Paul, John Hunter, Campbell Gray and Derek Penley.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9143

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