| Carve Her Name with Pride | |
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original film poster |
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| Directed by | Lewis Gilbert |
| Produced by | Daniel M. Angel |
| Written by | R.J. Minney (book) Vernon Harris & Lewis Gilbert (screenplay) |
| Starring | Virginia McKenna Paul Scofield |
| Music by | William Alwyn |
| Cinematography | John Wilcox |
| Editing by | John Shirley |
| Distributed by | Rank Organisation |
| Release date(s) | 18 February 1958 |
| Running time | 119 min. |
| Language | English French German |
Carve Her Name with Pride is a 1958 British drama film based on the book of the same name by R.J. Minney. Set during World War II, the film is based on the true story of the heroism of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo, with Virginia McKenna in the lead role.
The film includes the reading of the poem The Life That I Have, written by Leo Marks and given to Szabo as she left for a mission in Nazi-occupied France.
The uncredited part played by Michael Caine (a prisoner on a German prison train bombed by the RAF who leans forward and calls to Violette Szabo for water) in real life was the war hero F. F. E. Yeo-Thomas (as recorded by Leo Marks in Chapter 76 of his book Between Silk and Cyanide).
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Violette Szabo is a young woman whose father is English and mother is French, living in London during World War II. She meets a French Army officer, Etienne Szabo stationed in the city, and within three days they become engaged to be married. They have a daughter together; a young girl named Tania, but Etienne never sees her as he is killed fighting in North Africa.
Because of her linguistic skills, the widowed Violette is employed as a spy by the British government. On her first mission, she travels to Rouen to discover how many of the French Resistance movement have survived, but is forced to flee back to England when a Nazi officer discovers her identity.
Violette later returns to France on a second mission, but is captured and taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she is executed.
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