But sometimes the role, its risks and its rewards are welcomed with gratitude, as British actress Virginia McKenna welcomed her 1958 casting as Violette Szabo in the British movie Carve Her Name With Pride. Szabo married a French soldier near the beginning of World War II but became a widow and mother in short order. Her bilingualism brings her to the attention of British military intelligence officers, who recruit her to serve behind enemy lines in France. Only her devotion to her late husband and belief her country needs her make her willing to risk capture and possible death to team up with French resistance fighters and spy out German troop movements.
McKenna is one of British cinema's best-known and best-loved performers, earning the 1956 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for her role in A Town Like Alice and a nomination for the same award for her Szabo portrayal. She would later earn an Olivier Award in 1979 while starring opposite Yul Brynner in The King and I and gain her greatest recognition for playing naturalist Joy Adamson in 1966's Born Free. She carries most of the movie, as male lead Paul Scofield's Tony Fraser and other cast members all play off her lead.
McKenna vividly highlights Szabo as an ordinary woman who felt she must answer when duty called, in spite of her responsibilities as the single parent of a young daughter. Even though Name takes some liberties with history, it tries to stay faithful to Szabo's story in honoring her service. That makes some scenes a little leaden, as reality is rarely much like a movie, but Carve Her Name With Pride is a fine tribute to a courageous woman, very well acted by the whole cast and especially McKenna.
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