Nurse Edith Cavell (1939) Watch Online Trailer

English nurse Edith Cavell is matron in a small private hospital in German-occupied Brussels during WWI. When the son of a recently deceased patient escapes from a German prisoner-of-war camp, Cavell aids him to reach Holland and safety. This leads to Cavell, a local noblewoman, the grandmother of the escaped prisoner-of-war, and others to form an organization to help Belgian, French, English and other soldiers escape as well. Eventually the Germans become aware of what's happening and take action.



Nurse Edith Cavell (1939)
Released: 01 Sep 1939
Runtime: 108 min
Director: Herbert Wilcox
Writer(s): Reginald Berkeley (story), Edith Cavell (novel), Michael Hogan
Actors: Anna Neagle, Edna May Oliver, George Sanders, May Robson
IMDB Ratings: 6.5



Plot: Many of the "preparedness" films of the years just prior to World War II sidestepped censorship by depicting past outrages of the Germans. Such a film was British producer Herbert Wilcox's Hollywood production Nurse Edith Cavell, in which Wilcox's future wife Anna Neagle portrayed the titular martyred Englishwoman. Ms. Neagle plays the legendary Ms. Cavell as a candidate for Canonization. Her selfless efforts to rescue refugee soldiers from World War I Belgium results in her being arrested on charges of espionage. Despite international pleas for clemency, the dastardly Deutschlanders sentence Edith to death. She faces the firing squad with a courageous serenity that makes Joan of Arc look like a hysterical schoolgirl. An earlier, silent version of Nurse Edith Cavell had caused turmoil in England due to its unadorned depiction of war's horrors. In 1939, however, audiences inundated by reports of Hitler's latest outrages were more receptive.