Patricia Roc is on leave from a French convent. She's wearing her nun's habit when the French authorities pick her up and accuse her of being a German spy. She LOOKS like a nun. She has a clean, honest, pretty face that's not overly expressive. I guess I should say she looks the way a nun SHOULD look. My nuns didn't resemble her at all. Mine impressed me as huge bat-like creatures waiting to swoop down on you with a ruler.
Anyway, she's a novice, not yet having taken her vows. What this almost always means is that there's a man in her future -- and so there is.
The Germans occupy the town and Roc is given crummy clothes and transferred to a guarded compound that used to be a luxury hotel, somewhere near Rouen. There are a thousand or more other British women held prisoner there. They are the usual varied group. There is Flora Robson with her long face and squinched eyes exuding authority. There is the cynical babe crepitating with wisecracks. There is the stripper (ie., whore) who is selling her body to the German sergeant in return for a single room instead of a double. There are one or two hefty Nazi moles in the group too.
Their life in the internment camp didn't strike me as particularly demanding. Nobody complains about the food. It's an attractive resort hotel, after all, with spacious grounds including a summer house. Their most ardent complaint is that they have to schlepp hot water up four flights of stairs to take a bath and then two at a time must share the tub before the water cools. Except for the barbed-wired inner and outer walls, conditions are better than those under which I grew up.
But the capacious rooms and the absence of genuine hardships is necessary to maintain the tone of the story, which is Gemutlich and even gay. The girls stage shows in the ballroom, with costumes and a band, to entertain one another as well as the German staff.
Then -- cherchez l'homme. A British bomber is disabled over the compound and three men parachute inside its walls. They must be hidden from the soldiers and the spies. And then, after a romantic interlude between Patricia Roc -- whose character has the same name as an attractive girl I once took to Roseland in New York -- the three airmen must be helped to escape. As the aviators speed away in their stolen staff car, the ladies all gather on the stage and sing, "There'll Always Be An England." The story isn't uninteresting and there are a couple of witty lines in the dialog. At the beginning, Roc is hustled onto a German truck filled with other captured internees. The woman next to Roc introduces herself and begins gabbing away. A third girl is sitting there and, not having been introduced, asks, "Don't I exist?" The other snaps, "Yes, unfortunately." For all the dashing around, giggling, and chat, it's never slow or boring and there are some moments of genuine drama. A diverting war-time piece.
Anyway, she's a novice, not yet having taken her vows. What this almost always means is that there's a man in her future -- and so there is.
The Germans occupy the town and Roc is given crummy clothes and transferred to a guarded compound that used to be a luxury hotel, somewhere near Rouen. There are a thousand or more other British women held prisoner there. They are the usual varied group. There is Flora Robson with her long face and squinched eyes exuding authority. There is the cynical babe crepitating with wisecracks. There is the stripper (ie., whore) who is selling her body to the German sergeant in return for a single room instead of a double. There are one or two hefty Nazi moles in the group too.
Their life in the internment camp didn't strike me as particularly demanding. Nobody complains about the food. It's an attractive resort hotel, after all, with spacious grounds including a summer house. Their most ardent complaint is that they have to schlepp hot water up four flights of stairs to take a bath and then two at a time must share the tub before the water cools. Except for the barbed-wired inner and outer walls, conditions are better than those under which I grew up.
But the capacious rooms and the absence of genuine hardships is necessary to maintain the tone of the story, which is Gemutlich and even gay. The girls stage shows in the ballroom, with costumes and a band, to entertain one another as well as the German staff.
Then -- cherchez l'homme. A British bomber is disabled over the compound and three men parachute inside its walls. They must be hidden from the soldiers and the spies. And then, after a romantic interlude between Patricia Roc -- whose character has the same name as an attractive girl I once took to Roseland in New York -- the three airmen must be helped to escape. As the aviators speed away in their stolen staff car, the ladies all gather on the stage and sing, "There'll Always Be An England." The story isn't uninteresting and there are a couple of witty lines in the dialog. At the beginning, Roc is hustled onto a German truck filled with other captured internees. The woman next to Roc introduces herself and begins gabbing away. A third girl is sitting there and, not having been introduced, asks, "Don't I exist?" The other snaps, "Yes, unfortunately." For all the dashing around, giggling, and chat, it's never slow or boring and there are some moments of genuine drama. A diverting war-time piece.