I Was a Spy

Based on the memoir by wartime Belgian nurse Marthe Gnockhaert (1892-1966) - whose story resembles Edith Cavell's except she lived to tell the tale - and prefaced by a quote from former Secretary for War Winston S. Churchill. This lavish but bleak espionage drama set in Belgium in 1915 boasting fluid photography by imported Hollywood cameraman Charles Van Enger and handsome sets including a huge and imposing town square filled with parading Germans was voted the year's best film by the readers of 'Film Weekly'.

The cast includes later members of Hollywood's British community Edmund Gwenn and Nigel Bruce, with Conrad Veidt flashing his teeth ten years before his definitive Nazi swine Major Strasser in 'Casablanca'. The resistance interestingly includes a lot of women (including Martita Hunt in a rare non-eccentric role); while it doesn't spare us the spectacle of British planes strafing an outdoor prayer service and the development of poison gas ("How can chemists win the war?")