''The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell'' is a 1916 Australian silent film about the execution of nurse

Edith Cavell Edith Louisa Cavell ( ; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Be ...

during World War I. Although one of the most popular Australian silent movies ever made, it is considered a

lost film A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

Synopsis

The story is told in four parts. The film starts at the English home of

before the war, then jumps forward six years to a Belgium hospital, where Cavell is working. The war is about to start and Dr Schultz suggests Nurse Cavell return home but she refuses, saying her place is with the sick. She gets an invitation to the wedding of two friends, Lt Renard and Yvonne Loudet. Herr Cries is also invited; he pretends to be a medical student but is in fact a foreign spy and is a rejected suitor of Yvonne. He forces himself on her, but Lt Renard knocks him out and Cries departs, swearing vengeance. The wedding ends when everyone gets news that war has been declared and Renard goes to military headquarters. Four months later Brussels has been occupied by the Germans and Cavell is tending wounded British, German and Belgium soldiers. Lt Renard has been captured and imprisoned by the Germans. He makes an escape with the help of friends and visits his wife and parents. Yvonne asks Nurse Cavell to help them escape the country. She advises her to send her husband to the Café Française and give the password "Liberty" to Monsieur Fouchard, the proprietor, in exchange for false passports. Renard succeeds but Herr Cries and Captain Hoffberg follow him home. Hoffberg murders Renard's father, causing the mother to die of shock. He then tries to rape Yvonne but Renard intervenes. A struggle ensues, with Yvonne saving her husband's life and the two of them escaping. Cries and Hoffberg report the escape to Baron von Bissell, Military Governor of Brussels, and report their suspicions about Nurse Cavell. Searching the hospital, Cries finds a letter from England incriminating Nurse Cavell for assisting another prisoner of war to escape. She is captured by the Germans and refused legal advice, being secretly tried and sentenced to death. The American Ambassador pleads for her life, and the Reverend Gerard demands the right to see her and administer communion. The German officer Von Bissell grants a permit. She is sentenced and shot at 2am, her last words being: "Tell my friends I give my life willingly for my country. I have no fear or shrinking. I have seen death so often, it is not fearful or strange to me."

Cast

Vera Pearce Annie Vera Pearce (27 May 1895 – 18 January 1966) was an Australian stage and film actress. Her lengthy career was carried out in both her home country and in England. Biography Born in Broken Hill (New South Wales), Pearce spent much of h ...

John Gavin John A. Gavin (born Juan Vincent Apablasa; April 8, 1931 – February 9, 2018) was an American actor who was the president of the Screen Actors Guild (1971–73), and the United States Ambassador to Mexico (1981–86). Among the films he appeared ...

as Captain von Hoffberg, a German cavalry officer * C. Post Mason as Georges Renard, a Belgian officer *

Harrington Reynolds Harrington Reynolds was an English actor who appeared on stage and in a number of movies. He was best known for ''Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and ...

as Reverend Thomas Gerard *Percy Walshe as Baron Von Bissell, the German military Governor at Brussels * Charles Villiers as Herr Cries, a German spy *George Portus as Dr Schultz *Roland Stavey as American Ambassador *James Martin as Monsieur Renard *Robert Floyd as Monsieur Fouchard of the Cafe Française *George Farrell as disabled soldier *Ethel Bashford as Yvonne Loudet, Lt Reynard's sweetheart *Clare Stephenson as Madame Renard *Nellie Power as Nurse Marcheau

Production

John Gavin got the idea to make the film after reading a newspaper story about Cavell's death.

Agnes Gavin Agnes Gavin (1872–1947), was an Australian actor and screenwriter in the silent film era. She worked in collaboration with her husband John Gavin throughout her career. She wrote the majority of his films and was arguably the first specialist s ...

wrote the script overnight and finance was obtained from two leading distributors, J. D. Williams and the partnership of

Stanley Crick Stanley Sadler Crick (9 October 1888 – 1955) was an Australian film producer, distributor and politician. He joined the Melbourne office of Pathe Freres and became manager of the Sydney branch in 1909. He went into production, first in partner ...

and Jones. Agnes Gavin copyrighted her script on 7 January 1916. Filming took three weeks in and around

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, with locations at

Watsons Bay Watsons Bay is a harbourside, eastern suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Watsons Bay is located 11 km north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Woollahra. ...

and interiors at

Darlinghurst Gaol The Darlinghurst Gaol is a former Australian prison located in Darlinghurst, New South Wales. The site is bordered by Darlinghurst Road, Burton and Forbes streets, with entrances on Forbes and Burton Streets. The heritage-listed building, predom ...

(standing in for German Headquarters) and the

Rushcutters Bay Studio Rushcutters Bay Studio was an Australian film studio built by Charles Cozens Spencer in 1912 at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney. For a number of years it was the leading film studio in Sydney, being the base of operations for Australasian Films. In 19 ...

, finishing in early January 1916. It was the first film made on this topic in the world. The movie was co-directed with an American, C. Post Mason, who had been working for Australasian Films and also appeared in the movie. Eleven stone Mason had a fight scene with 18 stone Gavin, which Mason's character was required to win; in order to make this believable, the script was rewritten to have Ethel Bashford's character come in and smash Gavin over the head with a vase. (Post moved to New York to promote the movie in North America. He decided to stay there and died during the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...

was appearing in the ''

Tivoli Follies The Tivoli Follies was a series of vaudeville revue programs in Australia staged between 1914 and 1917 by the J. C. Williamson's organization through their "Tivoli" chain of theatres in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. The name has since been revive ...

'' at the time. Harrington Reynolds had just appeared on stage in ''The Rosary''. The ''Motion Picture News'' wrote during production that "I am off the opinion that it will be one of the usual war dramas. If so, it seems a pity to waste such talent as that possessed by Miss Pearce and Harrington Reynolds." Australian Prime Minister William Hughes sent a letter to Mason prior to the film's release, stating that:

I shall certainly be pleased to see the Photo-play dealing with the Martyrdom and execution of Nurse Cavell, which you propose to produce shortly; but I'm very much afraid that I shall not be able to do so, seeing that in the course of a few days I shall be leaving Australian for London and will be absent for some little time. I wish the venture success, and hope it may be the medium of impressing on people the dreadful inhumanity of our enemy."

Reception

The film was given a preview in front of several notables in January 1916, including the Governor General and acting Prime Minister. Reviews were generally good and the film was very successful at the box office, achieving release in the US, South Africa, Canada, India and the UK. By April 1917 it had made £10,000. Gavin said the film made over £20,000.

References

External links

*
''The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell''
at the

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

''The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell''
at

Austlit AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource (also known as AustLit: Australian Literature Gateway; and AustLit: The Resource for Australian Literature), usually referred to simply as AustLit, is an internet-based, non-profit collaboration betwee ...

''The Matryrdom of Nurse Cavell''
at Brooksie's Silent Film Collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell, The 1916 films Australian black-and-white films Australian silent feature films Films directed by John Gavin World War I films based on actual events Lost Australian films Silent war films