This award-winning TV production tells the true story of a heroic woman's underground operation to spirit allied soldiers out of Nazi-occupied France. Her name is Mary Lindell, a British-born Red Cross nurse living in France with her two teenage children, Maurice and Barbé, by Lindell's marriage to Count de Melville. The story begins in Paris in 1940 when a downed British flier, Maj. James Legatt (
Sam Neill), stumbles to a table at a sidewalk cafe. Dressed in a shin-to-shoulder overcoat and dizzy with fatigue, he plops into a chair. At a table nearby, Lindell (
Judy Davis) notices his boots -- British issue and a dead giveaway. When German soldiers approach the flier, Lindell walks to his table and slaps him smartly, pretending he is her drunken husband. The ruse works. Lindell then takes Legatt to her home in a taxi and nurses him to health. During their time together, they fall in love -- chastely, without overtly disclosing their affection for each other. Using her feminine wiles and forceful personality to bamboozle SS hounds, she effects his escape back to England, then dedicates herself to rescuing other allies. All goes well until a flier botches his escape. An investigation and trial send Lindell to prison for nine months. She barely survives. After her release, her son and daughter hide her and restore her to health, and Lindell goes back to work smuggling allies across the border -- this time with the aid of a priest (Denholm Elliot) and Maj. Legatt, who tracks her activities from his headquarters in England. Eventually, the Nazis capture her and send her to Ravensbrück concentration camp north of Berlin. In the conclusion of the production, viewers learn the ultimate fate of Lindell and Legatt. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide