Nurse Cavell: Britain's Joan of Arc

Nurse Cavell is a 1916 Australian feature-length film directed by WJ Lincoln about the execution of Edith Cavell during the First World War. It was also known as Edith Cavell. Subtitled as ‘Britain’s Joan of Arc’, it is a lost film.

In an English garden, a Belgian officer meets a ward of an old clergyman friend of Edith Cavell. Eventually Cavell is executed for spying. Nurse Cavell was viewed as rival to The Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell, also produced in 1916, and there was legal action by Jack Gavin’s backers.

The Melbourne Winner (1 March 1916. p. 12) reported: In view of such hurried work, it is a tribute to all concerned that so good a picture was turned out. The story is interesting, and the photography, with the exception of one or two sections, excellent. The cast which interprets Mr Lincoln's story is more than equal to the demands made upon it... Miss Margaret Linden's Nurse Cavell is a sympathetic study, although her face is marred somewhat by the heavy make-up used about the eyes. Miss Agnes Keogh, as Nita Devereux, has a fine screen presence, and acts in a convincingly natural manner.... Mr Arthur Styan... appears to advantage as Lieut. Karl; Mr Fred Kehoe as General von Bissing generally does well; Mr Stewart Garner looks capably alert as Captain Devereux, the Belgian attache, and Frank Cullinan as the priest supports Nurse Cavell in her hour of trial with befitting solemnity.