Five Branded Women

As was traditional during wartime, women who were accused of collaborating with the Nazis had their heads rather brutally shorn so as to clearly brand them for all to see. Based on Ugo Pirro's quite interesting book "Jovanka e le altre" this tells the story of five such women, cast out by their Yugoslav community, who set about finding their own way of avenging themselves upon their oppressors - both foreign and domestic. Silvana Mangano ("Jovanka") leads the band of ladies who include Barbara Bel Geddes ("Maria"), Jeanne Moreau ("Ljuba") and Vera Miles ("Daniza") as they prove just as effective at carrying out their tasks as their menfolk - led by "Velko" (Van Heflin). This is one of those, quite rare, stories that demonstrates that women were no push over when it came to ruthlessness - and even though some co-operated with the soldiers more willingly than others, none did so without the permanent fear for the lives of themselves and their children - a series of scenarios well depicted here by a strong cast under good direction from Martin Ritt. It has it's fair share of ambushes, and plenty of action and double-crosses to keep the thing alive and engaging. Only a tiny bit of romance - and even that seems to engender a rather unpalatable degree of punishment - gets in the way of this plausible and at times quite gripping tale of freedom fighting.