Clare Mulley's "Agent Zo"

Clare Mulley is an award-winning public historian, author and broadcaster, primarily focused on female experience during the Second World War.

Her new book is Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter, the critically-acclaimed biography of Elżbieta Zawacka, the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi German-occupied Poland. Previous titles include the award-winning The Woman Who Saved the Children, on Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children although not fond of individual youngsters; The Spy Who Loved, a biography of the first woman to serve Britain as a special agent in the Second World War and who was acclaimed as Churchill’s ‘favourite spy’, Krystyna Skarbek aka Christine Granville; and The Women Who Flew for Hitler, which tells the story of Nazi Germany’s only two female test pilots, one of whom tried to save Hitler’s life while the other tried to kill him. Mulley’s books are widely translated, and have all been optioned for film or TV.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of Agent Zo:

Agent Zo opens with Zo perched on the edge of the circular hole cut in the floor of the mighty four-engine British Halifax bomber in the seconds before she becomes the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi-German occupied Poland during the Second World War. The adrenalin rarely drops as Zo served variously as an intelligence officer, resistance courier, Home Army soldier, and the only woman in the Polish elite special forces, the Cichociemni or Silent Unseen, from the early hours of 1 September 1939 to the end of the conflict. She is perfect movie material: brilliant, funny, courageous and highly effective in the fight against Nazism.

Zo was one of many remarkable women who played crucial active service roles on or behind enemy lines during the war, and I often wonder why they rarely appear on our screens. Before casting, I would want to secure a good screenwriter to ensure that Zo’s role is not diminished, and her achievements not side-lined. Phoebe Waller Bridge could produce the perfect script. Alternatively, I would give Steve McQueen a shot, but perhaps he could direct!

As for actors, I would like someone who reflects Zo’s Polish roots. Resistance in the Second World War usually conjures up images of Paris, but this is very much a Polish story, and all the more resonant for that today. Agnieszka Grochowska could probably do Zo justice, and Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman all have Polish roots, so they could also audition. Alternatively, Jodie Comer brought a brilliant steeliness to Killing Eve’s ‘Villanelle’, and Alicia Vikander can convey the right kind of intensity whether in Ex-Machina or ‘Lara Croft’ in Tomb Raider. Zo serves with several trusted friends; communications experts, saboteurs, doctors and soldiers, so there might be room for them all! There’s certainly space for some lad as well – Polish stunt man Jack Jagodka cold definitely leap from a train / airplane several times, and what film would be complete without Dominic West, just saying!

Visit Clare Mulley's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Women Who Flew For Hitler.

The Page 99 Test: The Women Who Flew For Hitler.

--Marshal Zeringue