While she was searching, her mother, Regina Thomas, saw a copy of David Nelson Wren’s Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line at a Chanticleer Garden board meeting. “I wanted to explore how individuals from different nationalities and backgrounds came together to resist evil-a theme that’s become even more relevant.”Ī Call to Spy was shot internationally, but Thomas also scoured Philadelphia in search of appropriate settings (and to keep costs down). “These women united to defend human dignity,” says Thomas. Thomas was drawn to the women for their strength of conviction in the face of discrimination, whether it was Hall’s disability, Khan’s Indian heritage or Atkins’ feared deportation as a Romanian Jew. Along with 36 other women, all three helped undermine the Nazi regime in France. An ambitious American with a wooden leg, Hall became the first woman to work for the CIA after the war. Spymistress Vera Atkins (played by Stana Katic) recruits Muslim pacifist Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte) and Virginia Hall (Thomas’ character). Their mission: to conduct sabotage and build a resistance. With Britain and the Allies becoming increasingly desperate, Winston Churchill spearheaded the Secret Operations Executive to recruit and train women as spies. It’s based on one of the more remarkable true stories to come out of in the early stages of World War II. Directed by Lydia Dean Pilcher, the film has received generally favorable reviews and is now available on various streaming services. She also plays a lead role in the low-budget fact-based historical drama, which took four years to complete. Thomas produced A Call to Spy and wrote its screenplay. “Every room was France, London and Scotland.” “We used every single room on the first floor,” says Main Line native Sarah Megan Thomas of the 10-day shoot in Spring 2018. “Funny how they believe the interiors were re-created,” says Joanie Mackie, a family liaison for Villanova’s Ardrossan estate.įor the first time ever, the iconic home of the family that inspired 1940’s The Philadelphia Story became an actual movie set. When A Call to Spy was released in the United Kingdom, a positive review in The Guardian praised the film’s “meticulous depiction of female wartime agents … and the considerable effort that has clearly gone into re-creating period interiors and ephemera.” Photo by Jordan Matter Through this new film, Haverford native Sarah Megan Thomas makes the historic Ardrossan estate a hub for on-screen espionage.
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