Rarely Seen Hitchcock Wartime Resistance Films Soon Available on DVD
During the Second World War, Hitchcock made two short propaganda films for the British Ministry of Information, the films being BON VOYAGE and AVENTURE MALGACHE respectively.ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S WARTIME RESISTANCE FILMS is released by Network Distributing and Strike Force Entertainment on DVD for the first time ever, on 3rd November 2008, RRP £16.99 (Screen Ratio 1.33:1, Black and White, total running time: approx. 63 mins).
This release offers an excellent opportunity to watch the master director’s two rarely seen, but no less important films.
Bon Voyage (1944, 25 mins)
This is a briskly paced and expertly constructed suspense thriller. The story tells of an RAF office (John Blythe – This Happy Breed), who is interrogated by the Free French in England after his escape from Occupied France. In subjective flashbacks, he recalls the heroic efforts of a fellow escapee – a Polish Army sergeant named Godowski – who leads him to contacts with various agents of the French underground. The plot thickens and takes a turn for the worse. Identities of the characters are revealed to be false and their motives even more ambiguous. It is an intriguing, engaging device not unlike the method utilised by Hitchcock in his later and better known film, Vertigo.
Aventure Malgache (1944, 30 mins)
Every line in the script for these two propaganda films was scrutinised thoroughly by French Government. Hitchcock was very much amused by the disagreements that arose in the censoring process. Their arguments made Hitchcock realise that the Resistance was anything but unanimous in terms of what it wanted to achieve, and this became the subject of AVENTURE MALGACHE. A light, comedic take on the theme of wartime treachery and betrayal, the film primarily consists of a series of flashbacks narrated by Clarousse – one of the three actors in the backstage in London, 1944 – to two fellow actors as they prepare for a play aimed at French exiles. Clarousse tells of his experiences of working as a barrister during the day, and his nights as a Resistance agent in Madagascar.
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