"Aventure Malgache" ("Madagascan Adventure") was one of two short French-language propaganda films which Alfred Hitchcock directed for the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War, the other being "Bon Voyage". "Bon Voyage" was intended to publicise the struggle of the French Resistance in mainland France itself, while "Aventure Malgache" deals with the Resistance movement in the French colonies. After the fall of France in 1940 the administration in French Madagascar (like that in some other colonies) supported the collaborationist Vichy regime until the island was liberated by British and Free French forces in 1942.
The hero of the film is Paul Clarus, a lawyer and amateur actor, who is a leading light in the Resistance on Madagascar. (He is said to be based upon a real-life figure, Jules François Clermont, who portrays him in the films). His activities include helping anti-Vichy Frenchmen escape from the island to British-controlled territory and running a clandestine pro-Resistance radio station. These activities bring him into conflict with the villainous Jean Michel, who before the war was a criminal whom Clarus prosecuted in court, but who has now become the Vichy regime's "Chef de la Sûreté" on the island. Some Vichy supporters were quite sincere in their belief that Marshal Philippe Petain's regime represented the best hope for the French nation but Michel is a cynical turncoat; when the British arrive we see him replacing a portrait of Petain in his office with one of Queen Victoria (which he has presumably been keeping in preparation for just such an eventuality).
In "Bon Voyage" Hitchcock did make some use of his normal suspense techniques, but "Aventure Malgache" is a more straightforward piece of propaganda. In the opening scene Clarus is seen discussing his adventures with some of his actor friends, so there is little suspense about the film; we know from the start that Clarus will survive. As with "Bon Voyage" the film is so different from Hitchcock's normal feature films, even explicitly propagandist ones like "Foreign Correspondence" or "Saboteur", that I will not award it a mark out of 10. It did, however, expand my French vocabulary by one word. "Malgache" is French for "Madagascan"; on the basis that "gacher" is French for "to spoil" I would otherwise have translated the title as "An Adventure Badly Spoiled".
The hero of the film is Paul Clarus, a lawyer and amateur actor, who is a leading light in the Resistance on Madagascar. (He is said to be based upon a real-life figure, Jules François Clermont, who portrays him in the films). His activities include helping anti-Vichy Frenchmen escape from the island to British-controlled territory and running a clandestine pro-Resistance radio station. These activities bring him into conflict with the villainous Jean Michel, who before the war was a criminal whom Clarus prosecuted in court, but who has now become the Vichy regime's "Chef de la Sûreté" on the island. Some Vichy supporters were quite sincere in their belief that Marshal Philippe Petain's regime represented the best hope for the French nation but Michel is a cynical turncoat; when the British arrive we see him replacing a portrait of Petain in his office with one of Queen Victoria (which he has presumably been keeping in preparation for just such an eventuality).
In "Bon Voyage" Hitchcock did make some use of his normal suspense techniques, but "Aventure Malgache" is a more straightforward piece of propaganda. In the opening scene Clarus is seen discussing his adventures with some of his actor friends, so there is little suspense about the film; we know from the start that Clarus will survive. As with "Bon Voyage" the film is so different from Hitchcock's normal feature films, even explicitly propagandist ones like "Foreign Correspondence" or "Saboteur", that I will not award it a mark out of 10. It did, however, expand my French vocabulary by one word. "Malgache" is French for "Madagascan"; on the basis that "gacher" is French for "to spoil" I would otherwise have translated the title as "An Adventure Badly Spoiled".