Aventure malgache

It is interesting for Hitchcock completests in particular, but this is not an example of the great director being on top form. There are some imaginative directorial touches(in the camera work, humour and the theme with the double), a nice droll denouncement, some nicely crafted production values, some decent acting especially from Paul Claras and a playful yet haunting music score. Sadly for Aventure Malgache for all the good things there are a number of things that are not done very well. It is too heavy on the dialogue, which apart from the sly humour here and there veers on stilted and crass and it bogs the pacing down. The pacing does have some quick-moving scenes but the most talky scenes drag, while the storytelling does get confused and not the easiest to follow. There is not much exciting here either, it is the case of too much dialogue not enough action and there is little suspense too. And it does get bogged down in the propaganda elements, it makes its point but it doesn't hold up well and some may find the attitudes of the French being portrayed here rather insensitive(the reason why it stayed in the vaults for such a long time). In conclusion, an interesting short film and worth the look but Aventure Malgache is really not Hitchcock at his best and it doesn't ever rise above interesting curiosity value. 5/10 Bethany Cox

In wartime with such a shortage of resources, short films made in the French language in Britain in 1944 were undoubtedly made for very distinct purposes. In this situation Hitchcock evidently put his talents entirely at the disposal of the powers that be but, in the absence of concrete information, we can only guess what those purposes were.

In common with "Bon Voyage" - the other of the two films Hitch shot in the French language during the war - the intended audience was Vichy France and the Vichy controlled French colonies (the film is set in Madagascar). Overall they were propaganda films, intended for the French resistance. Each is to some extent instructional particularly warning of pitfalls resistance members could fall into. Here the main character is imprisoned by the Vichy authorities and finds that a defence lawyer has been provided for him. The defence lawyer asks for full details of the man's resistance activities so that he can better defend him. The main character immediately realises that the lawyer is working for the authorities and there solely to extract incriminating information. Noticeable too are the many references to Britain's role in supporting the Resistance - presumably an important part of the film's message.

Overall the film quite slick, pacy and good humoured. Other propaganda elements are not so obvious although presumably the main character's bravery, spirit, wiliness along with his undoubted patriotism (like Petain, a hero of the Battle of Verdun in WW1, indeed known to Petain but having chosen resistance rather than collaboration) perhaps offered something of a role model for the audience. The key line must have been "The greatness of a country is measured by the spirit of its people". Given the reality of occupation and collaboration, "spirit" was one thing that nevertheless could remain undimmed, that national honour could still be fought for and could still be saved.

Interestingly both films were small projects and that it was other directors who handled the now iconic wartime productions.

A corrupt Vichy police official & a wily Resistance lawyer have their own intense AVENTURE MALAGACHE during the early years of the Second World War.

Although having lived in Hollywood since 1939, famed film director Alfred Hitchcock nevertheless wanted to be involved in some way with the British war effort against the Axis. So, in 1943 he returned to London & took up the assignment to direct a couple of propaganda films aimed at the French, under the auspices of the British Ministry of Information.

The two film shorts which resulted - BON VOYAGE & AVENTURE MALAGACHE (both 1944) - did not excite the Ministry and were given only very brief exhibition, after which they languished for decades in the vaults of the British Film Institute. Hitchcock, meanwhile, his war service satisfied, returned to California.

AVENTURE MALAGACHE (Adventure in Madagascar) is basically a look at the extreme antagonism between the two principal characters, cut off, as they are, from the main action of the War due to their Indian Ocean location. Extremely fast moving, it demands unblinking attention on the part of the viewer, especially if one must needs be forced to rely on the English subtitles. The acting & production values are quite good - Hitchcock was able to call upon the services of French actors, writers & technicians exiled in Britain.

The film is about the French controlled island of Madagascar. Once the French surrendered to Germany in 1940 and became their allies, their colonies around the globe were left to decide whether to go along with the Vichy government or throw in their lot with the British and continue to fight the Nazis. The film particularly follows one man on the island who is the head of the underground movement.

This is a very odd film. During WWII, Alfred Hitchcock made two short propaganda films in French! Everyone speaks French and I wonder if Hitchcock himself understood the language. Considering how weak this short film is, I assume he didn't! Unlike most propaganda films, this film is way too talky and slow. Additionally, it's not exactly inspiring. There simply is no action or suspense and the film is amazingly uninspiring. All these factors led the British government to say "thanks but no thanks" to the director when he tried to help out with the war effort.

FYI--I noticed one reviewer gave the short a 10. When I checked, I noticed that out of dozens and dozens of their reviews I perused, all had received 10s--every last one.

"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".