Bon Voyage + Aventure Malgache (1944) – reviewed by George

Alfred Hitchcock returned to England in 1944 to film these two short films (about an hour to see both), which were designed to be shown in France to resistance workers as encouragement (and to an extent as cautionary tales) to continue their efforts. They were made by Hitchcock at Welwyn Studios with the aid of French writers, actors, and technicians exiled to Britain. They are in French with English subtitles.
“Bon Voyage” tells the story of a Scotsman, an RAF pilot named John Dougall, who escaped from a Nazi POW camp along with a resistance fighter, Stefan, and made his way across France to Britain, where he is being interviewed about the experience by a French Intelligence officer. He tells his story and then is informed that someone among the various resistance people he met was actually part of the Vichy government wiping out the resistance. And we see a flashback that includes new information, including the murder of a Vichy spy just to create trust.
A note may be needed here. In 1940 while Germany was occupying northern France (capital Paris), southern France (“capital” Vichy) was unoccupied and to some slight extent independent. Politicians there wanted to keep it that way. Marshall Phillipe Petain was appointed Premier by the President (Lebrun) and immediately ordered an armistice signed with Germany. So the Vichy government has always been considered a government of conciliation and weakness, the go-along-to-stay-alive government, and traitorous to France’s history and traditions.
“Aventure Malgache” begins thus: “The exploits of the Resistance in France are acclaimed the world over. The story we are about to tell you is true. It may not help you to share these heroic times with the French people, but it does show how the spirit animated even the farthest colonies. London 1944: The French military authorities had assigned actors to form a company presenting plays for soldiers, civilians, and the many Britons who love France. One of these actors had been a lawyer in Madagascar. On 28th June, 1940 … but listen to his story.”
In the dressing room three actors are putting on makeup and getting ready for a dress rehearsal or maybe a performance. One says he can’t find a way into his part. One of the other two, Clarousse, tells him he needs a model. “If only you’d known my old friend Michel – Jean Michel, the Chief of Police in Madagascar.” “In the first place,  he’s a gangster, not a police chief! Anyway, I don’t know Michel OR Madagascar.” Clarousse says, “You can still use him as a model.” And he begins his tale. We see Clarousse first in a cafe-bar with friends listening to the radio and getting the news of Petain’s signing of the armistice. One says, “Armistice? Treason is more like it!” The men in the group want to arm and defend the island, but first they want to place themselves at the disposal of the military. But the military argues with them. The men say Britain will help us, and South Africa. But they are chided and told to remember your history: England stole the Indies and Canada from us, and South Africa has long coveted Madagascar and its mineral riches. Your British friends will become your masters. The reply by Clarousse: “In Madagascar we have only three options: to become Boche slaves, to submit to the Japanese yoke, or to go on our knees to England. Personally I prefer the last option.” But Michel does not trust Clarousse – he wants him followed and all his moves reported. He collects data and has Clarousse arrested and tried in a court-martial. And he wins the case without being able to read a single coded massage Clarousse sent; he never found the code! The ship taking Clarousse to the penal colony is intercepted by a British vessel and  Clarousse is installed on a ship in the ocean broadcasting the news back to Madagascar. On Radio Free-Madagascar he calls Michel a “Vichy-ite lackey, born of Petain and of criminal instincts.” And Michel has Clarousse sentenced to death in absentia for seditious anti-French propaganda. Then when Clarousse’s prediction comes true and the British land on 4th May, 1942, Vichy gave the order to fight, but the British hoisted the French flag over the local base and said it was the only flag that would ever fly over Madagascar.
The actor playing the gangster says, “I suppose Michel fled?” And Clarousse says, “You haven’t fathomed his character. When he learned of the Allied landing, he replaced Petain’s picture with Queen Victoria’s.” “Were the British taken in?” “No, he was arrested double-quick.”
NOW: when British government officials saw the completed films, they called them inflammatory and locked them away. They remained unseen until 1993, when they were rescued from the vault and copyrighted by the British Film Institute, and are now considered “important links” in the Master’s oeuvre.
My personal feeling is that those 1944 government officials couldn’t see beyond that blather about how the Brits stole the Indies and Canada. And incidentally, “boche” is French slang for “German blockhead”, or words to that effect.