- The Master of Suspense turned his talents towards French wartime propaganda
- He’d been stung by harsh accusations of abandoning Britain in her hour of need
- After making his anti-Nazi film Lifeboat, he travelled to UK to make two shorts
- Both his mini-adventures feature French exiles who had fled to London
- But they were deemed unsuitable and remained unseen for 50 years
- Three separate pairs of transfers are available: ok, better and best
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US LaserDisc
Contents
- Production
- Home video
- Related articles
Production
US VHS
“Diabolical… they present the filmmaker’s talent in its prime!” – Bret Wood, Film Comment
“Fascinating.” – Caryn James, New York Times
An RAF pilot shot down in occupied France escapes from a POW camp and makes a perilous return journey to London with the help of a brave fellow prisoner and agents of the French Underground. But is the real truth hidden by treachery? Vichy-controlled French Madagascar seethes with political intrigue and treason. A hard-headed resistance leader battles the corrupt government to keep his island free. Could his well-oiled operation be betrayed by a careless word of love?
Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache (Madagascar Landing) are taut, absorbing dramas of wartime espionage and murder, made in 1944 to aid the war effort. But when British government officials saw Alfred Hitchcock’s films, they labelled them “inflammatory,” shelved them and tried to forget they were ever made. Now, 50 years later, fans have the rare pleasure of discovering new thrills from the Master of Suspense. Through a joint effort with the British Film Institute, Milestone is pleased to present these lost film noir classics for the first time ever on video! – US Milestone VHS (1994)
US Milestone DVD
In 1939, with England just a few months away from being plunged into World War II, the country’s most celebrated filmmaker was on his way to America to join producer David O. Selznick’s company. Hitchcock had begun his directorial career in 1925 and with the advent of sound, he embarked on a series of craftily constructed, excitingly cinematic thrillers that would bring him great fame. The success of films like The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, both at home and abroad, translated into offers from Hollywood, where Hitchcock hoped to free himself from the economic constrictions and technical deficiencies that seriously hindered the British film industry. Hitchcock’s American period got off to a splendid start with the gothic romance Rebecca, and he remained in the United States for the rest of his life.
His ties to England, however, were many, and the outcome of the war across the Atlantic was an ever-present concern. Foreign Correspondent, his second Hollywood feature, was an exhilarating propaganda piece in the form of a thriller that after many bravura sequences climaxed with Joel McCrea’s impassioned exhortation for the US to join in the fight against Hitler. After Pearl Harbor, Hitchcock made two more films strongly influenced by world events. In Saboteur, Robert Cummings played the classic Hitchcock character of the innocent man wrongly accused, who travels cross-country to prove that a Nazi spy is responsible for several acts of sabotage. Lifeboat was a fascinating tour de force for the Master, dealing with the survivors of a torpedoed ship and their reactions to the presence of a German sailor in their midst.
Bon Voyage
Despite the timely statements those films disseminated to large audiences across the globe, Hitchcock still felt the need to become more involved in the war effort. As he told François Truffaut: “I knew that if I did nothing I’d regret it for the rest of my life; it was important to me to do something and also to get into the atmosphere of war.” So it was that Hitchcock’s friend Sidney Bernstein, then head of the film section of the British Ministry of Information, arranged for the director to make two half-hour shorts to be shown in France and its colonies celebrating the work of the Resistance and warning against collaborators. Both were shot in French by renowned German cinematographer Günther Krampf at film studios in London, and star a group of exiled French actors known as the Molière Players.
In Bon Voyage, an RAF gunner who fled a prisoner of war camp in Germany to safety in England is interrogated by a Free French intelligence officer. In flashback, we see how he and a fellow escapee, a Polish officer, made the dangerous journey through France with the help of the Resistance. When the officer reveals to the gunner that the Pole was in reality a spy trying to nail members of the underground movement, Hitchcock replays scenes from the escape, this time from a different perspective.
- Bon Voyage – Lorraine LoBianco
- Aventure Malgache – John M. Miller
Aventure Malgache
Aventure Malgache also has a flashback structure, but its tone is more lighthearted. Hitchcock conceived the film after realizing how divided the Free French were in their loyalties. “There was an actor and lawyer whose Resistance name was Clarousse,” Hitchcock told Truffaut. “He was in his late sixties but had lots of energy and he was always at odds with his Free French companions who finally threw him in jail in Tananarive.” The story is told by Clarousse himself and details his efforts to smuggle opponents of the Vichy Government out of Madagascar. Aventure Malgache’s almost satirical exposure of the shifting allegiances brought on by war made for too ambiguous a piece of propaganda and it sat on the shelf, unseen, for 50 years.
Since they could not be seen, over the years Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache became much sought after by Hitchcock enthusiasts. The wait came to an end in 1993, when the British Film Institute, with the help of American film distributor Milestone Film & Video and copyright expert David Pierce, rescued the two films from the vaults of the National Film Archives. Once considered just footnotes in the Hitchcock biography, they can now be appreciated as important links in the director’s body of work. – Milestone LD/DVD (1995/1998) notes by Sérgio Leemann, author of Robert Wise on His Films (1995).
- Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache – Ken Mogg
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Propaganda – Jennifer Renee Brown
US reissue DVD sleeve by Adrian Rothschild, 2011
AM is “an entertaining slice of Hitchcockian cheekiness.” – Variety/BV: Joe Leydon, author of Movies You Must See (2004)
After five successful years in Hollywood, British-born Alfred Hitchcock returned home in 1944 to direct two half-hour films to be shown in France to aid the work of the underground Resistance movement. Working with a group of exiled French actors, the great filmmaker crafted two taut, absorbing dramas of wartime espionage and murder. But when British government officials saw Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, they labeled them “inflammatory,” shelved them and tried to forget they were ever made. Possessing the hallmarks that made Hitchcock’s features so successful — a foreboding sense of dread, suspicion that all is not what it seems, and characters capable of surprising evil — these short films did not make for effective propaganda.
In Bon Voyage, an RAF gunner who escaped a German POW camp has arrived safely to England where he recounts his adventures to a free French intelligence officer. In flashbacks, we see how the soldier and a fellow escapee — a Polish officer — made the dangerous journey through occupied France with the help of the Resistance. After a French officer reveals that the Pole was in reality a spy working to uncover members of the underground movement, the film returns to scenes of the pair’s escape, this time from a far different — and darker — perspective.
Aventure Malgache also tells its story through flashbacks. An actor relates his misadventures smuggling opponents of the Vichy Government out of wartime Madagascar. The film’s satirical exposure of shifting wartime allegiances includes a wonderful scene of a police officer swapping a photo of Petain for one of the Queen. Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache remained unseen and unavailable until 1993, when they were rescued from the vaults. The films are now celebrated as important links in the director’s body of work. – US Milestone DVD (2011)
- Phones as Instruments of Betrayal in AH’s BV and AM – James M. Vest
- Foreign Correspondence: The Rediscovered War Films of AH/alt – Bret Wood
Following the completion of Jamaica Inn, Hitch had departed for the US in 1939 at the invitation of producer David O. Selznick. Mere months later, Britain, along with the rest of Europe began suffering under the privations of war. Hitch, despite the timing of his long-planned departure coming at an opportune point in his career, was seen as having abandoned his motherland in her hour of need. Stung by completely unwarranted public criticism, especially from his erstwhile friend and mentor Michael Balcon, Hitch undertook to direct a couple of French-language shorts for the British Ministry of Defence. The intention was for them to boost morale in France and its colonies, and deter collaboration with the invading Germans.
The resulting shorts were shot in London starring exiled French nationals and executed in Hitch’s usual morally ambiguous style. While this made for great drama, it was not exactly typical of the fare that the War Office deemed fit for propaganda purposes. They don’t appear to have actually been publicly screened at the time and were soon shelved, wrapped up in bureaucratic red tape and and left unseen for the next five decades, eventually coming to rest at the British Film Institute National Archive (Voyage/Malgache). Given the ever-burgeoning interest in all things Hitchcock, it was only a matter of time before the legal hurdles were overcome to enable their belated availability and appreciation.
- Hitchcock’s WWII French Films and the Limits of Propaganda – Kenneth Rivers
- Archetypes as Propaganda in AH’s “Lost” WWII Films – J. Justin Gustainis and Deborah Jay DeSilva
The essential Hitchcock Lost and Found has an extensive chapter on his work during WWII, especially focusing on these two shorts. In particular, it features a lovely Janique Joelle interview with Alain Kerzoncuf, who later announced her death at the ripe old age of 101.
- Hitchcock’s Aventure Malgache (or the True Story of DZ 91) – Alain Kerzoncuf
- Hitchcock Lost and Found: The Forgotten Films (2015) – Charles Barr and Kerzoncuf
Preserved transfers
Music: Bon Voyage/Aventure Malgache
In 1993, the preserved versions were finally hauled out of storage, played a few screenings alongside other revived Hitch films, then started appearing on home video. I’ve ascertained that three separate pairs of transfers have been issued over the years, each vastly improving on the last, and have broken down their releases accordingly. Note that all official releases have optional subtitles only in their respective countries’ languages with the exception of the barebones French DVD which, not too surprisingly, has no subs at all. So far, they’ve seen these releases:
- US: Milestone DVD (1998, reissued 2011), LD (1995), VHS (1994) and streaming
- UK: Connoisseur/BFI VHS (1994)
- Italy: e.MIK VHS (2002)
- Japan: Imagica DVD (2000) and Shintoho VHS/alt (1995) – PAL-NTSC transfers
The transfers on this initial batch do not, quite frankly, pass muster these days. They’re more akin to blurry kinescopes with muffled audio than decent copies of 35mm material and they have small, burned-in English subtitles that are frequently difficult to read. While initially they were the only way for English speakers to experience the shorts, they’ve long since served their purpose. They were superseded before the US DVD’s 2011 reissue, yet it’s regrettably still in print and really ought to have been remastered or retired by now. For Hitchcock completists only.
Remastered transfers
UK DVD
- UK: Network DVD (2010)
- Spain: Vellavisión DVD (2006) – see below
- France: Editions Montparnasse DVD/reissue (2006)
This is much more like it: while still far short of fully-restored quality they’re now quite decent, with clearer audio and optional subtitles. There are some comparative screenshots of these and the preserved transfers at the invaluable Hitchcock Zone. Extras are scarce but the UK disc adds a compilation of contemporary Hitch newsreels (8min). The shorts were released across Scandinavia as part of a set of eight Hitchcock discs, each with four sets of subtitles. The Swedish and Finnish Hitchcock Classic Collections are the same bar translated packaging, although the latter initially came in a slipcased foldout Digipak but was reissued in 2008 in a thick Amaray keep case. All eight discs were released individually in Norway, while Denmark just got a set of four.
- Sweden: Atlantic Film 8-DVD/9-film H Classic Collection (2006) info
- Finland: Future Film 8-DVD/9-film H Classic Collection (2006) info
- Norway: Star Media DVD (2006) – 8 separate discs
- Denmark: On Air Video Special 4 Disc Edition/alt(2006)
Restored transfers
UK Eureka/Masters of Cinema steelbook Blu-ray/DVD
- UK: Eureka/MoC BD/DVD and steelbook (2012) w/Lifeboat
- Spain: A Contracorriente BD (2016) w/Jamaica Inn (not on JI DVD)
- Australia: Shock BD (2013) and DVD (2012) w/Lifeboat
- Brazil: Versátil 3-DVD/7-film O Cinema de H, Vol. 2/alt (2019) info
Now we’re (French) cooking: these releases feature new digital restorations and while still showing minor signs of wear, for the most part look superb (screenshots) and again have optional subtitles, albeit with some variable translations. In the UK, Oz and Spain they’ve been teamed up with two other Hitch films of the period, Lifeboat and Jamaica Inn respectively, offering a much better deal than the previous standalone releases. The UK and Oz discs are identical but note that while the Spanish BD has the shorts as subtitled extras, its equivalent DVD does not. All three BDs have the shorts in HD, while North American buyers should note that the UK/Oz DVDs, though respectively coded for regions 2 and 4, are NTSC, making them suitable for any multi-region set-up. Both UK releases also come with a substantial 36-page illustrated essay booklet.
Bootlegs
Though far fewer than the literally countless bootlegs of Hitch’s earlier British films, there are still a few rip-offs. In Germany the shorts were dubbed and retitled Gute Reise and Landung auf Madagaskar. Though they’ve been shown on TV with German subtitles there are no official releases whatsoever. The dubs are only available courtesy of our thieving friends (not-so) Great Movies on their non-subtitled, standard definition BD and much-reissued DVD (reissue/alt), which also appears in many of their box sets.
I haven’t yet ascertained the legitimacy of the Spanish DVD from Vellavisión but am giving it the benefit of the doubt for now. In addition to the original French, it has two optional Spanish voiceovers for the shorts, with one poorly remixed into anachronistic 5.1 surround. It includes the unofficial Alfred Hitchcock: More Than Just a Profile documentary (2005, 61min), which is also available on a US double-sided DVD from faux-public domain pirates Delta Entertainment with 20 Hitch film trailers. Side two of the latter has poor quality copies of Sabotage, Murder! and “The Cheney Vase”, a first-season episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The doc’s very cheaply done, replete with inaccuracies and blurry unlicensed clips; however, if you’ve a completist’s yen to torture yourself, it’s for sale on various streaming sites or can be watched for free:
Related articles
This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.
