Aventure Malgache

The lesser of two French-language propaganda shorts made by Hitchcock in 1944 for the British Ministry of Information (see Bon Voyage), Aventure Malgache is a laboured attempt to dramatise the internal conflicts between the Gaullists, Pétanists and Vichyites in the French colonies. Welwyn Garden City stands in for Madagascar. In the event, these tensions proved so sensitive that the film was never exhibited. The plot concerns the rivalry between a corrupt Vichyite police chief and a lawyer who masterminds the local Resistance. Imaginative touches and a characteristically droll denouement.