Archetypes as Propaganda in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lost" World War II Films

Custainis | Archetypes as Propaganda in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lost" World War Il Films J. Justin Custainis and Deborah Jay DeSilva State University of New York at Plattsburgh Arche ?es as Propaganda in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lost" World War II Films t is a truism to say that waging war requires propaganda; it is equally obvious that, in the twentieth century, when war propaganda is needed, it sooner or later takes the form of film. In all of this century's major conflicts, film propaganda has been a fundamental part of the war effort-whether in World War One1, World War Two2, the Korean Conflict1* or Vietnam.4 Many discussions of film propaganda during wartime tend to focus on the documentary form, as manifest in such well-known productions as Triumph ofthe Willor the Why We Fight films.5 Certainly, documentaries have been important in the history of war propaganda. But narrative films have played a role at least as significant, and perhaps even more so. The vast majority of films produced by Hollywood during World War Two were traditional narrative films, fully two-thirds of which did not even carry an explicit war-related message." Although not usually remembered as a political filmmaker, director Alfred Hitchcock made his own contributions to the film propaganda of the Second World War. Most of these efforts involved films that are familiar to any student of the Master's work: Foreign Correspondent (1940), which dramatizes the dangers to the U.S. of Nazi aggression in Europe; Saboteur (1942), a film dealing with the threats posed by Nazi agents operating within the U.S.; and Lifeboat (1943), which uses the characters stranded in its eponymous watercraft as a microcosm for the struggle between the free world and Nazism. Each of these films has strong entertainment value, and each also serves to communicate a political message to the audience.7 80 I Film & History World War II in Film | Special In-Depth Section But Hitchcock was also responsible for some lesser-known propaganda efforts. In 1944, he was asked to return to England from Hollywood. The source of the request was a friend of Hitchcock's who worked for the Ministry of Information (MOI), the principal British propaganda agency. MOI wanted to produce some short narrative films designed to glorify the French Resistance movement. As Hitchcock recollected years later, " ... the idea was to show them in parts of France where the Germans were losing ground in order to help the French people appreciate the role of the Resistance."8 Hitchcock was provided with a British film crew and his actors were drawn from a group of French actorsin -exile who called themselves the Molière Players. The result of this collaboration was two short films: Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache. Each of these stark black and white films ran about thirty minutes. In anticipation of the intended audience, virtually all dialogue was in French. The British government's reaction to the final product was less than enthusiastic. Bon Voyage did receive limited circulation in occupied France, but Aventure Malgache was never exhibited during the war. Afterward, the films disappeared into the limbo of a government vault somewhere in England until they were "discovered" in 1992 and made available for exhibition.9 A videocassette version was released in 1994. Despite their relative obscurity, these films are worth the attention of scholars for several reasons. First, they are films made during the period when one of the world's great directors was arguably at the top of his form—they were preceded by Shadow ofa Doubt and Lifeboat , and followed by Spellbound and Notorious, all four of which are usually regarded as among the Master's best.10 Bon Voyage(1941 ): The Gestapo in France Second, they represent the only films ever made by Hitchcock in which propaganda was the primary purpose. He made other films, such as Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur, which contained strong propaganda elements, but in those films entertainment was the principal concern. Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache were intended as propaganda from the beginning. Finally, there is the question of the films' distribution. One was released as planned, but the other was not. No...