In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

. . . it's a wonder that the "Axis" (that is, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Tojo's Japan) managed to lose World War Two. Some over-rated English-speaking schmuck named "Hitchcock" was tapped to answer "Leni Riefenstahl's" masterwork TRIUMPH OF THE WILL with a propaganda piece of his own. The garbled result from "Hitch"--ADVENTURE MALGACHE--is so incoherent that it seems an early wasted effort on the part of those proverbial million typing monkeys alleged to have the ability to churn out a Shakespeare play IF you have the patience to change their typewriter ribbons for a million years. ADVENTURE MALGACHE makes viewers wonder whether Hitch and his crew even possessed opposable thumbs. MALGACHE's nonsensical alternating scenes (flitting between a post-war Parisian theatrical dressing room and war-time Vichy Madagascar) is a contrivance so clumsy that it would have given even the monkeys fits to dream up. Ms. Riefenstahl wouldn't have been caught dead attaching her name to something as counter-productive as MALGACHE. Perhaps Hitch was a double agent.

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

May contain spoiler- I don't see one, you might. This movie was commissioned to boost the exploits of the résistants after France was liberated- a political move on the part of DeGaulle's government in exile. It is well made, acted, and directed- the only fault on Hitchcock's part I mention below. The story moves at a steady pace and the actors and actions are entirely believable, whether or not the whole story is true.The only problem I had was with the end. Those actions should have taken a larger part of the movie and involved more characters. This movie was not released because it shows how the French were divided on what course of action to take in the many aspects of their lives. Unity was the goal audiences were to come away with- Aventure failed in that aspect.There is no reason to not see this movie if you have a chance- it won't come around again soon. I admit I didn't appreciate the wonderful ending until the next day.I am biased toward this film because I am fascinated by the ambiguity of life in WW2.

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.