When Hitchcock leaves Britain for Hollywood in 1939 he was not very popular with some of his former colleagues at home. The war broke out only six months later and this made him even less popular and he found himself accused of deserting his country in her hour of need.

The attacks - especially one from his former mentor, Michael Balcon - must have been very painful to him. However, Hitchcock did much to fight Britain's corner with his Hollywood war films. Spy thriller Foreign Correspondent was a bold plea for US military intervention at a time when America was still officially neutral - and could have seen him deported as a 'premature anti-fascist'. Meanwhile, Saboteur dared to depict Nazi agents at the heart of American high society, and Lifeboat was one of his most openly political films.

Hitchcock eventually returned to Britain in 1944, directing two French-language propaganda shorts, Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache, and advising on a never-completed documentary on the Nazi death camps.

You can see the Bon Voyage clip on the FranceInLondon website by simply clicking on this link

The BFI is celebrating THE GENIUS OF HITCHCOCK over the next few weeks. This is a major celebration of the iconic British film director, the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. This event  will showcase the complete works of his silent films, including the restoration and scoring of Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent’s films by the BFI National Archive.

To find out more visit the BFI website