The Alfred Hitchcock movie nobody saw for 70 years: “It’s seen as too upsetting”
You’d think someone like Alfred Hitchcock never would have had trouble getting a film off the ground, but it actually took 70 years for a certain project he had a hand in to be properly released.
It all boils down to the fact that the film was about the war, and the project was simply deemed “too upsetting” to be released to a general audience. But what is a successful war documentary if not something that captures the true horrors of what is going on?
Such shocking scenes might be tough to digest, but that’s nothing compared to the abuse actually suffered by victims of war and genocide. These images need to be seen so that history doesn’t repeat itself (unfortunately, that hasn’t happened), and so that people are actually aware of atrocities that others are being subjected to.
This was the aim of a documentary entitled German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, which Labour politician Richard Crossman co-wrote with writer Colin Wills, while the British Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein, who would go on to found Granada Television, served as a producer. The film was meant to expose the horrendous treatment of victims in various concentration camps at the hands of the Nazis, with Bernstein deciding to make the documentary after visiting Bergen-Belsen concentration camp a week after it was liberated.
By using footage that had been captured by Allied Forces as various camps were being liberated, the documentary peeled back the curtain on the sheer horrors of the Holocaust, made even more hard-hitting by the incorporation of interviews with various Nazis who had played an active role in the genocide, like Fritz Klein (he would be hanged a few months later).
Hitchcock was employed as a treatment advisor, suggesting ideas that would make the film as intense as possible. He wanted it to show just how inhumane people were treated, and he wanted to ensure that anyone watching the film knew that what they were seeing was 100% the truth. This was the real deal, as horrifying and sickening as these scenes were, and Hitchcock knew that audiences needed to see what was really happening. German Concentration Camps Factual Survey was far scarier than any of the thrillers he’d made.
Yet, the film was met with resistance and was eventually shelved before it was ready for release, and several reasons have been suggested as to why, including growing British fears of rising Zionism. While footage used in the documentary was supplied as evidence against certain Nazi figures during their trials, the film didn’t get a proper release for the general public to watch until 2014, when it was fully restored and released – a harrowing time capsule of events.
Unfortunately, the events seen in the documentary aren’t as far-removed from the present day as we’d like to think, but it’s films like this, which refuse to hold back in what they show, which remain as important as ever. A documentary, Night Will Fall, was even released about the film’s rediscovery and restoration, directed by Andre Singer and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, with the filmmaker telling the Guardian that he thinks the film should be shown in schools.
“There’s a strong body of opinion against. It’s seen as too upsetting. But we’re in an age where such imagery is so prolific. I think the imagery in Bernstein’s film and mine, if used in the right context, can only help understanding. We can only truly understand the horror of war if we use images like this.”
Certainly, it’s not easy to see images of piles of dead bodies, discarded possessions belonging to those who have been murdered, and interviews with humans who reflect the most evil facets of humanity, but it’s necessary.
