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Anti-polish propaganda in the eve of the soviet take over of Poland.

posted 9 years ago by smarques5
1 reply | jump to latest

So shameful for everyone involved in this. I was surprised and disappointed that Hitchcock went along with it, but then again I guess I shouldn't.

This was released a year after of the discovery of the Katyn mass graves in Ukraine, with the corpses of thousands of Polish officers murdered by the soviets and after the "accidental" death of Polish prime minister Sikorski in Gibraltar. Churchill and Stalin had already striken a deal to let the latter have the control of Poland.
So what are the Brits going to do? Make propaganda films depicting Polish as a Gestapo agent, of course. How subtle!

By the way, the author of the original story this crap was based on was a member of the communist party of not-so-great Britain. A Stalin flunkie, so to speak.Which explains a lot. So funny from the future director of Torn Curtain and Topaz!

Shame on you, hitchcock!

[–] jsk32870 7 years ago

Well this is a bit strange. If you watch the entire film, towards the end it is revealed that the "Polish" agent was not Polish. They say (and I'm paraphrasing here) 'the Godowski you met was a Gestapo agent. The real Godowski is in a prisoner of war camp.' So I took that to mean the Gestapo agent must have been German. How many Poles were in the Gestapo? That seems far fetched.

However, in the Wiki article about this film, there is a quote from Hitchcock, where he specifically says that the Pole was complicit in the plot. So that leaves me a bit confused, because the film clearly states the real Godowski was still in a POW camp. So either there was a 2nd Pole involved, which really doesn't make much sense, or, when Hitchcock gave the interview, he forgot the details of his own film. I don't know, it's confusing.

Don't get me started on the Allied sellout though. I am with you on that. Churchill totally gave in to Stalin and I think FDR signed off on it too, thus creating the Iron Curtain. Very very sad.