1940: Taking over French Cinema

Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.

Cast

Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain Self (voice)

Louis-Émile Galey Self (archive footage)

Claude Heymann Self (archive footage) Jean Dréville Self (archive footage) Marcel Carné Self (archive footage) Raoul Ploquin Self (voice) (archive footage) Henri Calef Self (archive footage) Jean-Paul Le Chanois Self (archive footage) Michel Duran Self (archive footage) Henri-Georges Clouzot Self (archive footage)

Hans Borgelt Self (archive footage)

Danielle Darrieux Self (archive footage)

Metadata from the source database.