The missed ‘rendez-vous’ for audience to see French films
Despite an anti-French and anti-British stance as pronounced as that in neighbouring Moselle, Luxembourg hosted a French film in its capital in September 1942.
The film in question is Premier Rendez-vous (Her First Affair), directed by Henri Decoin and starring Danielle Darrieux. It was the third film produced by Continental Studios, the French studio run by the German Alfred Greven – a close associate of Joseph Goebbels – and financed directly by Germany. The film was screened for ten days at the Metropol movie theater in Luxembourg. The film’s success likely prompted the authorities not to repeat the experience of screening French films in Luxembourg.
But the story doesn’t end there: after the war, we learnt from a piece by the journalist Jean-Pierre Barrot in the magazine L’Écran Français that a film ‘starring Danielle Darrieux’ was due to be screened in Strasbourg in 1942 but was banned following its overly Francophile success in Luxembourg!
In 2014, Raymond, a member of the audience interviewed in Forbach, said he had seen a film starring Danielle Darrieux during the war. How is that possible? Quite simply because the Germans screened French films produced by Continental in German towns located near the former French border (Saarbrücken, Baden-Baden, Karlsruhe, etc.). Paradoxically enough, newspapers in the annexed territories even promoted these films and their screenings in the towns. This also applied to other films that followed.
Thus, the anecdote about this French film screened in Luxembourg in 1942 demonstrates that the Nazi authorities continued to regard the territories annexed to the Reich as sensitive areas and that a sort of cultural boundary continued to set them apart from the rest of Germany, despite official rhetoric on assimilation. It also demonstrates a genuine ability to adapt and to take into account audiences who must be germanised at all costs, without rushing them or arousing any Francophile sentiments.
Photo 95 : DR – Movie poster for Premier rendez-vous (Her First Affair)
Photo 96 : City’achirves of Metz – Advertisement in the Metzer Zeitung for the screening of the film in Saarbrücken, Germany.
Photo 97 : Marchivum – Advertisement in the Mannheim newspaper Hakenkreuzbanner on October 31, 1942 for the screening of the film Ihr erstes Rendez-vous at the Capitol.