CONTINENTAL FILMS

Continental Films was a German, Nazi-owned film production company founded in 1940. Its specific mission was to produce films for French audiences. Theoretically, the company was supposed to produce films friendly to the occupying power, and it operated under the censorship of the occupying forces, although many critics argue that at least some of the filmmakers whose films were produced by Contintental found ways to thwart that censorship. Disbanded in 1944 at the end of the Occupation, the company produced thirty films during the four years it was in existence. Many of these films are today regarded as classics, and the philosophical position they occupy with respect to the German Occupation is, in many cases, quite ambiguous and interesting. Films such asChristian-Jacque'sL'Assassinat du père Noël(1941),Henri Decoin'sPremier rendez-vous(1941),Georges Lacombe'sLe Dernier des six(1941), andHenri-Georges Clouzot'sLe Corbeau(1943) were produced by Continental.