Norway in Revolt

With the popular King Haakon VII and his family having been forced to flee by the Nazis and their Quisling underlings, this short propaganda feature illustrates just how defiantly the Norwegian population strove to rid their nation of their jackbooted invaders. To that end they are quite innovative with the Ling doing their best to disrupt their railway lines with picks and shovels and with their fishmongers dressing the fish is something that wasn’t quite vinegar! Meantime, the young men frequently find ways to steal boats that might get them across the treacherous North Sea to Scotland so that they can join their army or navy in exile there, or travel to Canada where their Air Force has a training camp called “Little Norway”. This film is designed as documentary, but clearly many of the scenes have been staged for the camera and some of the quite basic continuity errors make that abundantly clear. As a message designed to send hope back to a population entering it’s second year of occupation, though, perhaps those Aran sweater-clad young men might just have offered hope - presumably to their fellow exiles in the UK - that their days of being conquered would soon be over. With a clip from a rousing speech from Churchill urging them to hold their nerve; some archive of their King and of some daring nighttime operations to liberate some of their number, this is an effective feel-good film that’s a bit gentler in the style of message it presents, but it’s still a clarion call to another nation no longer free.