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Le Grand Jeu (1934 Film)
''Le Grand Jeu'' is a 1934 French film directed by Jacques Feyder. It is a romantic drama set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, and the film was an example of poetic realism in the French cinema. The title ''Le Grand Jeu'' refers to the practice of reading the cards. Blanche asks whether her client wants the 'full works', the whole story: "Alors... je te fais le grand jeu?" Plot Pierre Martel (Pierre Richard-Willm), a young Parisian businessman, is brought to financial ruin and disgrace through the extravagant lifestyle that he pursues with his lover Florence (Marie Bell). Forced to leave the country, he joins the Foreign Legion, as Pierre Muller, and seeks to submerge his own despair in a new life in North Africa alongside other unhappy refugees such as the Russian Nicolas (Georges Pitoëff). When not on campaign, they lodge in a cheap hotel run by the greedy and lecherous Clément (Charles Vanel) and his sadly stoical wife Blanche (Françoise Rosay), who passe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Feyder
Jacques Feyder (; 21 July 1885 – 24 May 1948) was a Belgian actor, screenwriter and film director who worked principally in France, but also in the US, Britain and Germany. He was a director of silent films during the 1920s, and in the 1930s he became associated with the style of poetic realism in French cinema. He adopted French nationality in 1928. Career Born Jacques Léon Louis Frédérix in Ixelles, Belgium, he was educated at the École régimentaire in Nivelles, and was destined for a military career. At age twenty-five however he moved to Paris where he pursued an interest in acting, first on stage and then in film, adopting the name Jacques Feyder. He joined the Gaumont Film Company and in 1914 he became an assistant director with Gaston Ravel. He started directing films for Gaumont in 1916, but his career was interrupted by service with the Belgian army during 1917-1919. After the end of the war, he returned to filmmaking and quickly built a reputation as one of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lazare Meerson
Lazare Meerson (1900–1938) was a Russian-born cinema art director. After emigrating to France in the early 1920s, he worked on French films of the late silent cinema and the early 1930s, particularly those directed by René Clair and Jacques Feyder. He worked in England during the last two years of his life. He had great influence on film set design in France in the years before World War II. Career Early life Lazare Meerson was born in Warsaw, which in 1900 was part of the Russian Empire. He may have begun studying painting and architecture in Russia, but after the revolution of 1917 he moved to Germany and by 1919 he had registered as an art student in Berlin. While in Berlin, he gained some experience of designing for the theatre, before leaving for Paris in 1923 or 1924.Tim Bergfelder, Sue Harris, Sarah Street. ''Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema''. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007. pp. 62-63. In France His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gina Lollobrigida
Luigia "Gina" Lollobrigida (born 4 July 1927) is an Italian actress, photojournalist, and politician. She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, a period in which she was an international sex symbol. As of 2022, Lollobrigida is among the last living, high-profile international actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. As her film career slowed, Lollobrigida established a second career as a photojournalist. In the 1970s, she achieved a scoop by gaining access to Fidel Castro for an exclusive interview. Lollobrigida has continued as an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). In 2008, she received the NIAF Lifetime Achievement Award at the Foundation's Anniversary Gala. In 2013, she sold her jewelry collection, and donated the nearly $5 million from the sale to benefit stem-cell therapy research. Youth Born Luigia Lollobrigida in Subiaco, she was the dau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Siodmak
Robert Siodmak (; 8 August 1900 – 10 March 1973) was a German film director who also worked in the United States. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of films noirs he made in the 1940s, such as ''The Killers'' (1946). Early life Siodmak was born in Dresden, Germany, the son of Rosa Philippine (née Blum) and Ignatz Siodmak and the brother of Curt, Werner and Roland. His parents were both from Jewish families in Leipzig (the myth of his American birth in Memphis, Tennessee was necessary for him to obtain a visa in Paris during World War II). He worked as a stage director and a banker before becoming editor and scenarist for Curtis Bernhardt in 1925 (Bernhardt directed a film of Siodmak's story '' Conflict'' in 1945). At twenty-six he was hired by his cousin, producer Seymour Nebenzal, to assemble original silent movies from stock footage of old films. Siodmak worked at this for two years before he persuaded Nebenzal to finance his first feature, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flesh And The Woman
''Flesh and the Woman'' (french: Le Grand Jeu) is a 1954 French-Italian drama film directed by Robert Siodmak. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival. It was released in the USA under the title ''Flesh and the Woman'', and in the UK as ''The Card of Fate''. It is a remake of the 1934 film '' Le Grand Jeu''. Plot After an affair with a young woman named Sylvia the Frenchman Pierre Martel leaves Paris and goes to Algeria because he wants to start over. His wife refuses to follow him. Dismayed about all this he decides to join the French Foreign Legion. As a soldier he runs into a look-alike of Sylvia. Cast * Gina Lollobrigida as Sylvia Sorrego / Helena Ricci * Jean-Claude Pascal as Pierre Martel * Arletty as Blanche * Raymond Pellegrin as Mario * Peter van Eyck as Fred * Jean Témerson as Xavier Noblet * Jean Hébey as Brigadier * Paul Amiot as the capitain * Odette Barencey as Gertrude * Charles Bayard * Gérard Buhr as a legionnaire * Jo Dest as the bistro keeper * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertigo (film)
''Vertigo'' is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel ''D'entre les morts'' (''From Among the Dead'') by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson, who has retired because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop acrophobia (an extreme fear of heights) and vertigo, a false sense of rotational movement. Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak), who is behaving strangely. The film was shot on location in the city of San Francisco, California, as well as in Mission San Juan Bautista, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Cypress Point on 17-Mile Drive, and Paramount Studios in Hollywood. It is the first film to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hôtel Du Nord
''Hôtel du Nord'' is a 1938 French drama film directed by Marcel Carné that stars Arletty, Louis Jouvet, Annabella, and Jean-Pierre Aumont. It tells the story of two couples in Paris, one being a prostitute and her pimp and the other two young lovers without regular jobs. A work of poetic realism, cinematography, music, and dialogue add a poetic dimension to the lives and surroundings of working-class people. Plot At the Hôtel du Nord in a working-class district of Paris, a first communion party unites many of the occupants. Among them is the prostitute Raymonde, whose pimp Edmond stays in their room to develop some photographs he has taken. A young couple, Renée and Pierre, enter and take a room for the night. Once alone they run through their plan to kill themselves, as they can't afford to marry and set up home. Pierre shoots Renée with a pistol, but can't then kill himself. Hearing the shot, Edmond breaks into the room and tells the boy to flee. Later, he finds the pis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pépé Le Moko
''Pépé le Moko'' () is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier starring Jean Gabin, based on a novel of the same name by Henri La Barthe and with sets by Jacques Krauss. An example of the 1930s French movement known as poetic realism, it recounts the trapping of a gangster on the run in Algiers, who believes that he is safe from arrest in the Casbah. Plot Pépé le Moko, a criminal on the run from the police in Metropolitan France, lives with his gang in the Casbah quarter of Algiers where he is beyond the reach of the local police. They seek ways to lure him out of his refuge and a plot results in the death of a fellow gangster, but not of Pépé. The wily Inspector Slimane sees his chance when he learns that Pépé, who is fed up with his enforced exile and with his mistress Inès, has been struck by meeting the glamorous French tourist Gaby, mistress of a visiting businessman. When Gaby agrees to an afternoon assignation in Pépé's hideout, Slimane leads her to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Under Two Flags (1936 Film)
''Under Two Flags'' is a 1936 American adventure romance film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Ronald Colman, Claudette Colbert, Victor McLaglen, and Rosalind Russell. The picture was based on the 1867 novel of the same name by the writer Ouida. The film was widely popular with audiences of its time. The supporting cast features Nigel Bruce, John Carradine, and Fritz Leiber. The novel was previously adapted for the screen in 1912; 1916, starring Theda Bara; and 1922, under the direction by Tod Browning. Plot Victor ( Ronald Colman) joins the French Foreign Legion, along with his faithful valet, Rake ( Herbert Mundin). His company is attacked while escorting a caravan. The survivors join a battalion stationed in southern Algeria. His new commander is Major Doyle (Victor McLaglen), who becomes jealous when Cigarette (Claudette Colbert), a cafe singer, loses her heart to Victor. However, Victor and a refined visiting Englishwoman, Lady Venetia ( Rosalind Russell), fall i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beau Geste (1939 Film)
''Beau Geste'' is a 1939 American adventure film starring Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, and Susan Hayward. Directed and produced by William A. Wellman, the screenplay was adapted by Robert Carson, based on the 1924 novel of the same title by P. C. Wren. The music score was by Alfred Newman and cinematography was by Theodor Sparkuhl and Archie Stout. Plot French Foreign Legionnaires approach an isolated fort in the desert. The French flag is flying, but a closer inspection reveals only dead men propped up behind the parapets. However a pair of shots is fired from inside, so the bugler volunteers to scale the wall to investigate. After waiting a while, the commander follows. The bugler has vanished, and the commander finds two bodies that are not staged like the rest and a note on one confessing to the theft of a valuable sapphire called the "Blue Water". After the officer rejoins his men outside, the fort goes up in flames. Fifteen years earlier, Lady ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian-Jaque
Christian-Jaque (byname of Christian Maudet; 4 September 1904 – 8 July 1994) was a French filmmaker. From 1954 to 1959, he was married to actress Martine Carol, who starred in several of his films, including ''Lucrèce Borgia'' (1953), ''Madame du Barry'' (1954), and ''Nana'' (1955). Christian-Jaque's 1946 film ''A Lover's Return'' was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. He won the Best Director award at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival for his popular swashbuckler ''Fanfan la Tulipe''. At the 2nd Berlin International Film Festival, he won the Silver Bear award for the same film. In 1959, he was a member of the jury at the 1st Moscow International Film Festival. Christian-Jaque began his motion picture career in the 1920s as an art director and production designer. By the early 1930s, he had moved into screenwriting and directing. He continued working into the mid-1980s, though from 1970 on, most of his work was done for television. In 1979, he was a member of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Bandera (film)
''La Bandera'' (released in the United States as ''Escape from Yesterday'') is a 1935 French drama film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Annabella, Jean Gabin and Robert Le Vigan. It was based on the 1931 novel '' La Bandera'' by Pierre Mac Orlan. After committing a brutal murder in Paris, a Frenchman flees to Barcelona where he enlists in the Spanish Foreign Legion. He is sent to fight in Morocco where he unexpectedly bonds with his comrades and marries a local woman before his past begins to catch up with him. Like Duvivier's other works of the period, the film is infused with poetic realism. The film was made at the Joinville Studios in Paris with sets designed by the art director Jacques Krauss. Location shooting took place in Barcelona and at barracks in Tetuán in Spanish Morocco. Plot Curfew bells are ringing at night in Paris, while a man and his drunken girlfriend Jacqueline walk down the street. Pierre Gilieth comes out of house #25 looking very frightened, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
