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1-4 of 4
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
In 1940 Gerard left school and his parents wanted him be a lawyer. But soon his mother noticed that he was only interested in acting, although his father was against the idea. After timely intervention from Marc Allégret, who decided he showed some promise, Gerard's debut was in Claude Dauphin's play "One plain girl". After this, Gerard decided to get into the conservatory. He was wonder even in music. He himself used to find necessary sounds - exact, unexpected, and unforeseen. All this helped him to portray amazing characters. Millions of people were inspired by him.
One day Georges Lacombe offered Philipe a part in his movie Le pays sans étoiles (1946). Critical reaction was very favourable and he became a star, taking on prominent roles in films such as L'idiot (1946), Devil in the Flesh (1947), The Charterhouse of Parma (1948), Such a Pretty Little Beach (1949), Juliette ou La clef des songes (1951), Fanfan la Tulipe (1952), Beauties of the Night (1952), The Red and the Black (1954), La meilleure part (1955) and Le joueur (1958).
In 1951 Gerard Philipe married Annie. He dreamed of his own home and family, children. Their first child, Ann-Marie, was born in 1954, and in 1956 came Olivie. In 1959 Gerard returned to France. He seemed to be very tired. Doctors then gave him the bad news that he had a liver cancer. "He'll live 15 days or 6 months", - they decided. After that Gerard waited for death very calmly. On November 25, 1959 he died.- Director
- Writer
- Composer
An educated man, Jean Grémillon (b.1898) should almost be mentioned in the same breath as the big five of the golden age of the French cinema (Carné, Renoir, Duvivier, Feyder and Clair). Some of his plans never came to anything: for instance, after World War 2, only three movies, which is too few for such a man.
The silent years: Grémillon's career began with documentary shorts... and ended the same way. His first effort (1923) dealt with Chartres town. Three years later came his first feature film "Maldone". One of his recurrent features is already here rebellion against the wealthy class. It's the story of a young heir who favors freedom over possessions. "Gardien De Phare" could be remade today (and its influence appears in some horror movies): Two lighthouse keepers (the father and the son) are to spend one entire month in the middle of the sea near the coasts of Brittany; flashbacks reveal us that the young man has been bitten by a rabid dog.
The period of transition: his first talkie "La Petite Lise" (1930) was a melodrama; the male character was probably inspired by Hugo's Jean Valjean. "Dainah La Métisse" was some kind of murder mystery: did she jump or was she pushed? But what's extraordinary is the obvious connection with Gremillon's later work "Pattes Blanches" (1947): the murder of the bad girl (Suzy Delair) by Maurice (Michel Bouquet) on the cliff, and the white bride veil. The director himself confessed he never liked its follow-up "Pour Un sou D' Amour", not exactly class struggle. Both his Spanish movies sank without a trace. "La Dolorosa" was a musical where they sing every ten minutes; his collaboration with Luis Buñuel seemed unworthy of both men's talent: "It is odd that Luis Buñuel singled out the uninspired but decidedly above-average melodrama" (Mario Gauci). "La Valse Royale" (1935), a French-(Hitlerian) Germany co-production did nothing to rectify Gremilllon's stature: "light-hearted gallantry" best described this old-fashioned, poorly written story with some hints at the French Revolution.
The golden years: From "Gueule d'Amour" (1937) onward, Grémillon would never produce anything mediocre. This 1937 work was the stuff Gabin's legend was made, his part of a legionnaire who experimented tragedy. "L'Etrange Monsieur Victor" gave Raimu the opportunity to play, masterfully, a part of a criminal. The making of "Remorques" began in 1939, but because of the occupation, was released in 1941: the banal plot mattered much less than the atmosphere; the star of the movie was the Ocean: you could hear, feel, or see it ceaselessly along the viewing. "Lumière D'Ete" (1942) pitted the men of leisure against the working class heroes. Although it was a Prévert/Laroche screenplay, the main influence here was Renoir's. All that concerned Paul Bernard's character and his fete in the castle strongly recalled "La Règle Du Jeu". Probably the center of gravity of the movie, this memorable sequence of the Farandole - while the tragedy was impending - would find an equivalent in Prévert/Carné's ending of "Les Enfants Du Paradis". Nowadays, it is generally considered Grémillon's apex. "Le Ciel est A Vous" (1943) was a beautiful movie dedicated to daring women who were feminists ahead of their time, the story of a woman who wanted to be an aviator. During the Occupation, the Petainist France set this movie up as an example of virtue and courage, against the dirty Clouzot's "le Corbeau". After the Liberation, both movies were attacked, the former for being too Petainist, the latter for showing the darkest side of the occupied country.
The post-war years: Grémillon's career was never the same, although the three movies he made were very interesting. Jean Anouilh, who wrote the screenplay, was to direct "Pattes Blanches", but he fell sick and had to give it up. He chose Jean Grémillon to do the job and he was right: it included moments of desperate lyricism. In "L'Etrange Madame X" (1951), Jean Grémillon and Albert Valentin did what they did best: setting a working class milieu against the bourgeois world. His final effort, "L'Amour D'Une Femme" was beautiful but extremely sad, even lugubrious. It featured two funerals and many depressing scenes; even the love scenes were sad. When Madame Leblanc, a schoolteacher about to retire, packs her stuff. When the doctor asked herself if her work was finally worthwhile, we think of the director who probably knew it was to be his final work. During his last years he had to be content with shorts, which, for a first-class director such as him, was certainly a shame, considering the great works he could still have made. He died at 61, prematurely.- Actor
- Director
- Production Manager
Stellan Windrow's parents were both Swedish physicians. His mother Anna Malmqvist Holm emigrated to Chicago were she gave birth to Stellan, then divorced his father Sven Vindruvva in absentia. At the University of Chicago Stellan was an outstanding athlete (swimming, shotput, discus), took an Associate in Philosophy (1915) and was a member of Alpha Tau Omega, the Society of Tiger Head and the Blackfriars Drama Society. He worked summer jobs at Chicago's Essanay Studio and there became friends with Wallace Beery, Ruth Stonehouse and Francis X. Bushman. In 1917 he was hired by producer 'Bill Parsons' to play the part of Tarzan, becoming the first actor ever contracted for the part. After several weeks of shooting, on Bayou Teche LA, the tree-work all but completed, the United States entered World War I and Stellan became an ensign in the navy. He attended the premiere of Tarzan of the Apes (1918) as a guest of Parsons, but was uncredited in the film even though all the shown tree-work was his. Following marriage and the birth of daughters Marjorie and Patricia, the Windrows moved to a suburb of Paris, working for the Swedish division of Paramount Pictures. Near the end of the 1930s they returned to New York where he worked as a free-lance newspaper/magazine photographer. He served in the American Red Cross during World War II, in north Africa. Stellan died of "hardening of the arteries" November 25, 1959 in New York.- Dwight Fiske was given his start in Paris, playing a benefit for Marie Dressler. He decided to eschew a musical education to be a performer. Dwight Fiske was unrivaled as singer of risqué songs, entirely by himself except for a few with lyrics by Dawn Powell. A collection of his lyrics, entitled "Without Music," was published in 1933. The book is dedicated to Dawn Powell and has a forward by Robert Benchley. He was mostly bald and resembled an elegant statesman more than a lounge entertainer in New York, London and Paris. His bitchy, but never smutty songs, earned him the nickname of "King Leer," even though Robert Benchley said that Fiske never "mugged."
His records were quite popular, but only affordable to his starched shirt crowd. They were recorded and pressed by RCA-Victor from 1933 to 1936, and issued on the 36000 series (12" inch) with his own black and silver label stating "FISKANA." The records were sold "under the counter" in swanky music stores such as Liberty Music Shop, Schirmer, and Colony. Later in the decade his records were made on the Liberty Music Shop and Gala label. He worked in exclusive restaurants and lounges continuously during the Great Depression. He was featured for many years at the Savoy-Plaza in Manhattan. His face adorned large print ads in sophisticated magazines such as "Vanity Fair," "Stage," "New Yorker" and others. He was such a society fixture, his name appeared in at least one New Yorker cartoon. Although there were a few other society singers of naughty songs, such as Bruz Fletcher (1907-1941), they never achieved the status of Dwight Fiske.
Today his records may cause and arched brow or a puzzled look on the listener's face, because the dialogue is so topical, elitist and regional, there is nobody alive who could possibly understand all of the references. However, his diction, emphasis and showmanship come through as well as ever.