European Film Star Postcards

Beautiful Ludmila Tchérina (1924-2004) was a legendary prima ballerina, who was also an internationally famous actress, artist and sculptor. She starred in several films, including a quartet by British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Presssburger: The Red Shoes (1948), The Tales of Hoffmann (1951), Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955) and Luna de Miel (1959).

French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 116. Photo: Roger Carlet.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 577, offered by Les Carbones Korès. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Prima Ballerina

Ludmila or Ludmilla Tchérina was born as Monique Tchemerzine into Russian aristocracy in Paris, France, in 1924. She was the daughter of Circassian Prince Avenir Tchemerzine, a former general who had escaped from St. Petersburg, and Stéphane Finette, a Frenchwoman.

The family had little money, but Monique started ballet around the age of three, eventually studying with some of the greatest names in Paris - the former Maryinsky ballerina Olga Preobrajenska, and the former Bolshoi ballet master Ivan Clustine, the influential French teacher Gustave Ricaux.

Her first teacher, though, was Blanche D'Alessandri, who came from the strict Italian school and instilled technique with the help of taps on the body from a stick. This old-fashioned approach worked wonders.

After escaping with her mother to Marseilles at the start of the Second World War, she made her professional début at 15 and was a star dancer at the Opéra de Marseille at 16.

In 1943 she transferred to the Nouveaux Ballets de Monte Carlo where she was spotted by Serge Lifar, then director of the Paris Opéra Ballet. He invented her stage name, Ludmila Tchérina (used next to Ludmilla Tchérina), and choreographed Romeo and Juliet, to Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture, for himself and Tchérina, an extended pas de deux that was premiered at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1943.

In 1945 she was a principal dancer with the Ballet des Champs-Élysées and performed in Paris concerts with Edmond Audran, who became her husband in 1946. She created various roles in Lifar's ballets including: Mephisto Waltz in 1945, A la memoire d'un heros (In Memory of a Hero) in 1946 and in Le Martyre de Saint-Sebastian (The Martyrship of Saint Sebastian) in 1957.

She appeared often with the Paris Opera, the Bolshoi Ballet and the Kirov Ballet as a guest performer. Tchérina was 21 when she was offered her first film role in the French drama Un revenant/The Lover's Return (Christian-Jaque, 1946) starring Louis Jouvet and Gaby Morlay.

In 1948 she made her English-speaking film debut with the stylized fairy tale classic The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948) featuring Moira Shearer and Marius Goring, but she did not understand what she was saying. She had to memorize her dialogue phonetically.

French postcard by Editions du Globe (EDUG), no. 621. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 16, offered by Les Carbones Korès. Photo: Victory Films.

Funeral March

Ludmila Tchérina won the French Cesar award for a short film version of Lifar’s ballet A La Memoire du Hero/In Memory of a Hero (Ray Ventura, 1951). In this film she portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte, dancing in travesty to the Funeral March of Beethoven's Eroica.

She went on to perform gloriously in The Tales of Hoffman (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1951). Both of these films also featured her husband Edmond Audran. Shortly after the filming of The Tales of Hoffman, Audran was tragically killed in a road accident at age 33. The car accident left her shattered and the grief stricken Tchérina went into seclusion.

She was convinced to return to her art form in 1953 by her second husband Raymond Roi. He was a renowned French financier and industrialist, who remained her husband until her death in 2004.

Roi's wealth gave her the freedom to form her own experimental company which existed in 1958-1959 and appeared at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt (now Théâtre de la Ville). For this, she commissioned Les Amants de Téruel, a dance theatre piece, devised by Raymond Rouleau and choreographed by Milko Sparemblek to a commissioned score by Mikis Theodorakis; and also Le Feu aux poudres (1958), which had a libretto by film director Jean Renoir and a choreography by Paul Goubé.

In 1960 she was the first Western dancer to appear at the Bolshoi Theatre and in 1970 she still enthralled audiences with her dance performance in Joan of Arc at the Stake.

Small German collector's card by Druckerei Hanns Uhrig, Frankfurt a.M.. Photo: NF. Still from Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955).

French postcard by Imp. De Marchi Frères, Marseille.

Breathing and Movement

The Tales of Hoffman had perked the eyes and ears of Hollywood, and Ludmila Tchérina made her American film début in Sign of the Pagan (Douglas Sirk, 1954), co-starring with Jeff Chandler and Jack Palance. In this film she performed a straight dramatic role along with an interpretative dance. This marked her first departure from classic ballet.

She also starred in the British Die Fledermaus adaptation Oh...Rosalinda!! (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1955) with Anthony Quayle and Dennis Price, Luna de miel/Honeymoon (Michael Powell, 1959) with Anthony Steel, and the film version of Les amants de Teruel/The Lovers of Teruel (Raymond Rouleau, 1962).

She appeared less and less in films but regularly appeared in television shows. In the theatre she played Anna Karenina (1975), very dramatic in appearance and manner. On French television she starred in Salomé (1972), La Dame aux camélias (1974) and La Reine de Saba/The Queen of Sheeba (1975).

Ludmila Tchérina had a lifelong passion for painting and exhibited in many major galleries. In an exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris, she painted and danced in order to illustrate her concept of ‘total art’ in which all aspects are born of breathing and movement.

She also conceived and executed several monumental sculptures, including Europe à Coeur, chosen in 1991 by the EU to symbolize the union of Europe and now located at the European Parliament. In 1994 she created Europa Operanda, now installed at the French terminal of Eurotunnel.

In 1980 she was decorated Officier, Legion d'honneur in 1980. She authored two novels in the 1980s: L'amour au miroir (1983) and La femme a l'envers (1986).

Ludmila Tchérina died in 2004 after a long illness at her luxurious home in Paris.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 290. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Scene from Fandango (Emil E.Reinert, 1949) with Luis Mariano and Ludmilla Tchérina. Source: ximowb (YouTube).

Sources: Nadine Meisner (The Independent), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Muscular Italian actor Luciano Albertini (1882-1945) was one of the most famous strongmen and daredevils of the silent cinema. The former circus artist first worked as an actor and producer for the Italian cinema and later moved to Berlin, where his Latin appeal made many admirers swoon. He also filmed in America as well as in the Soviet Union.

American postcard by A.G.F. Photo: Photocine.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 524/4, 1919-1924. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 577/2. Photo L. Klaude, Berlin /Phoebus Film. Albertini did very few films at Phoebus, so this might be Die Heimkehr des Odysseus/The Homecoming of Odysseuss (Max Obal, 1922), provided it was a modern adaptation of the story.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 798/3, 1925-1926. Photo: Phoebus Film, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1815/1, 1927-1928. Photo: A. (Alex) Binder, Berlin.

Flying Trapeze

Luciano Albertini was born as Francesco Vespignani in Lugo di Romagna, Italy, in 1882.

In his youth, he already showed a passion for sports, joining the gymnastics club in Forlí and later in Bologna. After his studies he ended up in France, where he retook his lessons in physical exercise at the Ecole Péchin in Lyon.

He entered the Circus Busch and in 1905 he married circus artist Domenica Meirone in Marseille. He took the stage name of Luciano Albertini and created a number on the flying trapeze with 8 persons: Les Albertini. His speciality was a stunt, the ‘death spiral’.

When he returned to Italy, he started his film career in historical epics as Spartaco/Spartacus (Giovanni Enrico Vidali, 1913). At IMDb, Michael Elliott reviews: "The second adaptation of Raffaello Giovagnoli's novel comes at a time when Italy really started pumping out their epic films with the longer running times, expensive sets and lavish production values. This film really doesn't stray too far from the source as we have our hero Spartacus being sold as a slave only to rise up and battle the evil Crassus. These Italian movies are certainly a far cry from the American ones coming out at the same time and this one here has so much going for it that I'm sure even the most jaded silent-hater would have to respect what's on display here."

Albertini also appeared opposite film diva Francesca Bertina in Assunta Spina (Francesca Bertini, Gustavo Serena, 1915).

The First World War broke out and Albertini joined the navy. He still kept one foot to the ground though, and he worked at the film company Società Anonima Ambrosio of Turin.

His breakthrough was the circus film La spirale della morte/The Death Spiral (Filippo Castamagna, Domenico Gambino, 1917).

Afterwards he worked for the studios Pasquali and Latina Ars, both also in Turin. At Pasquali he started the successful Sansone (Samson) series, with Sansone contro i Filistei/Sansone Against the Philistines (Domenico Gaido, 1918).

Luciano Albertini's finest moment came when he founded his own company Albertini Film, that released its first films in 1919.

Until 1921 Albertini Film produced three series: the Sansone films, the Lilliput series with the children Arnold (Patata) and Varada (they were not Albertini’s children although the promotion pretended so), and the series Sansonette with Linda Albertini , his so-called wife, but her true identity remains a mystery.

Albertini also produced Il mostro di Frankenstein/The Monster of Frankenstein (Eugenio Testa, 1920), in which he himself personified Baron Frankenstein.

His best film was not one of his Sansone films but the costume drama Il Ponte dei Sospiri/The Bridge of Sighs (Domenico Gaido, 1921), a swashbuckler set in Venice.

Albertini played Rolando Candiani, son of the Doge of Venice, who is falsely accused of murder by his enemies. One plots to become Doge himself, another wants to steal the beautiful Leonora, Rolando's fiancée, a third is a courtesan rejected by Rolando.

On the day of his marriage Rolando is arrested, trialled and passes the Bridge of Sighs before entering lifetime imprisonment. His father is dethroned as Doge, blinded and reduced to a wandering beggar. But with the help of the courageous and good-hearted bandit Scalabrino (Garaveo Onorato), Rolando manages to escape and take revenge...

Luciano Albertini in Il ponte dei sospiri

Italian postcard by Unione Cinematografica Italiana. Luciano Albertini as Rolando in the four part serial film Il ponte dei sospiri/The Bridge of Sighs (Domenico Gaido, 1921). On his right side Carolina White (Leonora) and Bonaventura Ibanez (her father Dandolo).

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 196. Photo: Luciano Albertini in Julot, der Apache/Julot, the Apache (Joseph Delmont, Hertha von Walther, 1921), released in France as Julot l'apache but also Le roi de Paris.

Luciano Albertini and Lya de Putti in Die Schlucht des Todes

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 578/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Leo Klaude, Berlin / Phoebus Film. Publicity still for Die Schlucht des Todes/The Ravine of Death (Luciano Albertini, Albert-Francis Bertoni, Max Obal, 1923) with Lya de Putti.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 578/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Leo Klaude, Berlin / Phoebus Film. Publicity still for Die Schlucht des Todes/The Ravine of Death (Luciano Albertini, Albert-Francis Bertoni, Max Obal, 1923) with Lya de Putti.

German postcard. Photo: Luciano Albertini in Der Sieg des Maharadscha/The victory of the Maharajah (Joseph Delmont, 1923).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 577/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Klaude, Berlin / Phoebus-Film. Publicity still for Der Sieg des Maharadscha/The victory of the Maharajah (Joseph Delmont, 1923).

Berlin Entourage

The crisis in the Italian cinema forced Albertini Film to move to Germany where Luciano Albertini was well received.

Linda, though, returned after one year and four films, because Luciano had an affair with another woman.

In the 1920s, he was very popular in German films directed by Joseph Delmont, Nunzio Malasomma – another Italian immigrant working in Berlin - and Max Obal.

Albertini also directed and produced himself once in Die Schlucht des Todes/The Ravine of Death (Luciano Albertini, Albert-Francis Bertoni, Max Obal, 1923) opposite vamp Lya de Putti.

He started in Germany with a series of films directed by Delmont and produced by himself: Der König der Manege/The King of the Circus Ring (1921), Der eiserne Faust/The Iron Fist (1921), Julot der Apache/Julot the Apache (1921), Der Todesleiter/The Death Ladder (1921), and Der Man aus Stahl/The Steel Man (1922).

With Malasomma, Albertini did Mister Radio (1924), Der König und die kleine Mädchen/The King and the Little Girls (1925), and Eine Minute vor 12/One Minute to Twelve (1925).

Obal directed the most of the Albertini films: Die heimkehr des Odysseus/The Return of Odysseus (1922), Rinaldo Rinaldini (1927) starring opposite Hans Albers, Der grösste Gauner des Jahrhunderts/The Biggest Crook of the Century (1927), Der Unüberwindliche/The Invincible (1928) with Vivian Gibson, Tempo! Tempo! (1929) with Hilda Rosch, and Jagd nach der Million/The Hunt for a Million (1930) with Gretl Berndt.

Albertini also appeared in the Soviet classic Arsenal/January Uprising in Kiev (Aleksandr Dovzhenko, 1928).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin SW, no. 524/3.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 577/8. Photo Krause, Berlin / Phoebus Film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 798/1, 1925-1926. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 798/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Phoebus Film, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1287/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balazs, Berlin / Albertini-Produktion GmbH.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1387/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balazs, Berlin / Albertini Produktion GmbH.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1387/3, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balazs, Berlin / Albertini Produktion GmbH.

Asylum

In Berlin, Luciano Albertini lived in grand style, visiting restaurants with his friends and crew. He lived in a villa in the outskirts, in the workman’s quarter Siemensstadt.

Albertini had several affairs in Berlin, including one with actress Annie Gorilowa. At the Sportpalast, he and Marlene Dietrich were the big attractions.

His only setback had been his collaboration with Universal Studios to the American 15 part-serial The Iron Man (Jay Marchant, 1924), as he proved not to be the protagonist. Instead he had been forced to jump from the Brooklyn Bridge to a raceboat, while he often had his stuntmen doing this.

In 1930, the tide changed for Albertini. The talkies, his age (he was 50 now), the saturation of the acrobatic genre contributed, but his alcoholism really finished him.

Although Angelo Rossi, his double, and Lamberti, his ex-cameraman who had opened a restaurant in the Friedrichstrasse, helped him, Albertini went down all the way.

He performed in one last film: Es geht um alle/It Involves Everything (Max Nosseck, 1932) with Ernö Verebes.

When he showed aggression against a doorman he was put in an asylum and was diagnosed with dementia. In the late 1930s he returned to Italy, living in Bologna where a Father Marella took care of him.

His disease lead him to Villa Flora in Bologna and finally to the mental asylum San Gaetano in Budrio near Bologna. Luciano Albertini died here, in 1945.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1816/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3032/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3032/2, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3594/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Aafa Film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3621/1, 1928-1929.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4624/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Aafa-Film.

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli/Mario Quargnolo (Maciste & Co. I giganti buoni del muto italiano), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Michael Elliott (IMDb), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

French Pied Noir singer Enrico Macias (1938) is one of the pioneers of mixed music. From the early 1960s to the present, he toured extensively through the world and always sought to convey his ideas of peace and solidarity during his travels. The popular musician also worked as an actor and appeared in some films.

French postcard by Edition Borde, Paris, no. 123. Photo: Neuvecelle.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 438. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Black Feet

Enrico Macias was born as Gaston Ghrenassia in 1938 to an Algerian Jewish family in Constantine, Algeria (then French Algeria). His father, Sylvain Ghrenassia, was a violinist in the prestigious Cheikh Raymond Leyris Orchestra that played primarily Maalouf, the Arab-Andalusian music unique to Constantine.

From his childhood on, Gaston played the guitar and at the age of 15, he joined the Cheikh Raymond Leyris Orchestra. Later, he worked as a primary schoolmaster, but continued practicing the guitar.

In 1961, the War of Independence was raging in Algeria, which had been a French colony since the nineteenth century. The situation became untenable for the Jewish and European residents of Constantine. On 22 June 1961, Cheick Raymond Leyris, who just had become father-in-law of Gaston, was killed in Constantine. Gaston and his wife Suzy Leyris left Algeria in July 1961, eleven months before the end of the Algerian War of Independence.

They went into exile in France, and Gaston has not been permitted to return to Algeria ever since. First living in Argenteuil, he eventually moved to Paris, where he decided to pursue a career in music. At first he tried translating into French the Maalouf numbers which he already knew. Later on, he developed a new French repertoire that he performed in cafés and cabarets.
He remained, though, a popular interpreter of Arab-Andalusian music and Judeo-Arab songs in France.

He adopted the name Enrico Macias. Enrico comes from him being called ‘petit Enrico’ when he joined Cheikh Raymond's orchestra. Macias comes through an error of the record label with which he eventually signed. When asked about his family name on the phone he said ‘Nassia’ (Ghrenassia), but the receptionist misheard the name and wrote Macias. Thus the name Enrico Macias.

He made his first recording in 1962 after a meeting with Raymond Bernard of Pathé. The result was the recording of Adieu mon pays which he had composed for his beloved Algeria on the boat on his way to France. He appeared on French television in a program about the French citizens repatriated from Algeria, the Pieds Noirs (‘black feet’ - because they wore black shoes).

Enrico became an overnight sensation. This led to a first tour in 1963 as a second act with Paola and Billy Bridge. His daughter, Jocya, was also born that year. In spring 1964, he performed in the first half of the Les Compagnons de la chanson show at the Paris Olympia and then undertook a successful tour of the Middle East, performing with great success in Israel, Greece and Turkey, especially in the latter where he still has a huge following today. In Turkey, many of his songs were translated and interpreted by Turkish artists.

He also started to appear in films, such as in Déclic et des claques/Clicks and slaps (Philippe Clair, 1965) starring Annie Girardot. In 1965, he was awarded the Prix Vincent Scotto, and the following year he sang before 120,000 people at the Dinamo Stadium in Moscow, performing concerts in more than 40 other Soviet cities. He also toured Japan, where he was impressively successful. He recorded titles in Spanish and Italian and was popular in both countries.

Dutch postcard.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V. (Sparo), Rotterdam, no. 1263. Photo: Pathé.

Singer of Peace

In 1968, Enrico Macias had a huge success in New York at a sold-out Carnegie Hall. He continued to tour the US, singing in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles. In Canada and Quebec, he was warmly welcomed as a francophone artist. In 1971, he returned to the Paris Olympia, then went to the Royal Albert Hall in London, and back to Japan, Canada, Italy and Spain. A second US tour culminated in another concert at Carnegie Hall in 1972.

In 1974, he gave ten shows at the Uris Theater on Broadway, and also at the Olympia for the sixth time since his debut. He toured France and went twice to Israel in 1976 and 1978. In 1976, he received a gold disc for his album Mélisa.

In 1978, Macias was invited to Egypt by President Anwar El Sadat to sing for peace. This came after Macias having been banned from Arab countries for many years, despite keeping his popularity with Arab and ethnic audiences in the Middle East and North Africa. In Egypt, he sang in front of 20,000 people at the foot of the Pyramids. He was named Singer of Peace by UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim in 1981 after he donated the royalties of his single Malheur à celui qui blesse un enfant to Unicef. After Sadat's assassination in 1981, Macias wrote the song Un berger vient de tomber, dedicated to the late president. In 1997, Kofi Annan named him Roving Ambassador for Peace and the Defence of Children.

In September 1982, after another tour of the United States, he performed for a month at the Olympia with his father Sylvain's oriental orchestra. Enrico Macias was awarded the Légion d'honneur, by French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius three years later. He had a big hit with Zingarella (1988), particularly in Israel and Turkey upon his tour in both countries in addition to South Korea.

His decision to try to play concerts in Algeria resulted in huge controversy. After the cancellation of a proposed tour in Algeria in 2000, he wrote a book Mon Algérie (2001) marketed as a ‘veritable love story between one man and his homeland’.

He took up acting and played parts in the film comedies La vérité si je mens! 2/Would I Lie to You? 2 (Thomas Gilou, 2001) and Les clefs de bagnole (Laurent Baffie, 2003). He also played the lead role as a local judge in the French TV film Monsieur Molina (Thierry Binisti, 2005) opposite Jean-Claude Drouot.

In 2007, he created more controversy when he announced his support of Nicolas Sarkozy for the French presidential elections. He confirmed his political convictions of the political left, but said he could not support the Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal. That year, he attempted again unsuccessfully to visit Algeria accompanying Sarkozy. He was faced with fierce resistance from several Algerian organizations and individuals, including Algerian Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, due to his support of Israel.

A year later, his wife Suzy Leyris died after a long illness. Their son, Jean-Claude Ghrenassia, is a well-known music producer who produced his father’s album Oranges Amères (2003) and La Vie populaire (2006).

In 2009, Macias went through a difficult period when he lost several million euro placed in an Icelandic bank that went bankrupt. He came out of semi-retirement with amazing energy and the new album Voyage d’une mélodie, bursting with joyful songs. And as in the past, the now 70+ singer went on a world tour.

He also played again in several film comedies, including Bienvenue à bord (Eric Lavaine, 2011) starring Franck Dubosc, and La vérité si je mens! 3/Would I Lie to You? 3 (Thomas Gilou, 2012).

In 2013, Gaston Ghrenassia legally changed his name to Enrique Macias.

French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, no. 1107, offered by Corvisart. Photo: Gérard Neuvecelle / Pathé.

French postcard by PSG, no. 916. Photo: Mainbourg / Pathé.

Sources: RFI Musique (French), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Charming and beautiful Jacqueline Sassard (1940) had a short but successful career in the European cinema of the late 1950s and 1960s.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/112. Photo: Farabola.

Taking revenge on playboy Alain Delon

Jacqueline Sassard was born in Nice, France in 1940.

She started her career as a teenager in the French thriller Je plaide non coupable/Guilty? (Edmond Gréville, 1956).

The following year, she played the title role of the Italian comedy Guendalina (Alberto Lattuada, 1957), with Sylva Koscina and Raf Vallone as her parents.

The film was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti, and the latter offered her another lead role in the comedy Nata di marzo/Born in March (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1958) opposite Gabriele Ferzetti. For her role she won the Zuleta Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival 1958.

In Italy she also appeared as a young woman with family and economical troubles in Il magistrato/The Magistrate (Luigi Zampa, 1959), a co-production with Spain and France. The Spaniard José Suárez stars in the film, and other roles were played by François Périer and a 21-year-old Claudia Cardinale.

In the award-winning drama Estate violenta/Violent Summer (Valerio Zurlini, 1959), her character is left by Jean Louis Trintignant for Eleonora Rossi Drago.

She also played one of the three sisters who take revenge on playboy Alain Delon in the comedy Faibles femmes/Three Murderesses (Michel Boisrond, 1959), co-starring Mylène Démongeot and Pascale Petit.

French postcard by Editions P.I., licency holder in France for Ufa, no. FK 4506. Photo: Ufa.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 868. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

A heady mixture of Yiddish accents, Borscht-belt one-liners and rippling pecs

In the early 1960s, Jacqueline Sassard mainly worked in Italy in less prestigious films than before.

It was the period of the Peplum spectacles and she was seen as Antiope in Arrivano i titani/The Titans (Duccio Tessari, 1962) with Pedro Armendáriz and Giuliano Gemma.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “My Son the Hero started out in 1961 as a straightforward Italian sword and sandal affair titled Arrivano i Titani, all about the quest for a magic helmet in ancient Thebes. Well cast (Pedro Armendariz is the star) and extremely well photographed, the original film was still not sufficient different from all the other Italian strongman films glutting the American market in 1963. Thus the American distributors hit upon the notion of transforming the film into a satire, by redubbing all the actors and hoking up the sound effects. What resulted was a heady mixture of Yiddish accents, Borscht-belt one-liners and rippling pecs.”

Sassard also appeared in a small part opposite Steve Reeves in the adventure film Sandokan, la tigre di Mompracem/Sandokan the Great (Umberto Lenzi, 1963).

In between, Sassard played opposite Freddy Quinn in the German Schlagerfilm Freddy und das Lied der Südsee/Freddy and the Song of the South Seas (Werner Jacobs, 1962).

She had a supporting part in the Italian-French sex comedy Le voci bianche/Counter Tenors (Pasquale Festa Campanile, Massimo Franciosa, 1964) with Sandra Milo and Anouk Aimée.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin. Photo: publicity still for Il Magistrato/The Magistrate (Luigi Zampa, 1959).

Captivating, sensual performances

One of Jacqueline Sassard’s best films is the Italian drama Le stagioni del nostro amore/Seasons of Our Love (Florestano Vancini, 1966) with Enrico Maria Salerno and Anouk Aimée.

Sassard then played an Austrian princess in the prestigious British film Accident (Joseph Losey, 1967), based on a script by Harold Pinter and starring Dirk Bogarde. At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, the film won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury.

Gavin Jones at IMDb: “One of the best films ever made, this movie oozes atmosphere. The cinematography is impeccable, the script disturbingly brilliant.”

Her last credited screen appearance was opposite Stéphane Audran and Jean-Louis Trintignant in the sensual and sexy thriller Les Biches/The Does/Girlfriends (1968), directed by Claude Chabrol. It was one of the first films subtly dealing with bisexuality.

James Travers at Films de France: “All the time, we, the audience, are seduced by the beautiful cinematography, the captivating, sensual performances, most notably from the Sphinx-like Stéphane Audran, and Chabrol's masterful direction. This is a deliciously seductive work, but one which is also profoundly disturbing.”

Then Jacqueline Sassard retired and disappeared from public view. In Brazil, she had met Gianni Lancia, the Italian former automobile engineer, industrialist and racing enthusiast. They married and have one son, Lorenzo.

Today, Jacqueline Sassard lives in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 1501, 1961. Photo: Jacqueline Sassard and José Suárez in Il magistrato/The Magistrate (Luigi Zampa, 1959), released in Germany as Der Richter.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), Gavin Jones (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Wilhelm Dieterle (1893-1972) a.k.a. William Dieterle was a German actor and director who started out in Weimar cinema, before becoming a well-known Hollywood director.

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5445. Photo: DEFU / Defina / Philipp & Co.

Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 971. Photo: Philipp & Co. Perhaps a card for the film Das Geheimnis des Abbe X (1927), directed by Dieterle himself, or for Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld (1926), directed by Jakob and Luise Fleck.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1741/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Atelier Balazs, Berlin / Zelnik Film.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4922/1, 1929-1930. Atelier Gerstenberg, Berlin.

Kammerspiel

Wilhelm Dieterle was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein in 1893. He was the youngest child of nine, to poor Jewish parents Jacob and Berthe Dieterle.

He took acting lessons at a young age, and began his career as a stage actor in 1911 at the theatre in Arnsberg. This also included work as an extra, singer, dancer and stagehand; hence his white gloves, which he continued to wear in Hollywood.

His striking good looks and ambition soon paved the way as a leading romantic actor in theatre productions. In 1912-1914 he worked at theatres in Heilbronn, Plauen and Bad Dürkheim, in 1914-1917 in Mainz (under the direction of future film director Ludwig Berger).

In 1917-1918 he played in Zürich, in 1918-1919 in Berlin and in 1919-1920 in Munich. He had his breakthrough in 1920-1923 with Max Reinhardt’sDeutschen Theater in Berlin. In this era he mainly worked there, next to sidesteps with the companies of Leopold Jessner, Viktor Barnowsky and Karlheinz Martin. In 1924 Dieterle had his own theatre company, but it was short-lived.

His first film performance was in the Friedrich Schiller adaptation Fiesko (Carl Hoffmann, Phil Jutzi, 1913). He took up film acting from 1919 on in films like Die Vermummten/The Disguised Ones (Franz Seitz, 1920).

All through the 1920s, he appeared in numerous films. Dieterle appeared in major classics of the Weimar era. He was Henny Porten’s ill-fated fiancé and Fritz Kortner’s rival in love in the Kammerspiel Hintertreppe/Backstairs (Leopold Jessner, 1921). Actually, he was often paired with Porten, before Hintertreppe also in Die Geier-Wally/Wally of the Vultures (1921, Ewald André Dupont), and afterwards in Frauenopfer/Women's Sacrifice (Karl Grune, 1921).

Dieterle also was the poet, and the Persian baker and Russian prince in the Harun al Raschid and Iwan the Terrible sequences in Das Wachsfigurenkabinett/Waxworks (Paul Leni, 1923-1924). He played Henny Porten’s young husband in the internationally popular Mutter und Kind/Mother and Child (Carl Froehlich, 1924). And he played Gretchen’s brother Valentin in Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Faust (1926), who was killed by Mephisto.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1910/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1910/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3201/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Suse Byk, Berlin.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4192/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin.

Sex in Chains

From 1923 on, Wilhelm Dieterle directed his first films, in which he always played the lead. He started with the Heimat-film Der Mensch am Wege/Man by the Roadside (1923), in which Marlene Dietrich played one of her first roles.

The major example of his own output was Geschlecht in Fesseln/Sex in Chains (1928), one of the films produced by his own company Charha (1927), which he ran with his wife, scriptwriter and actress Charlotte Hagenbruch. Dieterle played a man who accidentally kills another man who tried to harass his wife (Mary Johnson). In jail he is seduced by an inmate, while his wife gives in to another man as well. After his liberation, the couple feel guilt and commit suicide.

In particular between 1928 and 1930, Dieterle directed many films for his own company, in which he starred and for which his wife signed the script, such as the melodrama Die Heilige und ihr Narr/The Saint and Her Fool (1928) with Lien Deyers and Gina Manès, and the mountain film Das Schweigen im Walde/The Silence in the Wood (1929).

His German films were so successful internationally, that he was offered a contract by Warner Brothers in 1930 to make German versions of American sounds films for Deutsche First National Pictures GmbH (Defina), the German department of Warner’s subsidiary First National.

His first, The Last Flight (1931) with Richard Barthelmess, was a success and has been hailed as a forgotten masterpiece. Another example was Die heilige Flamme/The Holy Flames (1930-1931), co-directed with Berthold Viertel and starring Salka Viertel.

In the States, Dieterle stopped with acting and focused on directing under the name William Dieterle. As he was Jewish, he was lucky to get away from the slowly worsening situation in Germany. Three years later Adolph Hitler would take over and ban all Jews from the German film industry.

In the US, Dieterle quickly adapted and was permitted to start directing his own films. With Michael Curtiz, Dieterle soon became the regular Warner film director, working in every possible genre, such as comedies with Kay Francis and the melodrama The Crash (1932) with Ruth Chatterton.

Together with Max Reinhardt, with whom Dieterle had worked in Germany, he adapted A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) for the cinema, but the result failed to convince the critics.

In the early 1930s, Dieterle was highly productive for Warner, turning out 6 films per year in 1933 and 1934. He probably had to: in 1933 he had received a seven-year contract from Warner.

From the mid-1930s on, Dieterle became well-known for his bio-pics. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) won him an Oscar nomination while The Life of Emile Zola (1937) got him the Oscar. In both films Paul Muni played the lead.

Other memorable titles were the Mark Twain adaptation The Prince and the Pauper (1937) with Errol Flynn, Juarez (1939) with Bette Davis, and The Hunchback of the Notre Dame (1939) with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo.

In 1937 Warner offered Dieterle, by now an American citizen, the opportunity to study Russian production methods during four months at Lenfilm in Moscow. In 1938-1940 he taught theatre lessons at the Max Reinhardt Workshopof Stage, Screen and Radio, and in 1939 he co-founded the antifascist cultural magazine The Hollywood Tribune and the English spoken exile theatre company The Continental Players, directed by Leopold Jessner.

Wilhelm Dieterle and Camilla Horn in Faust

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 66/4. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Faust (1926) with Camilla Horn.

Hertha von Walther, Wilhelm Dieterle and Hermann Picha in Die Weber

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 77/3. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Publicity still for Die Weber (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927) with Hertha von Walther and Hermann Picha.

Wilhelm Dieterle and Paul Wegener in Die Weber

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 77/4. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Publicity still for Die Weber (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927) with Paul Wegener.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 101/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Defina / DEFU. Publicity still for Die Heilige und ihr Narr/The Saint and her Fool (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1928) with Lien Deyers.

Wilhelm Dieterle and Petta Frederick in Das Schweigen im Walde

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 114/2. Photo: Deutsche Universal-Film. Publicity still for Das Schweigen im Walde/The silence in the forest (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1929) with Petta Frederick.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 114/3. Photo: Deutsche Universal-Film. Publicity still for Das Schweigen im Walde/The silence in the forest (Wilhelm Dieterle, 1929) with Petta Frederick.

Romantic, Lush Melodramas

After his contract with Warner expired, Wilhelm Dieterle broke with them and tried his own film company at RKO. When that failed, he mainly made films with MGM, Selznick and Paramount.

During the 1940s, Dieterle focused on romantic, lush melodramas such as the Technicolor extravaganza Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich, and Love Letters (1945) and Portrait of Jennie (1948), both with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones. Love Letters became an enormous success and earned Jones an Oscar.

In the 1950s, Dieterle’s career declined during the McCarthyism period. In 1950 he went to Italy to shoot Vulcano, a rival to Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli. When Anna Magnaniheard that her former lover planned to make a film with his new girlfriend Ingrid Bergman on an Italian island near Sicily, Magnani pushed a Sicilian producer to make a rivalling film which had to come out before Rossellini’s. The affair was known as ‘la guerra dei vulcani’, also referring to Magnani’s tempestuous character.

Around the same time, Dieterle also shot in Italy the highly romantic September Affair (1950), with Joseph Cotten and Joan Fontaine. After he had returned to Hollywood, Dieterle made crime films like Dark City (1950) with Charlton Heston, Boots Malone (1952) and The Turning Point (1952), both with William Holden.

He also filmed epic melodramas such as Salome (1953), starring Rita Hayworth and partly shot in Jerusalem, and Omar Khayyam (1956), starring Cornel Wilde and shot in the Bronson Canyon.

In 1958 Dieterle returned to Germany and worked till his death as a stage director for various companies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria; he also worked for German (Sender Freies Berlin) and Austrian television and (co-)directed two features: a remake of Joe May’s classic Herrin der Welt/Mistress of the World (1959-1960) starring Martha Hyer, and the thriller Die Fastnachtsbeichte/The Carnival Confession (1960) with Hans Söhnker.

From 1961 to 1965, he was manager of the theatre at Bad Hersfeld. He failed with an attempt to make a comeback in Hollywood with The Confession (1964) starring Ginger Rogers. The comedy a.k.a. Quick, Let's Get Married was a notorious flop. It would be Dieterle’s last film direction.

From then on, he remained in Germany, working at the stage and for television. His last TV-film was a new version of A Midsummernight's Dream, Ein Sommernachtstraum (1968).

Wilhelm Dieterle died in 1972 in Ottobrunn in Bavaria, and was buried in Munich. From 1921 on, Wilhelm Dieterle was married to Charlotte Hagenbruch; after she died in 1968, his second wife was Elisabeth Daum.

First scenes of Das Wachsfigurenkabinett/Waxworks (Paul Leni, 1923-1924) with Dieterle as the poet. Source: Silentfilmdemocracy (YouTube).

Trailer of The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle, 1937). Source: MoviesHistory (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia, Filmportal.de, Cinegraph, and IMDb.

German actress Valerie Boothby (1904-1982) was a popular star of the Weimar cinema in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She often played flappers and femme fatales.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5272/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Lotte Jacobi.

Heydays of the Silent Cinema

Valerie – or Valery - Boothby was born as Wally Drucker in Hamburg, Germany in 1904 (some sources say 1906). She was the daughter of the Hamburg theater director Ernst Drucker.

She entered the film business in 1925 during the heydays of the German silent cinema. Her film debut was Der krasse Fuchs/The Glaring Fox (Conrad Wiene, 1925).

In the next years she made many other silent films and her popularity increased quickly. Among her films were Die Frau mit dem Weltrekord/The Woman with the World Record (Erich Waschneck, 1927), Das letzte Souper/Theatre (Mario Bonnard, 1928) starring Marcella Albani, and Angst - Die schwache Stunde einer Frau/Fear (Hans Steinhoff, 1928) in which she co-starred with Gustav Fröhlich and Elga Brink.

She embodied popular types at the time as the flapper or the femme fatale.

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 5684. Photo: Verleih Engel & Walter / Defina / Defu.

Portait Painter and Author

From 1929 on, Valerie Bootby played on the Berlin stages under Victor Barnowsky and Fritz Rotter.

She continued to appear in such silent films as Der Monte Christo von Prag/The Monte Christo of Prague (Hans Otto, 1929) with Walter Rilla, Frauen am Abgrund/Women on the Edge (Georg Jacoby, 1929) opposite Gustav Diessl, and Mädchen am Kreuz/Girls on a Cross (Jacob & Luise Fleck, 1929).

During the early sound period Boothby made her last films, including In einer kleinen Konditorei/In a Little Confectionery (Robert Wohlmuth, 1930) with French star Jaque Catelain, Er oder ich/He or I (Harry Piel, 1930), and Der Herr Finanzdirektor/Mr. Finance Director (Fritz Friedmann-Frederich, 1931) featuring Max Adalbert.

Her last film was So lang' noch ein Walzer vom Strauß erklingt (Conrad Wiene, 1931) starring Gustav Fröhlich as Johan Strauss Jr.

Then her film career halted. Why is unclear. After the takeover by the Nazis in 1933, she emigrated to France, and she lived for many years in Egypt.

She worked as a portrait painter and was the author of such childrens books as Knurr und seine Bande oder Hunde erobern eine Stadt (Knurr and His Dog Gang Conquer a City) (1954) and Der Katzenkapitän (The Captain of the Cats) (1959).

In 1970 she returned to her hometown of Hamburg. Valerie Boothby died at the age of 75 in Hamburg in 1982.

Polish postcard by Polonia, Krakow, no. 847. Photo: Hom Film. Postcard for one of the two Hom productions Boothby played in, either Der Mann, der nicht liebt (Guido Brignone, 1929), starring Gustav Diessl, or Vererbte Triebe (Gustav von Ucicky, 1929), starring Fritz Alberti.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Today's film special is on the German expressionist film Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). A few years ago, my son and I saw a screening in the Castro theatre in San Francisco of a newly restored version of this science-fiction epic, based on Lang’s original cut of the film. We were both mesmerized by the sheer force and beauty of this silent classic. Everyone should see this film! At the time of the premiere in 1927, Ross Verlag made a series of sepia postcards for Metropolis. These are quite rare now, but thanks to the collections of Didier Hanson and EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam, we can present you this post.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 71/1. Photo: Ufa / Parufamet. Publicity still for Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) with Brigitte Helmas the good Maria. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 71-4. Photo: Ufa / Parufamet. Publicity still for Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). Collection: Amsterdam EYE Filmmuseum.

The First Science Fiction Feature

The screenplay for Metropolis was written by Fritz Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou. It would become the first feature length film of the science fiction genre.

Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia. Wealthy industrialists rule the vast city of Metropolis from high-rise tower complexes, while a lower class of underground-dwelling workers toil constantly to operate the machines that provide its power.

The Master of Metropolis is the ruthless Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), whose son Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) idles away his time in a pleasure garden with the other children of the rich.

Freder is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria (Brigitte Helm), who has brought a group of workers' children to see the privileged lifestyle led by the rich. Maria and the children are quickly ushered away, but Freder is fascinated by Maria and descends to the workers' city in an attempt to find her.

Metropolis follows the attempts of Freder and Maria to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes of their city. One of the highlights of the film is the spectacular explosion of a huge machine in the machine rooms, which causes several injuries and deaths.

Another highlight is the creation scene of the Maschinenmensch (Machine-Human), a false Maria, which must ruin Maria's reputation among the workers. The false Maria (also Brigitte Helm) unleashes chaos throughout Metropolis, driving men to murder out of lust for her and stirring dissent amongst the workers.

Gustav Fröhlich and Margarete Lanner in Metropolis

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 71/10. Photo: Ufa / Parufamet. Publicity still for Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) with Gustav Fröhlich and Margarete Lanner. Collection: Didier Hanson.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 71/12. Photo: Ufa / Parufamet. Publicity still for Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) with Brigitte Helm as the false Maria. Collection: Didier Hanson.

The most expensive film

Metropolis was filmed in 1925, at a cost of approximately five million Reichsmarks. Thus, it was the most expensive film ever released up to that point.

The two leading actors of the film were unknowns: nineteen-year-old Brigitte Helm had no previous film experience.

Gustav Fröhlich had only played secondary roles before landing his breakthrough role as Freder Fredersen. The part came about by chance.

Fröhlich was only scheduled to play one of the workmen but four weeks after the beginning he was discovered on the set by Thea von Harbou. Fritz Lang immediately cast him in the lead because of his striking good looks.

Two new stars were born, but the film itself was met with a mixed response upon its initial release. Many critics praised its technical achievements and social metaphors while others derided its 'simplistic and naïve' presentation.

Because of its long running-time and the inclusion of footage which censors found questionable, Metropolis was cut substantially after its German premiere: large portions of the film were lost over the subsequent decades.

Numerous attempts have been made to restore the film since the 1970s-80s. In 2001, the film was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, the first film thus distinguished.

In 2008, a damaged print of Lang’s original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina. After a long restoration process, the film was 95% restored and shown in a limited theatrical re-release in 2010.

Alfred Abel. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3161/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Alex Binder.

Gustav Fröhlich. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3018/1, 1928-1929. Photo: M. v. Bucovich (Atelier K. Schenker).

Brigitte Helm. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4876/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ufa-Harlip.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Yesterday, collector Didier Hanson sent me these scans of Russian film postcards from the pre-Soviet era. I liked them so much that I wanted to present them today to you. So, here are incredibly rare postcards of silent stars like Vera Karalli, Nathalie Kovanko, Vitold Polonsky, Ossip Runitsch, Vladimir Maximov and of course the greatest Russian diva of that era, Vera Kholodnaya. Thanks for sharing, Didier!

Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 24, 1918. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 141, 1918. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 30. Collection: Didier Hanson.

A Strong Infrastructure

The Cinema of the Russian Empire roughly spans the period 1907-1920, during which time a strong infrastructure was created. From the over 2,700 art films created in Russia before 1920, around 300 remain to this day.

In 1908, Alexander Drankov produced the first Russian narrative film, Stenka Razin, based on events told in a popular folk song and directed by Vladimir Romashkov.

At the same time, the Moscow cinema entrepreneur Aleksandr Khanzhonkov began to operate. In 1912, the Khanzhonkov film studio was operational.

The same year, a German concern filming in Russia introduced the director Yakov Protazanov to the world with its Ukhod Velikovo Startsa/Departure of the Grand Old Man, a biographical film about Lev Tolstoy.

From 1911 to 1914 Ivan Mozzhukhin worked in the silent films of Khanzhonkov.

Mozzhukhin shot to fame after his leading role as violinist Trukhachevsky in Kreitzerova sonata/The Kreutzer Sonata (Pyotr Chardynin, 1911), based on the eponymous story by Leo Tolstoy.

He starred as Admiral Kornilov in Oborona Sevastopolya/Defence of Sevastopol (Vasili Goncharov, Aleksandr Khanzhonkov, 1911), a feature film of 2000 meters. This was the first film ever that was shot by two cameras.

Next he appeared in the delightful comedy Domik v Kolomne/The Kolomna House (Pyotr Chardynin, 1913) after a poem by Alexander Pushkin.

By the mid-1910s Ivan Mozzhukhin had become the most important male star of the Cinema of the Russian Empire.

Nathalie Kovanko. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Alexandra Balashova and Mikhail Mortkin. Russian postcard, no. 30. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Alexandra Balashova and Mikhail Mortkin. Russian postcard, no. 144. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vitold Polonsky and Vera Karalli. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson. Photo: publicity still for Vozmezdie/Retribution (Yevgeni Bauer, 1916).

Change

The arrival of World War I in Russia in 1914 sparked a change in the Cinema of the Russian Empire.

In 1916, Russia produced 499 films, over three times the number of just three years earlier, and more of feature length.

Russia's war allies began to import some of the more striking product, including films by Yakov Protazanov and Yevgeni Bauer, a specialist in psychological film, who both impacted, among others, the burgeoning American film industry.

And then came the Russian Revolution. With audiences turning against the Tsar, film producers began turning out, after the February Revolution, a number of films with anti-Tsarist themes. These, along with the usual retinue of detective films and melodramas, filled theatres.

The destruction of the infrastructure in the major cities, the failing war-drained economy, the takeover of rural cinemas by local Soviets, and the aversion of some in the film industry to communism, caused the Russian film industry per se to effectively die out by the time Lenin on 8 November 1917 proclaimed a new country, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

The last significant Russian film completed, Otets Sergiy/Father Sergius (Yakov Protazanov, Alexandre Volkoff, 1917) featuring Ivan Mozzhukhin would become the first new film release a year later, in the new country of the Soviets.

Vitold Polonsky, no. 141. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vitold Polonsky. Russian postcard, no. 133. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vitold Polonsky. Russian postcard, no. 124. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya

One of the first stars of the Cinema of the Russian Empire was Vera Kholodnaya (1893-1919).

Her film debut was a minor role in a grand production of Anna Karenina (Vladimir Gardin, 1914) with Mariya Germanova in the title role.

Then director Yevgeni Bauer was looking for a woman of outstanding beauty for a new film. When Kholodnaya was introduced to him, Bauer reportedly was spellbound of the small, intense woman with her commanding grey eyes and mop of black hair.

Bauer at once approved her for the part, the lead role in the Ivan Turgenev adaptation Pesn torzhestvuyushchey lyubvi/The Song of the Triumphant Love (Yevgeni Bauer, 1915).

This mystical love drama was a major box-office hit, and she signed a three-years contract with the Khanzhonkov studio. The impatient Bauer immediately made another film with his new discovery, Plamya Neba/Flame of the Sky (Yevgeni Bauer, 1915).

Four years later, the ‘Queen of the Screen’ died of the Spanish flu during the pandemic of 1919.

Although the 26-years old actress had worked only three years for the cinema, she must have made between fifty and hundred short films.

The Soviet authorities ordered to destroy many of the Kholodnaya features in 1924, and only five of her films still exist.

Vera Kholodnaya and Vladimir Maximov. Russian postcard, no. 79. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya and Ossip Runitsch. Russian postcard, no. 30. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya and Ossip Runitsch. Russian postcard, no. 173. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 149. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Legendary actress Cécile Sorel (1873-1966) was the ‘queen of the French stage’ during the Belle Époque, the period between the Paris Exposition of 1900 and the First World War. Her public appearances, often in extravagant costumes, created a sensation. During her long life she played in five films.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 969. Sent by mail in 1904. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 89/14. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 90/20. Sent by mail in 1903. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1606. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 194/13. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

Grandes coquettes

Cécile Sorel was born as Céline Émilie Seurre in Paris in 1873. Very early, she was attracted by the theatre. She was a student of Delaunay and Mademoiselle Favart, and during the early years of her career, she played in a small boulevard theatre.

In 1899, she started to perform at the Odéon and in 1901, at the Comédie-Française, where she specialised in playing ‘grandes coquettes’. Her style was very recognisable and is now considered exaggerated, with her declamatory tone and articulated diction.

It was also the style of Sarah Bernhardt. Like the latter, she is particularly associated with the role of the courtesan Célimène in Le Misanthrope by Molière. Other success roles were La Dame aux camellias and Marion Delorme by Victor Hugo.

In 1904, she was elected 339th ‘Sociétaire’ (member) of the Comédie-Française, and Cécile Sorel would remain there until 1933. She enjoyed great popularity, and worked with some of the greatest personalities of her age, including Clemenceau, playwright Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac) and actor Lucien Guitry (father of Sacha Guitry).

She performed on both sides of the Atlantic and was the eternal fiancee of Witney Warren, a wealthy American.

Eventually she married the somewhat younger Count de Segur Lamoignon, great-grand-son of the Countess de Segur, and a stage actor under the name of Guillaume de Sax. Although the count soon abandoned her for another woman, they never divorced. Sorel remained a ‘Countess’ all her life.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1791. Sent by mail in 1909. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1915. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris. Sent by mail in 1908.

French postcard by S.I.P., series 34, no. 6. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 910/3. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by PC, no. 4095. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

A revue star with feathers and glitter

From 1909 on, Cécile Sorel appeared incidentally in the cinema. She made her film debut in the silent short La Tosca (André Calmettes, Charles Le Bargy, 1909), a Film d’art production by Pathé Frères, based on the play by Victorien Sardou.

That year she appeared in another short silent film, Le crime à Zidore (Maurice de Féraudy, 1909) with Eugénie Noris.

In 1933 she left the classical theatre of the Comédie Française, and at the age of 60 she became a revue star with feathers and glitter at the Casino de Paris. That year she fell down the 45 stairs at the Casino and her simple remark "L'ai-je bien descendu? - Have I gone down well?" was widely quoted.

Nearly 30 years after her film debut, she returned to the cinema in Les perles de la couronne/The Pearls of the Crown (Sacha Guitry, 1937) in which she played a courtesan. The film tells the history of a set of perfectly matched pear-shaped pearls, that pass through many hands.

Her next film was L'an 40/The year 40 (Fernand Rivers, 1941) with André Alerme and Jules Berry. It is 1940 and the Germans have invaded France. A well off couple flees the invaders and gradually they lose all their material possessions but they discover the true meaning of life instead. The film premiered in Marseille at the Capitole Cinema on 31 January 1941, but the Vichy government banned it two days later and had all copies destroyed. None are known to have survived.

Her final film was the portmanteau film Les petits riens/Little Nothings (Raymond Leboursier, 1942) with Raimu and Fernandel.

In 1950 Cecile underwent a religious conversion, took monastic vows, and spent much of the remainder of her life in prayer and study.

Reputedly, she was one of the richest women in the world, owning several castles, yachts, Cécile Sorel passed away after a heart attack in 1966 château de Hennequeville in Trouville-sur-Mer, France. She was 92. She is buried at the Cimetière de Montparnasse.

French postcard by S.I.P., no. 136/8. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

French postcard by F.A., no. 42. Photo: H. Manuel.

French postcard by Wyndham Ed., no. W 109.

French postcard by E.C. (Editions Chantal), Paris, no. 59. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères, Paris.

French postcard by EC (Editions Chantal), no. 59.

Sources: Bob Hufford (Find A Grave), Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

French actress Alice Field (1903-1969) started out in the silent film era. Her career got on steam in the 1930s, when she starred in several French language versions of German film classics.

French postcard by EC, no. 67. Photo: Film Pathé-Nathan.

Atlantis

Alice Field was born as Alice Fille in Alger, Algeria in 1903.

She made her film debut opposite Saint-Granier in the silent production Villa Destin (Marcel L’Herbier, 1921), based on a play by Oscar Wilde. That same year she played the second wife of a well-to-do Algerian (Marcel Vibert) in Visages voilés... âmes closes/The Sheik's Wife (Henry Roussel, 1921).

She then focused in stage work, but returned to the cinema when sound film was introduced. She played the wife of Constant Rémy in Atlantis (Ewald André Dupont, Jean Kemm, 1930), a heavily fictionalized version of the RMS Titanic story. It was filmed simultaneously with the English-language version Atlantic (1929), the-German language version Atlantik (1929) and the silent version Atlantic (1929).

Her film career got on steam. The following years Field appeared in several films including La maison de La Flèche/The house of La Flèche (Henri Fescourt, 1930) with Annabella, Le refuge/The Refuge (Léon Mathot, 1931) and Vous serez ma femme/You Will Be My Wife (Carl Boese, Serge de Poligny, 1932) with Roger Tréville. The latter was the alternative language version of the Ufa comedy Der Frechdachs/The Cheeky Devil (Carl Boese, Heinz Hille, 1932) with Willy Fritsch and Camilla Horn.

Throughout the 1930s, Field played leading and supporting roles in a dozen French films. Most of them were run-of–the-mill, but quite watchable are Cette vieille canaille/The Old Rogue (Anatole Litvak, 1933) featuring Harry Baur, and the crime drama Police mondaine/Worldly Police (Michel Bernheim, Christian Chamborant, 1937), in which she starred opposite Charles Vanel and Pierre Larquey.

French postcard by P.C., Paris, no. 27.

Playtime

Alice Field starred in the spectacle Le tigre du Bengale/The Tiger of Eschnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938) and the sequel Le tombeau hindou/The Indian Tomb (Richard Eichberg, 1938). These were the French language versions of the German two-parter Das indische Grabmal (Richard Eichberg, 1938) and Der Tiger von Eschnapur (Richard Eichberg, 1938).

These films were remakes of Joe May's 1919 silent films of the same name. Both versions were based on a novel by Thea Von Harbou, at one time the wife of director Fritz Lang. In turn, both Der Tiger von Eschnapur and Das Indische Grabmal were remade in 1959 by Fritz Lang.

During the 1940s, Field continued to star in French films. Among her films were Campement 13/Camp 13 (Jacques Constant, 1940), and the comedy La loi du printemps/The law of spring (Jacques Daniel-Norman, 1942) with Pierre Renoir.

After the war, she kept busy although her parts became smaller. Among her films of the 1950s and 1960s are the comedy drama Au p'tit zouave/The little Zouave (Gilles Grangier, 1950) starring François Périer, the Euro-spy film Pleins feux sur Stanislas/Killer Spy (Jean-Charles Dudrumet, 1965) starring Jean Marais, and the romance Un garçon, une fille. Le dix-septième ciel/A boy, a girl. The seventeenth sky (Serge Korber, 1966) with Jean Louis Trintignantand Marie Dubois.

She continued to play roles on stage and also on television, like in the series Au théâtre ce soir/On stage tonight (1966-1970). Her final film appearance was a small part in the classic comedy Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967) with Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot.

Alice Field died in 1969 in Paris. She was 66.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 974. Photo: Pathé Natan.

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.

With his dreamy features and glossy, immovable hair, Jean Sorel (1934) was one of the most handsome leading men of the European cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked in the French, Italian and later in the Spanish cinema with such directors as Luis Buñuel and Luchino Visconti. Since 1980 he appeared mostly on television.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1049. Photo: Studio Vallois.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 173. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 143. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

Womanizer with Good Looks

Jean Sorel was born as Jean de Combault-Roquebrune in Marseille, France, in 1934. Sorel is from a noble family of officers.

His father, Guy de Combaud Roquebrune was a founder of the French journal Liberté. He died in battle against the Nazis in September 1944 as commander of a French paratrooper unit of the British Special Air Force.

Sorel began his studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure to pursue a diplomatic career, but he abandoned his studies when he fell in love with the theatre. He made his stage debut during his period in a production of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

In 1956 and 1957 he had to fight in the Algerian war. After his military service he chose for an acting career and made his film debut with a small part in J'irai cracher sur vos tombes/I’ll Spit On Your Grave (Michel Gast, 1959) starring Christian Marquand.

His breakthrough was a major role in the now forgotten film Les Lionceaux/Bitter Fruit of Love (Jacques Bourdon, 1960) in which he played a womanizer with good looks.

In the following years he became established with supporting parts in productions like Vive Henri IV...vive l'amour!/Long Live Henry IV... Long Live Love (Claude Autant-Lara, 1961), L'oro di Roma/Gold of Rome (Carlo Lizzani, 1961), Julia, Du bist zauberhaft/Adorable Julia (Alfred Weidenmann, 1962), Germinal (Yves Allégret, 1963), and La ronde/The Circle of Love (Roger Vadim, 1964) with Jane Fonda.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress, Berlin, no. 28/70, 1970. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Unifrance-Film.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress, Berlin, no. 1897, 1964. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Progress. Publicity still for Julia, Du bist zauberhaft/Adorable Julia (Alfred Weidenmann, 1962) with Lilli Palmer.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress, Berlin, no. 2.573.

Brilliant Career

In the next decade Jean Sorel had a brilliant career. Especially his work in Italian films established him as one of the most popular actors at an international level. He worked with such directors as Alberto Lattuada, Dino Risi, Franco Brusati, Nanni Loy, Damiano Damiani, and Mauro Bolognini.

Luchino Visconti directed him in the masterpiece Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa/Sandra (Luchino Visconti, 1965) as the incestuous brother of Claudia Cardinale. The film won both the Silver Ribbon and the Golden Lion at the festival of Venice.

Two years later, he starred in another masterpiece, Belle de jour/Beauty of the Day (Luis Buñuel, 1967). Sorel played the paralyzed husband of beautiful Catherine Deneuve, in her most famous interpretation.

He also appeared in productions like Sidney Lumet's fiery Vu du pont/A View From the Bridge (Sidney Lumet, 1962) based on the play by Arthur Miller, and the British-French thriller The Day of the Jackal (Fred Zinnemann, 1973).

Apart from these classics, Sorel appeared often in genre films such as Paranoia/A Quiet Place to Kill (Umberto Lenzi, 1970). In this cult thriller set in Majorca, he fights back after his ex-wife Carroll Baker tries to murder him for a second time.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress, Berlin, no. 2.210, 1965. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Progress.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1107. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.

French collectors card by Editions P.I., Paris. Photo: Vallois.

Reunited With Claudia Cardinale

From the mid-1970s, Jean Sorel reduced his film activities and he appeared mostly on television and in the theatre (often under the direction of Roger Planchon).

To his well-known films of those years belong Les enfants du placard/Closet Children (Benoît Jacquot, 1977) with Brigitte Fossey, Der Mann im Schilf/The Man in the Rushes (Manfred Purzer, 1978), Les soeurs Bronte/The Bronte Sisters (André Téchiné, 1979) with Isabelle Adjani and Isabelle Huppert, the TV film La naissance du jour/The Birth of the Day (Jacques Demy, 1980) with Danièle Delorme and Dominique Sanda, and Aspern/The Aspern Papers (Eduardo de Gregorio, 1985) with Bulle Ogier and Alida Valli.

After that he slowly retired from the film business. There followed only sporadic appearances in front of the camera like the Bud Spencer vehicle Un piede in paradise/Speaking of the Devil (Enzo Barboni, 1991), and the TV mini-series Deserto di fuoco/The Desert of Fire (Enzo G. Castellari, 1997) in which he was reunited with Claudia Cardinale.

Recent films are L'ultimo Pulcinella/The Last Pulcinella (Maurizio Scaparro, 2008) with Massimo Ranieri and Adriana Asti, and the short drama Il teatro dei ricordi/The Theatre of Memories (Angela Bevilacqua, Giorgia Randolfi, Francesca Saracino, 2014).

Since 1963, Jean Sorel is married to Italian actress Anna-Maria Ferrero, who gave up her acting career soon after their marriage. Today they live in Paris and Rome.

Scene from Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa/Sandra (Luchino Visconti, 1965) with Claudia Cardinale and Michael Craig. Source: Classic Movies Store.

Trailer of Belle de Jour (1967). Source: BestForeignMovies (YouTube).

Love scene in La volpe dalla coda di velluto/In the Eye of the Hurricane (1971) between Analía Gadé and Jean Sorel. Source: apkie (YouTube).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Michael Musto (The Village Voice), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Blonde French actress Marie Dubois died today near Pau in the South of France. She appeared in several classics of the Nouvelle Vague, like Tirez sur le pianist (François Truffaut, 1960), Une femme est une femme (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961), and Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962). She has worked as supporting and sometimes leading actress on stage, screen, and television. In the 1970s, she acted for a new generation of avant-garde directors, including Claude Sautet. Marie Dubois suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years and had campaigned to raise public awareness about the disease and support for research. She was 77.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 186/69.

New Wave

Marie Dubois was born Claudine Lucie Pauline Huzé in 1937 in Paris. She studied at l'École de la rue Blanche (ENSATT) and followed lessons by Henri Rollan at the Conservatoire.

She made her film debut in 1959, but first gained notice the next year as waitress Léna in the crime drama Tirez sur le pianist/Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut, 1960).

In this loving homage to Hollywood gangster films, Charles Aznavour starred as the piano player with whom Dubois’ character is in love. Truffaut first noticed Marie Dubois when he came across her headshot during pre-production and attempted to set up several meetings with the actress, but Dubois never showed up. Truffaut finally saw Dubois perform on a TV show and immediately wanted to cast her shortly before filming began. Truffaut changed her name Claudine Huzé to Marie Dubois because she reminded him of the titular character of his friend Jacques Audiberti's novel Marie Dubois.

She has since played mainly supporting roles. In the 1960s she appeared in the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) films Une femme est une femme/A Woman Is a Woman (Jean-Luc Godard, 1961) with Anna Karina, Jules et Jim/Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) with Jeanne Moreau, and Le Voleur/The Thief of Paris (Louis Malle, 1964) with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

With Belmondo she co-starred in four films. She also played in comedies like La Ronde/Circle of Love (Roger Vadim, 1964), La Grande Vadrouille (Gérard Oury, 1966), and Monte Carlo or Bust/Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (Ken Annakin, 1969).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 2918, 1967. Photo: publicity still for L'âge ingrate/That Tender Age (Gilles Grangier, 1964).

One the faces of the French avant-garde

Marie Dubois liked to work with young directors and she became one the faces of the French avant-garde cinema of the 1970s. These films include La Maison des Bories/The House of the Bories (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, 1970) with Matthieu Carriere, Bof ... Anatomie d'un Livreur/Bof (Claude Faraldo, 1971) and the black-and-white Swiss feature Les Arpenteurs/The Surveyors (Michel Soutter, 1972).

More mainstream was the spy thriller Le Serpent/Night Flight from Moscow (Henri Verneuil, 1973) with Yul Brynner and Dirk Bogarde. An artistic and commercial success was Vincent, François, Paul et les autres/Vincent, Francois, Paul and the Others (Claude Sautet, 1974), a gentle character study of a group of friends (Gérard Dépardieu, Yves Montand, Serge Reggiani and Michel Piccoli) who meet each weekend in the country for food, drink and conversation.

Another highlight was Luchino Visconti’s last film, the period drama L'Innocente/The Innocent (1976). In 1978 she won the César Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Dominique Montlaur in the psychological thriller La Menace (Alain Corneau, 1977) starring Yves Montand.

Another success was the satire Mon Oncle d'Amérique/My American Uncle (Alain Resnais, 1980) which scored a hit with filmgoers and critics alike, and was honoured with six Cesar Awards.

In the 1980s she also appeared in the seriocomedy Garçon!/Boy! (Claude Sautet, 1983) with Yves Montand as a middle-aged waiter, and La Petite Sirene (Roger Andrieux, 1984).

For her role as Lucette Beulemans in Descente aux enfers/Descent Into Hell (Francis Girod, 1986), she received a second César nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Marie Dubois’s last screen role was as the grandmother in the TV film Le bon fils/The Good Son (Irène Jouannet, 2001).

She married French film actor Serge Rousseau in 1961 and they remained together until his death in 2007.

Part of Marie Dubois' screen test for Tirez sur le pianist. Source: Luke the Lux (YouTube).

Sources: Le Monde (French), Allocine (French), AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Polish actor and singer Jan Kiepura (1902-1966) was one of the grand tenors of the 20th century. With his handsome smile he also became a popular star of the early German sound film. Solo and together with Marta Eggerth, he starred in many popular film operettas of the 1930s, often produced in multiple-language versions.

Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, Wien, no. 720-1. Photo: Paul M. Vajda, Budapest.

Jan Kiepura and Brigitte Helm in Die singende Stadt

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5261/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Die singende Stadt/The Singing City (Carmine Gallone, 1930).

Postcard by Iris-Verlag. Photo: Lux Film / Cine-Allianz. Publicity still for Das Lied einer Nacht (Anatole Litvak, 1932).

The simple boy from Sosnowia

Jan Wiktor Kiepura was born as the son of a Polish baker and a Jewish mother in the mining town Sosnowia, Russia (now Poland). He started studying law in Warsaw, but at the same time he took singing lessons with Waclaw Brzesinsky and Tadeusz Leliwa.

He soon realized that singing was his real vocation and he gave his first concert in 1924. In 1925 he had his big debut as the lead singer of Gounod's Faust.

In the following months he gained popularity singing in Rigoletto by Verdi, Halka by Moniuszko, and Cavalleria Rusticana by Mascagni, at the Warsawian Wielki Theater.

He made an appearance on the Polish radio and the cinema also required him. He made his film debut in the silent Polish production O czym się nie myśli/Not In Your Thoughts (Edward Puchalski, 1926).

From then on, Kiepura was wanted everywhere in the world and he would perform even at La Scala in Milan and the Metropolitan in New York.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 7689/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Ciné Allianz / Ufa.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 7689/2, 1932-1933.

German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8515/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Cine-Alianz.

Dazzling Dream Couple

When the sound film arrived, Jan Kiepura was already a world famous opera star and with his beautiful tenor and his good looks he proved to be perfect for the German film operetta.

His first sound film was Die singende Stadt/City of Song (Carmine Gallone, 1930), shot at the Ufa studios at Neu Babelsberg. He played a naïve, good-natured singing sensation lured to fame and fortune by a big city vamp. She was played in the German version by Brigitte Helm and in the English language release by Betty Stockfield.

Kiepura himself lured a huge public into the cinemas with Das Lied einer Nacht/Tell Me Tonight (Anatole Litvak, 1932) and Ein Lied für Dich/A Song for You (Joe May, 1933).

On the set of Mein Herz ruft nach dir/My Heart Calls You (Carmine Gallone, 1934), he met the Hungarian lyrical soprano Marta Eggerth, who would become the woman of his life. The two often sang together in operettas, in concerts, on records, and in films.

The greatest success of this dazzling dream couple was Zauber der Bohème/Magic of the Bohemians (Géza von Bolváry, 1937).

Kiepura showed his acting skills in a double role in Ich liebe alle Frauen/I Love All Women (Carl Lamac, 1935) with Theo Lingenand Lien Deyers, and its French version J'aime toutes les femmes (Carl Lamac, 1935) with Danielle Darrieuxand English version Give Us This Night (Alexander Hall, 1936).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8612/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa/Cine-Allianz. Still from Mein Herz Ruft nach Dir (Carmine Gallone, 1934).

Jan Kiepura and Martha Eggerth in Mein Herz ruft nach dir

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 198/1. Photo: Cine Allianz / Ufa. Publicity still of Jan Kiepura and Martha Eggerth in the musical comedy Mein Herz ruft nach dir (Carmine Gallone, 1934).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8583/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ufa / Cine-Allianz / Frhr. von Gudenberg.

Sensation On Broadway

In March 1938 Jan Kiepura and Marta Eggerth (who was also partially Jewish) were forced to flee Europe due to the rise of Nazism. They took refuge in the South of France.

After World War II broke out, Kiepura was located in Paris. When France capitulated he went with Eggerth to New York. There he suppported organisations like Relief fund for Poland.

Kiepura en Eggerth caused a sensation on Broadway where they co-starred in The Merry Widow and La Polonaise.

After the war, they returned to Paris and starred in films like Addio Mimi!/Her Wonderful Lie (Carmine Gallone, 1947) - a modern adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera La Boheme, Valse brillante/Brilliant Waltz (Jean Boyer, 1949) and Das Land des Lächelns/Land of Smiles (Hans Deppe, Erik Ode, 1952).

In 1953, they settled down in the USA for good. Kiepura acquired American citizenship shortly afterwards. However, his career quickly declined.

At the age of 64, Jan Kiepura died of a heart attack in Harrison, in his New York State home, in 1966. He and Marta Eggerth had two sons.

Dutch postcard by Croese & Bosman, no. 524. Photo: Universal Film.

Latvian postcard by Ira, Riga, no. 1839. Photo: Jan Kiepura and Lien Deijers in Ich liebe alle Frauen (Carl Lamac, 1935).

German postcard by Das Programm von Heute. Photo: Intergloria / Terra Filmkunst.

Marta Eggerth and Jan Kiepura, Hotel Patria

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1199/1. Photo: Paramount.
Martha Eggerth and Jan Kiepura in front of their hotel Patria in Krynica-Zdrój, a popular Polish ski resort, near the Czech border.

A royal scandal

This luxurious modernist Hotel Patria, commissioned by Kiepura, was designed by architect Bohdan Pniewski in 1927 and opened in 1933. It had cost Kiepura 3 million dollars, gathered by his successful musicals in Europe and the US.

Soon it became the toast of the town, attracting nobility and nouveaux-riches. It was run by Kiepura's parents, while Kiepura and Eggerth lived in Paris.

In January 1937 it was the site of a royal scandal when the just married Dutch crown princess Juliana and her husband Bernhard, Prince zur Lippe-Biesterfeld, had tried to deceive the press, by sending their luggage elsewhere, and hiding at the Hotel Patria. Soon their incognito as count and countess Von Sternberg [!] came out and the press sieged the hotel, while Kiepura and Eggerth came back over night from Paris to welcome the royal guests.

The weeks in Patria must have been big fun for the royal couple, filled with skiing in daytime and parties in the night time. Marta Eggerth later remembered how she had fun with the couple, changing the ski boots in front of the hotel rooms in the middle of the night.

During the war the hotel was used as a sanatorium for German officers. After the war the hotel was expropriated by the communists and became a state health resort.

When Kiepura visited Krynica in 1958 he was not allowed to stay there. After his death Marta Eggerth tried in vain to reclaim the building.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9327/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Neuhauser, St. Moritz.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9877/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Paramount.

Jan Kiepura sings La Boheme. Source: Tenor65 (YouTube).

Jan Kiepura sings La donna e mobile. Source: Tenor65 (YouTube).

Sources: Hans-Michael Brock (The Concise Cinegraph), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Käthe Haack (1897-1986) was an extremely versatile German actress. Between 1915 and 1980 she portrayed a wide range of characters in some 230 films and television productions, often to rave reviews.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2503. Photo: Phot. Atelier Walten, Berlin.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 198/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 198/3. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Good-natured To Vicious

Käte Lisbeth Minna Sophie Isolde Haack was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1897. She was the daughter of cloth merchant Karl Wilhelm Paul Haack and his wife Sophie Margaret Haack, née Jahn.

After attending a private lyceum in Berlin-Charlottenburg, she took acting lessons with Seraphine Détschy and Hans Kaufmann. In 1914 she received her first engagement at the Stadttheater Göttingen (City Theater Goettingen).

From 1915 on she played most of the time in the theatres of Berlin. Her roles included Anni in Ferenc Molnár's Spiel im Schloss (Play in the Castle), Clara in the premiere of Der fröhliche Weinberg (The Merry Weinberg) in 1925, and Mayor Gülstorff in the premiere of Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (The Captain from Köpenick) at the Deutsche Theater in 1931, directed by Heinz Hilpert.

From 1935 to 1944 she worked at the Preußischen Staatstheater Berlin (Prussian State Theater in Berlin) under Gustaf Gründgens.

Already in 1915 she had her first film appearance in Pension Lampel (Max Mack, 1915) opposite Hanni Weisse. After a highly praised performance in Mack's Der Katzensteg/The Cat Walk (Max Mack, 1915), Haack further pursued her film career.

During the 1910s she portrayed a wide range from good-natured to vicious characters in such films as Das Tagebuch des Dr. Hart/The Diary of Dr. Hart (Paul Leni, 1916) opposite her later husband Heinrich Schroth, Die Hochzeit im Excentricclub/Marriage at the Excentricclub (Joe May, 1917) written by Fritz Lang, and in the title role of the detective film Die Ratte/The Rat (Harry Piel, Joe May, 1918) opposite Heinrich Schroth as Joe Deebs.

German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 3006. Photo: Atelier Schmithals.

German postcard by Rotophot, no. 436, 1916. Photo: A. Binder, Berlin.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1818. Photo: Alex Binder.

Rave Reviews

In the 1920s, Käthe Haack was more or less reduced to parts of dull bourgeois women or amiable housewives in such successful productions as Der tote Gast/The Dead Guest (Karl Freund, 1921), Hedda Gabler (Franz Eckstein, 1924) starring Asta Nielsen, and Der alte Fritz/The Old Fritz (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1927) with Otto Gebühr.

The extremely versatile actress received numerous role offers and could easily continue her career after the end of the silent era. She changed her image from a ‘young and street-smart girl’ to a wife and mother.

During the 1930s, Haack was one of the most successful and popular actresses. She appeared in box office hits like Berlin - Alexanderplatz (Phil Jutzi, 1931) starring Heinrich George, Emil und die Detektive/Emil and the Detectives (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1931) as Emil’s mother, Der Hauptmann von Köpenick/The Captain from Köpenick (Richard Oswald, 1931), and Pygmalion (Erich Engel, 1935) starring Jenny Jugo.

During the war period, she starred in elaborate large-scale productions like the biography Bismarck (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1940) and the monumental Münchhausen/The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (Josef von Báky, 1943) starring Hans Albers.

After the Second World War II, she remained one of best-known and most successful actresses of the German cinema. She played in films ranging from melodramas like Herz der Welt/The Alfred Nobel Story (Harald Braun, 1952) to crime films like Dynamit in grüner Seide/Death and Diamonds (Harald Reinl, 1968) starring George Nader, and to comedies like Der letzte Fußgänger/The Last Pedestrian (Wilhelm Thiele, 1961) with Heinz Erhardt.

A type of role she often portrayed at the end of her career was the distinguished ‘Grande Dame’. For this role in Der Lord von Barmbeck/The Lord of Barmbeck (Ottokar Runze, 1973) and Grete Minde – Der Wald ist voller Wölfe/Grete Minde - The forest is full of wolves (Heide Genée, 1977), she received rave reviews.

She remained also successful as a theatre actress in Berlin. Important post-war stage roles were Mrs. Antrobus in Wir sind noch einmal davongekommen (We got away once more, 1946, Hebbel-Theater), Mrs. Higgins in My Fair Lady (1963, a tour with 1500 performances) and Louise Mask in Carl Sternheim's Der Snob (The Snob, 1966, Renaissance Theater).

In 1967 she was appointed ‘Berlin State Actress’ and in 1973 she was awarded the Filmband in Gold for her long and outstanding achievements in the German film industry. Haack published her memoirs under the title In Berlin und Anderswo (In Berlin and elsewhere) in 1971.

Käthe Haack died in 1986 in her hometown Berlin. Her daughter, Hannelore Schroth and her stepsons, Heinz Schroth aka Heinz Sailer and Carl-Heinz Schroth, were also well-known actors.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3808/1, 1941-1944. Photo: K.L. Haenchen.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3925/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line) (German), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

Today's film special is about Le Bossu/The Hunchback (1925), a French 'swashbuckler' directed by Jean Kemm. This silent film was the third of at least twelve screen adaptations of the popular novel Le Bossu by author Paul Féval.

Gaston Jacquet in Le Bossu (1925). French postcard by Films Jacques Haïk. Photo: Combier Mâcon.

Swashbuckler Novel

Paul Féval's historical adventure novel Le Bossu was first published in serial parts in Paris in 1858.

The novel is one of a number of works such as Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (1844) which helped define the genre of ‘swashbuckler’ novel, known in French as a ‘roman de cape et d'épée’.

Féval’s son, Paul Féval Fils borrowed his father's hero Chevalier Henri de Lagardère for his own series of Lagardère novels. For the film, he also co-wrote the scenario.

The story deals with the wealthy aristocrat De Lagardère (played by Gaston Jacquet), who wants to avenge the death of his friend the Duc de Nevers (Jean Lorette).

The Duke was killed in a treacherous duel by the Prince of Gonzague (Marcel Vibert) many years ago. The Prince was jealous of the other man's riches, and after killing him, Gonzague also married de Nevers’ widow, Aurore (Claude France).

De Lagardère steals Irène, the child of Nevers and Aurore, and several years after, he returns pretending to be the deformed hunchback of the Rue Quincampoix. He unmasks Gonzague and holds Irène's (Nilda Duplessy) hand in return.

French postcard by Films Jacques Haïk. Photo: Combier Mâcon. Caption: 'Une fête au Palais-Royal'. (A party at the Royal Palace)

Gaston Jacquet as Lagardère and Nilda Duplessy as Irène de Nevers in Le Bossu (1925). French postcard by Films Jacques Haïk, no. 120. Photo: Combier Mâcon.

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 1. Photo: publicity still for Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925). Caption: "Une scène dans le salon du regent" (Scene in the Salon of the Regent).

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 10. Photo: publicity still for Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925). Caption: "The Rotisserie du Soleil d'Or" (The Grill of the Golden Sun).

French postcard by Films Jacques Haïk. Photo: Combier Mâcon. Publicity still for Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925) with Jacques Arna aka Arna and Louis Pré fils as the comic sidekicks Cocardasse and Passepoil. Louis Pré fils (1884-1970) was a French actor, who acted mainly in supporting parts in French cinema, during the 1920s and 1930s. He peaked in the early 1920s in such films als Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921), Vingt ans après/Twenty Years Later (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922) and Le Bossu (1925). Jacques Arna only acted in a handful of French silent films, including Vingt ans après/Twenty Years Later (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922) , Le Bossu (1925) and La passion de Jeanne d'Arc/The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928). Arna was also an historian, a graphologist and an opera singer.

French Resistance

Le Bossu (1925) was probably the first production of French film pioneer Jacques Haïk (1883–1950).

Haïk had been an active French film distributor during the early sound era. He had introduced the Charlie Chaplin films in France and was the inventor of his French name Charlot.

He later created the famous Paris venue Olympia, and built film studios in the Paris suburbs of Courbevoie and La Garenne. He also opened several prestige cinemas in France, including Le Grand Rex (1932) in Paris, the biggest cinema of Europe.

The postcards that were produced to promote Le Bossu show that the film was presented in Haïk's Olympia ('in exclusivity'), but also in the Ciné Max Linder and the Mozart-Palace, both in Paris.

Ciné Max Linder opened in 1912 as Kosmorama. In 1914 actor-director Max Linder bought the cinema and renamed it after himself. Today, the cinema still exists, though it has been completely modernized.

The Mozart-Palace existed between 1913 and 1954. It is now a supermarket.
After Le Bossu, Jacques Haïk would continue to produce dozens of French films until the Second World War.

During the war, the Jewish and anti-Nazi Haïk joined the Forces Françaises Libres (French resistance) and became its representative in the Arab world. After the war he returned to France and tried to recover his property and films that had all been confiscated by the Germans. Five years later he died.

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 5. Photo: publicity still for Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925). Caption: "Lagardère {à L'Enfant" ((Young) Lagardère).

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 6. Photo: publicity still of Marcel Vibert as the Prince de Gonzague. Caption: 'Gonzague a trahi de Nevers... Le Bossu ne trahira vos espérances'. (Gonzague has betrayed de Nevers, but Le Bossu will not betray your expectations.)

Marcel Vibert, Hypolyte Paulet, Le Bossu

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 8. Photo: publicity still of Marcel Vibert as the Prince de Gonzague and Hypolyte Paulet as de Peyrolles. Caption: 'Monsieur de Peyrolles est l'homme des mauvais conseils ne l'écoutez pas et ... un bon conseil: voyez Le Bossu'. (Mr. de Peyrolles is the man of bad advice. Don't listen to him and ... a good advice: see Le Bossu.)

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïkm no. 9. Le Bossu ou le Petit Parisien (Jean Kemm, 1925) with Maxime Desjardins as Le Régent. Caption: "Le luxe n'est rien sans le goût et la mesure. 'Le Bossu' est monté avec goût et la mesure: voici un film Français." (Luxury is nothing without the taste and measure. Le Bossu is mounted with taste and measurement: this is a French film.)

French postcard by Editions Cinématographiques Jacques Haïk, no. 13. Photo: publicity still of Lagardère (Gaston Jacquet). Caption: 'Les Etablissements Jacques Haïk ont fait tourner pour vous Le Bossu... et Lagardère fera tourner toutes les têtes.' (Les Etablissements Jacques Haïk will 'turn' (film) Le Bossu for you... and Lagardère will turn everybody's head.)

Film Versions

Le Bossu/The Hunchback (1925) was not the first screen adaptation of Féval’s adventure novel, and not the last. The novel was filmed more than 10 times.

The original film version was the silent short Le Bossu (André Heuzé, 1912) starring Henry Krauss and Yvette Andréyor.

Krauss repeated his interpretation in Le Bossu (1923) opposite Claude Mérelle and Edouard de Max. Ten years after the original silent version, René Sti made the first sound version Le Bossu (1935) with Robert Vidalin as Henri de Lagardère, Josseline Gaël as Aurore de Caylus and Samson Fainsilber as Monsieur de Peyrolles.

In 1943 followed a Mexican version El jorobado (Jaime Salvador, 1943) and a year later a new French version Le Bossu (Jean Delannoy, 1944) starring Pierre Blanchard as Henri de Lagardère.

In 1955 came another Latin-American version, the Argentine production El juramento de Lagardere (León Klimovsky, 1955).

Probably the best known version is Le Bossu (André Hunebelle, 1959) starring Jean Marais and Bourvil.

The mini-series Lagardère (Jean-Pierre Decourt, 1967) featured Jean Piat, Sacha Pitoëff and Jacques Dufilho.

Thirty years later Lagardère returned to the cinema in the lush Le Bossu/On Guard (1997, Philippe de Broca). Among the cast were such French stars as Daniel Auteuil as Lagardère, Fabrice Luchini as Gonzague, and Vincent Perez as De Nevers.

The most recent adaptation was the TV film Lagardère (Henri Helman, 2004) with Bruno Wolkowitch.

Trailer of Le Bossu (André Hunebelle, 1959). Source: Ibena65 (YouTube).

Trailer of Le Bossu ( Philippe de Broca, 1997). Source: Cinemaetcie (YouTube).

Sources: Les indépendants du premier siècle (French), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Italian comic actor Peppino De Filippo (1903-1980) was a star of theatre, television and cinema in his country. He started his career on stage with his brother Eduardo and their sister Titina. In the 1950s and 1960s he became the partner of Totó in very popular comedy films and he appeared in two classics by Federico Fellini.

Italian postcard in the Hobby series by Bromostampa, Milano.

Own brand of comedy

Peppino De Filippo was born Giuseppe De Filippo in Naples, Italy in 1893. He came from a typical stage family. His father was the playwright Eduardo Scarpetta and his mother Luisa De Filippo. His brother was actor and dramatist Eduardo De Filippo and his sister actress Titina De Filippo. His half-brother were the actors Vincenzo Scarpetta, Eduardo Passarelli and Pasquale De Filippo.

Peppino made his stage debut at the age of six in Scarpetta's play Miseria e Nobilta. He studied the piano and went away to college for two years.

During WWI, back in Naples, he joined Scarpetta's company Molinari, and it was here that he met Totò. At 22, he joined the company of Salvatore De Muto, but had to return to the Scarpetta company after his estranged father, Eduardo Scarpetta, passed away.

Thus he, his brother Eduardo and their sister Titina, started to work together. After several attempts with different acting companies, they founded the Compagnia Teatro Umoristico: i De Filippo in 1931. The three staged their own brand of comedy and worked alongside the likes of Tina Pica, Carlo Pisacane, Agostino Salvietti and Giovanni Berardi. It was a very successful experience, featuring tours all over Italy, new comedies, enthusiastic ratings by critics, and sold out theatres.

Peppino De Filippo played in several Italian films. He made his screen debut in the French-Italian comedy Tre uomini in frack/Three Lucky Fools (Mario Bonnard, 1933) starring Tito Schipa and his brother Eduardo De Filippo. It was followed by Quei due/Those Two (Gennaro Righelli, 1935) with Eduardo and Assia Noris.

In campagna è caduta una stella/In the Country Fell a Star (Eduardo De Filippo, 1939) was based on a play written by Peppino De Filippo. Peppino and Eduardo play two peasant brothers who become obsessed with an American film starlet (Rosina Lawrence) who visits their small town and they neglect their fiancées.

However, in 1944, due to a controversy with his brother, Peppino abandoned their theatre company and their succesful cooperation ended definitively.

Italian postcard. Photo: publicity still of Casanova farebbe così/Casanova Would Do It That Way! (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1942) with Peppino and Eduardo de Filippo and Clelia Matania.

Italian postcard in the series Gli Artisti di Napoli.

Drink more milk

In 1945, Peppino De Filippo also separated from Adele Carloni, his wife of 16 years and he debuted with his new company with I Casi Sono Due at the Teatro Olimpia in Milan. The separation if his brother and sister would allow him to find his own stylistic footprint as an author, being easily distinguishable from Eduardo's: Peppino's comedies are usually easier and more elegant.

In 1950, he starred in the film comedy Luci del varietà/Variety Lights, produced and directed by Federico Fellini and Alberto Lattuada and co-starring Carla Del Poggio and Giulietta Masina. This bittersweet drama is about a beautiful but ambitious young woman who joins a group of second-rate theatrical performers on tour and inadvertently causes jealousy and emotional crises.

In Italy he is probably best remembered for his comedies with Totò, starting with Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina/Toto, Peppino, and the Hussy (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1956), Totò, Peppino e i fuorilegge/Totò, Peppino and the outlaws (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1956), and La banda degli onesti/The Band of Honest Men (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1956). These films obtained an outstanding success, and for Totò, Peppino e i fuorilegge, De Filippo was awarded with a Silver Ribbon for best supporting actor.

His other comedies include Signori, in carrozza!/Rome-Paris-Rome (Luigi Zampa, 1951) with Aldo Fabrizi, Un giorno in pretura/A Day in Court (Steno, 1954), La nonna Sabella/Oh! Sabella (Dino Risi, 1957) and Ferdinando I° re di Napoli/Ferdinand I, King of Naples (Gianni Franciolini, 1959).

From 1959 to 1969 he managed the Teatro delle Arti in Rome, and had worldwide success internationally during those years. Peppino repeatedly showed his extraordinary versatility; particularly noteworthy are his performance in Il Guardiano (The Caretaker) by Harold Pinter and as Harpagon in The Miser by Molière, where he proved to be a skillful actor whose ability had grown beyond Neapolitan comedies.

In the cinema, he worked again with Federico Fellini, at Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio/The Temptation of Dr Antonio, a hilarious segment for the anthology film Boccaccio '70 (1962). De Filippo plays a drooling middle-aged professor who is fed up with too much immorality. His anger knows no bounds when a provocative billboard of Anita Ekberg advertising ‘Drink more milk’ is put up opposite his residence. The image begins to haunt him and in his hallucinations he is pursued and captured by a giant form of the buxom Swedish star in a deserted Rome. At one point, his umbrella disappears between her breasts.

For a TV show, De Filippo invented the character Pappagone. He represented a humble servant of Commendatore Peppino De Filippo (the title of Commendatore is a public honour of the Italian Republic). He performed as a sort of usher, a typical character of the Neapolitan theatre, and coined many funny phrases and an own jargon, that would transform into popular sayings.

Peppino De Filippo died in Rome in 1980 due to a tumour. He was 76. He married three times, and his first wife Adele Carloni gave him his son Luigi De Filippo, who is successfully carrying on his father's work. He married his second wife, actress Lidia Martora, only a few hours before her death. In fact they have been partners for more than 25 years, but he was still married to his first wife (and divorce was not allowed in Italy at that time). In December 1970 divorce was sanctioned by law. De Filippo asked immediately for divorce, but Lidia Martora was already seriously ill, so their wedding was allowed - a tragic trick of chance - only on the same day in which she died. In 1977 he married Clelia Mangano, his business partner.

Anita Ekberg. East-German postcard by VEB Progress FilmVertrieb, Berlin, no. 2391, 1965. Photo: publicity still for Boccaccio '70 (Federico Fellini, 1962).

American theatrical trailer for Boccaccio '70 (1962). Source: Fandor Movie Trailers (YouTube).

Sources: Rosaria DiNatale (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and Italian), and IMDb.

Blonde, high-cheek-boned Winnie Markus (1921-2002) started as an Ufa star during the Nazi period. In the 1950s, the sporty-elegant actress became one of Germany’s most famous and beloved film stars.

German postcard by Verlag und Druckerei Erwin Preuss, no. 17. Photo: Charlott Serda.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 223, 1941-1944. Photo: Berlin-Film / Foto Binz.

Big German card by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. K 1428, 1941-1944. Photo: Berlin-Film / Binz.

Mozart

Winnie Maria Eveline Markus was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), in 1921. Her family belonged to the German population that remained in Czechoslovakia after the collapse of the Austria-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.

She lived till her 14th year in Prague, where her father worked as an export merchant. At 16, she went to Vienna to be trained at the Max Reinhardt Seminar.

After finishing her training, Markus made her stage debut as an elfin in William Shakespeare's Sommernachtstraum (A Midsummer Night's Dream) at the Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna in 1939.

Soon she made a name for herself on the Viennese stage. Till 1945 she was engaged at the Theater in der Josefstadt, later followed engagements in Berlin and in Munich.

Her film debut was a small part in Mutterliebe/Mother Love (Gustav Ucicky, 1939) featuring Käthe Dorsch.

That same year, she played her first lead role in the adventure film Brand im Ozean/Fire in the Ocean (Günther Rittau, 1939) opposite Hans Söhnker and René Deltgen.

During the period of the Third Reich, she starred in 25 Ufa films, including Das alte Lied/The Old Song (Fritz Peter Buch, 1945), based on a novel by Theodor Fontane and filmed in Amsterdam and The Hague.

In the biography Wen die Götter lieben/Whom The Gods Love (Karl Hartl, 1942), she played Konstanze, the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Hans Holt). But the film was shelved, unfinished when the war ended.

After the war producer Abrasha Haimson bought the rights, hired director Frank Wisbar and filmed new scenes to finish the picture. In 1948, he released it as a new film, The Mozart Story.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3116/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Wien-Film / Ufa.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3714/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Binz / Berlin-Film.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3558/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Hämmerer.

German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3870/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Berlin-Film / Wesel.

Anti-Nazi films

Despite her past as an Ufa star, Winnie Markus could go on playing after the war in many stage plays and films, even in such anti-Nazi films as In jenen Tagen/In Those Days (Helmut Käutner, 1947), Zwischen gestern und morgen/Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (Harald Braun, 1947) with Hildegard Knef, and Morituri (Eugen York, 1948) with Walter Richter and Lotte Koch.

These Trümmerfilme (German Rubble films) examine the issues of collective guilt and future rebuilding. They were made directly after World War II and showed the impact of the ravages of the war on the countries at the centre of battle. Their style is characterized by its use of location exteriors among the'rubble' of bombed-down cities to bring the gritty, depressing reality of the lives of the war survivors.

With Rudolf Prack, Markus became one of the most pretty pairs of the Heimatfilm genre during the 1950s. Their films together included Kaiserwalzer/The Emperor Waltz (Franz Antel, 1953) in which she played a beautiful teacher who falls in love with the dashing Archduke Ludwig.

Markus' other well-known films are the crime thriller Teufel in Seide/Devil in Silk (Rolf Hansen, 1956), Der Priester und das Mädchen/The Priest and the Girl (Gustav Ucicky, 1958) and Was eine Frau in Frühling träumt/What Women Dream of in Springtime (Erik Ode, Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1959).

Her co-stars were actors like Curd Jürgens, O.W. Fischerand Paul Hubschmid.

She married twice. In 1946 she wed the Berlin hotel owner Heinz Zellermayer. Their son Alexander was killed in a traffic accident in 1982.

In 1959 she married contractor Aldi Vogel. Their daughter Diana Winnie later also became an actress.

After the birth of Diana in 1961, Markus retired as an actress. The following decades, she regularly represented her husband in his imperium, but after the collapse of his contracting firm she made her come-back as an actress in 1980.

Markus was still popular and in demand, and worked often for TV. In 1986 the German film world awarded her with the Filmband in Goldfor her entire career and in 1988 she was awarded with the Bundesfilmkreuz.

In 2002 Winnie Markus died from a lung infection in Munich, Germany.

Rudolph Prack and Winnie Markus in Kaiserwalzer

German postcard by Rüdel-Verlag, Hamburg-Bergedorff, no. 607. Photo: Von Neusser / Gloria / Gundlach. Publicity still for Kaiserwalzer/The Emperor Waltz (Franz Antel, 1953).

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1983. Photo: Arthur Grimm / Fono Film / DLF. Publicity still for Teufel in Seide/Devil in Silk (Rolf Hansen, 1956).

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. F 39. Photo: Bayer.

German postcard by ISV, no. C 6. Photo: Gloria / Bayer.

Sources: Ruud van Capelleveen (Absofacts2), Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line - German), Winnie Markus.de (German), Wikipedia (German and English), and IMDb.

Handsome Swedish singer, actor and model Bob Asklöf (1942-2011) was a yé-yé idol in France during the early 1960s. He also worked as an actor for film, stage and TV and in the 1970s he appeared nude in several French erotic films.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., presented by Les Carbones Korès Carboplane, no. 351. Photo: Gérard Neuvecelle.

From Russia with Love

Bob Holger Asklöf or Asklof was born in Motala, Sweden in 1942. From a young age on, he was always singing.

At 16, he left school and went to live in Stockholm. There he had singing and acting lessons. He was big, blonde and handsome and had an extraordinary voice. With the singing group The Glenners he went on tour.

At 19, he was spotted during a gig in Tel Aviv by Juliette Gréco, who invited him to come to Paris in December 1962. There, he became the winner of a contest organized by the record company Pathé-Marconi and the magazine Cinémonde.

His first hit in France was Vous souvenez-vous? (Do you remember?, 1963), and he became one of the yé-yé idols. Between 1963 and 1965, he recorded six ep’s and two albums.

One of his hits was Bons baisers de Russie, the French version of the title song of the film From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963). His version can be heard under the end titles in the French language version of the film.

In 1965, he participated at the festival de la Rose d'or d'Antibes (the Golden Rose festival of Antibes) and performed in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

Asklöf also sang in English, in German and Swedish. In between, he worked as a model for ads as for Sgigrand Covett clothes in 1964.

In 1965 and 1966, he recorded some songs in Sweden and made his film debut there as the young male lead in the Swedish-Danish erotic drama Ett sommaräventyr/Anna, My Darling (Håkan Ersgård, 1965).

Back in France, he played small parts in the films La Bande à Bonnot/Bonnot's Gang (Philippe Fourastié, 1968) with Jacques Brel, and the Hollywood production The Sergeant (John Flynn, 1969), which was filmed in France. The Sergeant is an interesting drama starring Rod Steiger and John Philip Law about repressed homosexuality in the army.

Asklöf had another part in Tout peut arriver/Don't Be Blue (1969), the first film by director Philippe Labro, and he played the lead as a G.I. in Vietnam in the short film Rosee du Matin (Jean Dasque, 1971), which was shown in the Quinzaine des Realisateurs section at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971.

He also played a hitman in Comptes à rebours/Countdown (Roger Pigaut, 1971) starring Serge Reggiani, and a killer in the adventure film Boulevard du Rhum/Rum Runners (Robert Enrico, 1971) with Lino Ventura and Brigitte Bardot.

French postcard by Editions Starama, no. S-856. Photo: Patrick De Mervellec.

French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 350. Photo: Gérard Neuvecelle / Disques Columbia.

A Marxist sexploitation movie

Bob Asklöf’s acting career in France took a surprising direction during the 1970s.

In 1973 the former teen idol played the leading part in Les tentations de Marianne/Marianne’s Temptations (Francis Leroi, 1973).

At IMDb, Timothy Tangs notes: “Marianne’s Temptations is that rare bird - a Marxist sexploitation movie. Originally part of a Godard-like post-68 revolutionary film collective, cash-strapped Francis Leroi decided to exploit the current French vogue for arty skinflicks to fund the struggle. Casting a papal niece in the lead, the film made a fortune, and paved the way for Emmanuelle.“

Asklöf also had a role in Anna Karina's first attempt at writing and directing a film, Vivre ensemble/Living together (Anna Karina, 1973).

Asklöf was now much in demand for the sexploitation wave that splashed over the European cinema and he starred in soft core sex films like Quand les filles se déchaînent/Hot and Naked (Guy Maria, 1974), Les filles expertes/Expert Girls (Guy Maria, 1974) and Dora... la frénésie du plaisir/Dora ... the frenzy of pleasure (Willy Rozier, 1976) in which he was often shown full frontal nude.

His nom de plume in these films was Bob Holger. He kept appearing in small parts in mainstream films like the comedy C'est pas parce qu'on a rien à dire qu'il faut fermer sa gueule.../It is not because we have nothing to say that we must keep our mouth shut ... (Jacques Besnard, 1975) with Bernard Blier.

He also had a part in an episode of the popular TV series Les enquêtes du commissaire Maigret/The Investigations of Inspector Maigret (Jean Kerchbron, 1977) featuring Jean Richard as Maigret.

Asklöf appeared as a Nazi officer in Train spécial pour SS/Helltrain (Alain Payet, 1977). IMDb resumes the story as “The SS puts a slutty nightclub singer in charge of a train car full of prostitutes whose "services" are reserved solely for Adolf Hitler.”

This kind of Nazisploitation films were a bizarre and nasty subgenre of the soft core sex films of the 1970s. Big Willy and The Samurai at The Gentlemen’s blog to Midnite Cinema explain the subgenre: “These films typically showcase tons of skin (male and female) and sex, gruesome tortures, bloody violence, and humiliation. They are alternately set in brothels, prison camps, or a combination of the two.”

Asklöf also worked with director Serge Korber on films like Pornotissimo (1977). Korber mixed mainstream with adult films - credited as John Thomas.

One of Asklöf’s better sex films was Goodbye Emmanuelle (François Letterier, 1977) starring Sylvia Kristel. This third Emmanuelle episode tried to deal realistically with real-life, and potentially depressing issues like jealousy and abuse of women.

A reviewer at IMDb writes that in a way, Goodbye Emmanuelle marked the end of the free love era of the 1960s and 1970s. It also marked the end of Asklöf’s sex film career.

In 1977 he returned to Sweden, where he appeared in only one more film. He played ‘Gorilla’ in the thriller Flygnivå 450/Flight Level 450 (Torbjörn Axelman, 1980) with Thomas Hellberg. It was not a success.

He also did some stage work in Sweden, including a play about Edith Piaf, in which he interpreted her lover, boxer Marcel Cerdan.

In the 1980s, he left the acting profession to devote himself to his passion for painting and he had several exhibitions in Sweden. He also wrote poems and stories, which were never published.

After a long illness, Bob Asklöf died of cancer in 2011 in Bromma, Stockholm, Sweden.

Bob Asklöf sings I Who Have Nothing in a Swedish TV show. Source: Lesoufs (YouTube).

Bob Asklöf sings les grands boulevards in a French TV show in 1964. Source: Jcdesaintdenis (YouTube).

Sources: Official Bob Asklof blog, The Gentlemen’s blog to Midnite Cinema, French Films, Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

Félix Marten (1919-1992) was a French actor, director and singer. He was well-known in France for his many record albums as well as for his film career.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 2336. Photo: Carla Menegol.

Arrested by the Gestapo

Paul Gabriel Félix Marten was born in Remagen, Germany, 1919. To flee Nazism and anti-Semitism, his family went in exile and took refuge in the Paris region.

Forced to start working young, Félix had all kind of jobs. First he became a salesman at Les Galeries Lafayette, only 15 years old. He also worked as a dockworker, a carpet dealer etc.

With his good looks, he dreamed to become an actor. On the advice of friends, he started to take lessons at the drama academy of Charles Dullin. Then war broke out and in 1944 the Gestapo arrested him and he had to do obligatory work in Germany.

After his return to France, he hoped to become a pop singer. He started to perform in cabarets in Paris and in the provinces and even abroad in Indochina.

Édith Piaf noticed him and gave him advise for his future career. He became known singing songs like La Mer and La Vie en Rose. Marten soon got engagements at the major venues in Paris, the Bobino and the Olympia.

French postcard by Edition du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 698. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1093, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Marcel Bouguereau.

Nouvelle Vague classic

Félix Marten started a second career in the cinema. In 1946, he made his film debut in Rêves d'amour/Love Dreams (Christian Stengel, 1947) in which Pierre Richard Willmstarred as piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt.

In the next decades, Marten appeared in many French films and played opposite such major stars as Martine Carol, Michèle Morgan and Jean Gabin.

Among his best known films are the Nouvelle Vague classic Ascenseur pour l'échafaud/Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958) starring Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet, Le Saint Mène La Danse/The Dance of Death (Jacques Nahum, 1960) in which he starred as Simon ‘The Saint’ Templar, and Paris brûle-t-il?/Is Paris burning? (René Clément, 1968) with Jean-Paul Belmondo.

However, his film appearances were mostly brief and seem forgotten now. Although his singing career suffered, he kept touring through the world.

In 1989 he retired after a final concert at the Casino de Paris. That same year, he also appeared one more time on the screen in an old Scopitone film that was integrated in Il y a des jours et des lunes/There Were Days... and Moons (Claude Lelouch, 1989). It was a Scopitone clip for the song La Rigolade (The Joke) that had been directed by Claude Lelouch in 1961.

At the age of 73, Félix Marten died in 1992 in Saint-Cloud, France, of a pulmonary embolism. He was divorced twice. His last wife was Fabienne Godard.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. FK 59 A, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Unifrance-Film / Ufa.

Scopitone clip for the song La Rigolade (The Joke). Source: hebephreniac1 (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia (French and German) and IMDb.

German box office queen Ruth Leuwerik (1924) played Maria in the original version of The Sound of Music, Die Trapp-Familie (1956). In the 1950s, she and co-star O.W. Fischer were Germany's favourite couple.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof (Ufa), no. CK 117. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Arthur Grimm.

Belgian postcard by Edition H. Troukens, Hofstade. Photo: Ufa.

German postcard printed by ISV, no. H 49.

Dieter Borsche

Ruth Leuwerik was born in Essen, Germany, in 1924. She made her stage debut during the war with the touring company of the Landestheaters Münster.

Her film career started with a supporting role in 13 unter einem Hut/13 Under a Hat (Johannes Meyer, 1950), but the film was not a hit.

When she was introduced to film actor Dieter Borsche, he made her his leading lady in Vater braucht eine Frau/Father Needs A Woman (Harald Braun, 1952).

The comedy became a surprise hit and the two leads immediately made another box office smash, Die große Versuchung/The Big Temptation (Rolf Hansen, 1952).

In 1953 she had her definitive breakthrough with four films. In the romantic melodrama Ein Herz spielt falsch/A Heart's Foul Play (Rudolf Jugert, 1953) she played for the first time with O.W. Fischer. They became the beloved Traumpaar (Dream couple) of the German public.

In Königliche Hoheit/His Royal Highness (Harald Braun, 1953) she was an American heiress raised in Europe, who falls in love with a handsome but shy German prince (Dieter Borsche). The story was adapted from a novel by Thomas Mann, who was pleased with the film version.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 3331. Photo: Ufa/Film-Foto / Arthur Grimm / Divina Film.

Dutch postcard, no. 63.

Dutch postcard, no. 5942. Photo: Gloria.

Independent

Ruth Leuwerik played in many costume pictures, including Ludwig II/Mad Emperor: Ludwig II (Helmut Käutner, 1955) as Elisabeth of Austria with O.W. Fischer as her nephew Ludwig II, and Rosen im Herbst/Roses in the Autumn (Rudolf Jugert, 1955), based on Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest. It seemed to become her trademark.

Her career was revitalized with Die Trapp-Familie/The Trapp Family (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1956) and the sequel Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika/The Trapp Family in America (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1958) about the free spirited nun and nanny Maria who becomes Baroness Von Trapp.

At IMDb,Maurice de Saxe writes about Die Trapp-Familie: "Largely forgotten today, the pic holds up quite well. The story is not too exciting, there's nothing that might offend blue-noses and all takes place against an pastoral background of green meadows and snow-capped mountains. Ruth Leuwerik does what she can with the wafer-thin part and her warmth and natural beauty prevent the whole thing form being too syrupy."

Together with the box office success of the war camp drama Taiga (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1958) these films made her the most popular German film star of the late 1950s. She was beloved by female filmgoers, because of her independent, professionally successful characters.

In the 1960s her film popularity waned. The well-intended but somewhat muddled Die Rote/Redhead (Helmut Käutner, 1962) sealed her fate as box-office cyanide after a string of flops. But according to reviewer Jan de Witt at IMDb her performance in this film is "very subtle, giving the over-complicated story its little coherence."

After this film she started to work mainly for TV, including guest appearances in the Krimi series Derrick (1978-1983). Her last film was Unordnung und Fruehes Leid/Disorder And Early Torment (Frans Seitz, 1977) with Martin Held.

Among her many awards are the Filmband in Gold in 1974 and the Großen Verdienstkreuz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Germany's Cross of merit) in 1980.

Nowadays Ruth Leuwerik lives in retirement in Munich with her third husband, Dr. Heinz Purper. She was also married to actor Herbert Fleischmann and singer-conductor Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden/Westf., no. 397. Photo: Weisse / Divina / Gloria.

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, no. 4262. Photo: Ufa/Film-Foto / Leo Weisse / Divina Film.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg-Bergedorf, no. FT 33. Photo: CCC / Gloria / Grimm. Publicity still for Auf Wiedersehen, Franziska!/Goodbye, Franziska! (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1957).

Scene from Vater braucht eine Frau/Father Needs A Woman (1952). Source: Liebhaber Alter Filme (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie D'heil (Steffi-line) (German), Maurice de Saxe (IMDb), Jan de Witt (IMDb), AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.