Anna Proclemer (1923-2013)

May 4, 2013, 10:40 am

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On 25 April, Italian stage and film actress Anna Proclemer (1923-2013) has passed away at the age of 89. She is known internationally for her role of the prostitute in Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini, 1954) opposite Ingrid Bergman. In her own country she was famous as a stage animal who had worked with the giants of the Italian theatre.


Italian postcard by Bromostampa, Milano, no. 337.

Rediscovered as a Masterpiece
Anna Proclemer was born in Trento, Italy in 1923. She was the daughter of an engineer and a housewife. In 1941, she made her stage debut at the Rome University Theatre with the play Nostra Dea (Our Goddess) by Massimo Bontempelli and directed by Turi Vasile. A year later, she made her film debut in Giorno di nozze/Wedding Day (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1942) as the daughter of Armando Falconi. She also appeared in the sequel, Il Birichino di Papa/Daddy's Little Devil (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1943). In these comedies she was credited as Anna Vivaldi. After the war she was top-billed in Malia (Giuseppe Amato, 1946) with Maria Denis. In 1946 Proclemer married the writer Vitaliano Brancati, with whom she had a daughter, the later actress/agent Antonia Brancati (1947). They separated shortly before his death in 1954. Internationally, Proclemer became known for her part of the prostitute in the film Viaggio in Italia/Voyage in Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1954) opposite Ingrid Bergman. Viaggio in Italia was unsuccessful when it was originally released, but years later it was rediscovered as a masterpiece by the French critics of Cahiers du Cinema. However, Proclemer would play in only 15 films during her long career, but she did often work as a voice actress. She dubbed Greta Garbo and Anne Bancroft, and was the Italian voice of the Greek Yvonne Sanson in the melodrama Catene/Chains (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1949) and the Anglo-Austrian Tamara Reed in the comedy Vita da cani/A Dog's Life (Mario Monicelli, Steno, 1950). From the late-1950s on, Proclemer also performed for TV.


Scene from Viaggio in Italia (1954) with Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. Source: Anmili (YouTube).

Searing Presence and Powerful Voice
Anna Proclemer was primarily a theatre actress. Graham Spicer at his blog Gramilano describes her as: “a stage animal with a searing presence and powerful voice, allowing her to dominate every stage she stood on. She was a larger-than-life actress, the like of which doesn’t really exist today: a true star.” From 1952 to 1955 Proclemer worked on stage for the Compagnia Teatro d’Arte Italiano, directed by Vittorio Gassman and Luigi Squarzina. She played Gassmann’s Ophelia in 1952, and was also memorable as Jocasta in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, a role she would play three times. She was directed by another giant of the Italian theatre, Giorgio Strehler, at the Piccolo Teatro of Milan. From 1956 on, she worked extensively with Giorgio Albertazzi, who would become her life partner too. During the 1970s, she made a come-back in the cinema. Her films include the thriller Orgasmo/Paranoia (Umberto Lenzi, 1970) starring Carroll Baker, the political thriller Cadaveri eccellenti/Illustrious Corpses (Francesco Rosi, 1976) with Lino Ventura, and the failure A Matter of Time/Nina (Vincente Minnelli, 1976) starring Liza Minelli. Decades later, Proclamer appeared in the film comedy No Problem (Vincenzo Salemme, 2008). A year earlier she had appeared in stage at La Scala as Duchesse von Crackentorp in Franco Zeffirelli’s La fille du regiment (2007). Her final film part was in the modern ghost story Magnifica Presenza/Magnificent Presence (Ferzan Özpetek, 2012) starring Elio Germano. For this role Anna Proclemer was awarded with a special Globo d'oro in 2012. A beautiful end of a seventy-year career.


Trailer for Magnifica Presenza/Magnificent Presence (2012). Source: FilmFestivalVideos (YouTube).

Sources: Graham Spicer (Gramilano), Hans Beerekamp (Het Schimmenrijk) (Dutch), AllMovie, Wikipedia (English and Italian), and IMDb.

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Zbigniew Cybulski

May 4, 2013, 11:00 pm

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With his trademark leather clothes and dark glasses, actor Zbigniew Cybulski (1927 - 1967) is often referred to as ´the Polish James Dean´. He symbolized the angry feelings of young Poles trying to deal with their tumultuous post-WWII world. During his brief film career, he became one of the best-known and most versatile actors of the East-European cinema.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 1.938, 1963. Photo: Progress.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. S 758. Photo: CCC Film. Publicity still for Ósmy dzień tygodnia/The Eighth Day of the Week (1958, Aleksander Ford).

The Young And Wrathful
In 1927, Zbigniew Hubert Cybulski was born in the small village of Kniaże near Stanisławów, Poland (now Ukraine). After World War II, ´Zbyszek´ joined the Theatre Academy in Kraków, where he graduated in 1953. He also studied journalism. He moved to Gdańsk, where he made his stage debut in Leon Schiller's Wybrzeże Theatre. With his friend Bogumił Kobiela, Cybulski also founded the famous student theatre Bim-Bom. In 1960, Cybulski moved to Warsaw, where he joined the Wagabunda experimental theatre. He also appeared on the stage of the Ateneum theatre, one of the most modern Warsaw-based theatres of the epoch. There he also worked as a director. However, Zbigniew Cybulski is best remembered as a screen actor. He first appeared in Kariera/Career (1954, Jan Koecher) as one of the extras (a bus passenger). That year he also appeared as Kostek in Pokolenie/A Generation (1955, Andrzej Wajda) starring Tadeusz Łomnicki and with the later director Roman Polanski in a supporting part. The film is based on the novel Pokolenie by Bohdan Czeszko, who also wrote the script. Pokolenie was Wajda's first film and the opening installment of what became his Three War Films trilogy set in the Second World War. On its face, the film is a coming-of-age story of survival and shattering loss, delivering a brutal portrait of the human cost of war. But as with all of Wajda's films, Polish history and the individual's struggle in the face of crushing political circumstances are just below the surface. In A Generation, as later in Popiół i diament/Ashes and Diamonds, the communists and the nationalist Home Army, each representing a diametrically opposed view of Poland's future, are set on a collision course. Cybulski´s first major roles came in the thriller Wraki/The Wrecks (1957, Ewa Petelska, Czeslaw Petelski) and Krzyż Walecznych/Cross of Valor (1958, Kazimierz Kutz). Then he appeared as Resistance fighter Maciek Chelmicki, one of the main characters in Wajda's Popiół i diament/Ashes and Diamonds (1958, Andrzej Wajda). This became his internationally most famous film. After the film's release, sales of sunglasses shot up because Cybulski wore them consistently throughout the film. Ashes and Diamonds is based on the 1948 novel by Polish writer Jerzy Andrzejewski. It completed Wajda's war films trilogy, following Pokolenie/A Generation (1954) and Kanal/Canal (1956). The title comes from a 19th century poem by Cyprian Norwid and references the manner in which diamonds are formed from heat and pressure acting upon coal. In 1958 Cybulski also played in Aleksander Ford's Ósmy dzień tygodnia/The Eighth Day of the Week (1958) based on a short story by Marek Hłasko. Since then, Cybulski was seen as one of the most notable actors of the Polish Film School and one of the ´young and wrathful´, as his generation of actors were called at the time. His style of acting was revolutionary at the time as was his image with his leather clothes and big sunglasses. He was like Dean, he played nonconformist rebels, and like him he died young.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 2.164, 1964. Photo: Progress.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 1.969, 1964. Photo: Progress.

A Legend Of The Polish CinemaZbigniew Cybulski continued to work with Andrzej Wajda and appeared in Niewinni czarodzieje/Innocent Sorcerers (1960, Andrzej Wajda), with Tadeusz Łomnicki and Roman Polanski. Twice he worked on Western-European productions. He starred in the French-Italian science fiction film La poupée/He, She or It (1962 Jacques Baratier), and also appeared in the French-produced omnibus project L'amour à vingt ans/Love at Twenty (1962) of Pierre Roustang, consisting of five segments directed by five directors from five different countries. Cybulski starred in the fifth segment, directed by Andrzej Wajda and entitled Warszawa/Warsaw, considered as one of the best segments. It depicts a brief intergenerational liaison based upon multiple misunderstandings. The episodes are tied together with still photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson and a Jazz soundtrack by Georges Delerue. La Poupée and L'amour à vingt ans were both entered into the 12th Berlin International Film Festival. Cybulski started his successful cooperation with director Wojciech Has with the films Rozstanie/Goodbye to the Past (1961) and Jak być kochaną/How to be Loved (1963). Their best-known film is Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie/The Saragossa Manuscript (1965, Wojciech Has). The film was a relative success in Poland and other parts of communist eastern Europe upon its release, winning the Golden Wolf at the 1965 Bucharest Film Festival. It later also achieved a level of critical success in the United States, when filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola rediscovered it and encouraged its propagation. Another critical success was the film drama Salto/Jump (1965, Tadeusz Konwicki) with Marta Lipinska. The film received an Honorary Diploma at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, 1967. With Has he worked again on Szyfry/The Codes (1966, Wojciech Has), about a father searching for his son, who has been missing since WWII. He also appeared in numerous television plays, including ones based on works by Truman Capote, Anton Chekhov and Jerzy Andrzejewski. Zbigniew Cybulski died in an accident at a Wrocław Główny railway station on January 8, 1967, on his way from the film set of Yowita/Yovita (1967, Janusz Morgenstern) with Daniel Olbrychski. As he jumped for the already speeding train (as he had often done), he slipped on the steps, fell under the train, and was run over. Before the accident he said goodbye to Marlene Dietrich, a personal friend of his, who was a passenger on the train. He was buried in Katowice. The following year, Wajda made Wszystko na sprzedaz/Everything for Sale as a highly fictionalized tribute to Cybulski. In 1969 the Zbyszek Cybulski Award was introduced for young film actors with astrong individuality. Cybulski remains a legend of the Polish cinema. In 1996, readers of Film magazine awarded him the title of Best Polish Actor of All Time. The Polish band 2 Plus 1 recorded a tribute album to Cybulski, called Aktor in 1977. Zbigniew Cybulski was married to assistant director Elzbieta Chwalibóg (1960 - 1967). Their son Maciek (born in the early 1960´s) was never interested in showbusiness and became an architect.


Opening scenes of Popiół i diament/Ashes and Diamonds (1958). Source: Kinotekaorguk (YouTube).


Trailer Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie/The Saragossa Manuscript (1965). Source: BestForeignMovies (YouTube).

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Albert Préjean

May 5, 2013, 11:00 pm

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French actor and singer Albert Préjean (1894 - 1979) was a former WWI flying ace. He is best known for playing heroes in the films of René Clair, and for playing Georges Simenon's detective Maigret.


German postcard. Photo: Verleih Hugo Engel-Film. Publicity still for Sous les Toits de Paris (1930).


French postcard, no. 664. Photo: Film Sonor.


German Postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6201/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by P.C., Paris, no. 13. Publicity card for Le chant du marin/Sailor's Song (1932, Carmine Gallone).

René Clair Daydream
Albert Préjean was born in 1893 or 1894 (the sources differ) in Paris. Before entering the military, he worked as a boxer, nightclub entertainer and acrobat. During the First World War he became a flying ace of the French army. After the war he decided to become an actor. His film debut was a bit part in the serial Les Trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1921, Henri Diamant-Berger). His breakthrough was ironically a role as a pilot in the surrealistic sci-fi film Paris qui dort/Paris Asleep (1925, René Clair). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The Crazy Ray (Paris qui Dort) was a wild Rene Clair daydream which he deftly translated into his very first directorial effort. Deliberately invoking the early 'chase' films which distinguished the French cinema, Clair weaves an improbable tale of a genially looney scientist who utilizes a magic ray (an effect created with stop-motion photography) on the unsuspecting citizens of Paris. The ray causes its victims to freeze in bizarre and often embarrassing positions. Those not affected by the ray take the opportunity to lift everything that isn't nailed down." The cooperation with René Clair went obiously so well that it was continued in Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge/The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge (1925), Le Voyage imaginaire/The Imaginary Voyage (1926) and Un chapeau de paille d'Italie/The Italian Straw Hat (1928). In their first sound feature, Sous les Toits de Paris/Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Préjean played the street performer Albert who leads the assembly line in singing the film's title song. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "From the moment Roofs opens, with a tracking shot that takes the audience from above the roofs of Paris and down into a working class district of the city, it's clear that the film is in the hands of a master, and Clair has plenty of other tricks up his sleeve to keep the viewer engaged. Case in point: a wordless sequence that concentrates solely on the feet of two characters and tells more about where they are in their relationship than many pages of dialogue could."


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5304/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Frhr. von Gudenberg, Berlin.


French postcard by Viny, no. 111. Photo: Star.


French postcard by Pathé Consortium, no. 44. Photo: Roger Karan.


French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 68. Photo: Star.

Princess Tam-Tam
Albert Préjean went on to play jeune premiers in L'Opéra de Quat'Sous/The Threepenny Opera (1931, G.W. Pabst), Un soir de rafle/Dragnet Night (1931, Carmine Gallone), the operetta Dédé (1934, René Guissart), L'Or dans la rue/The Gold in the Street (1934, Curtis Bernhardt) and with Joséphine Baker in Princesse Tam-Tam/Princess Tam-Tam (1935, Edmond T. Gréville). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Princesse Tam-Tam is a satirical spin on the 'Pygamalion' concept: An uninhibited African girl (Baker) poses as a serene Indian princess, through the auspices of author Albert Prejean. A romance develops between the two (a plot device expressly forbidden by Hollywood's rules against miscegenation on screen), while Prejean's unfaithful wife fumes. Written by Josephine Baker's then-husband Pepito Abatino, the French/Tunisian Princesse Tam-Tam was banned outright in the States." Préjean played Georges Simenon’s Maigret in Picpus (1943, Richard Pottier), Cecile est morte!/Cecile Is Dead (1944, Maurice Tourneur) and Les caves du 'Majestic'/Majestic Hotel Cellars (1945, Richard Pottier). James Travers at Films de France: "It is hard to dispute that Albert Préjean is one of France’s most important film actors, but he is clearly miscast in the role of Maigret. His portrayal of the famed Gallic detective is about as bland and anemic as it could be, with none of the character fashioned by Simenon in his novels." His popularity in the cinema waned after WWII and he spent the rest of his career as a chanson singer and actor on stage and in average-quality mainstream films. With his final film Bonne chance, Charlie/Good Luck, Charlie (1962, Jean-Louis Richard) he had appeared in a total of 88 films. Albert Préjean was married to actress Lysiane Rey. They had one child, actor Patrick Préjean.


French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 149, Offered by Victoria, Brussels, no. 639. Photo: Star.


French postcard by Editions et Publications cinématographiques, no. 9. Photo: Films P.J. de Venloo.


Belgian postcard by Photo Editions, Brussels, no. 63. Photo: Studio Verhassel, Brussels. This still existing studio was founded in 1861.


Albert Préjean sings the title song of Sous les Toits de Paris (1930). Source: ghbook (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), Hall de la Chanson (French), AllMovie, PopMatters.com and IMDb.

Isabelle Huppert

May 6, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Versatile French actress Isabelle Huppert (1953) appeared in more than 90 film and television productions since 1971. With 14 nominations for the César, she is the most nominated actress ever. However, the cool, innocent-looking Huppert won the French Oscar only once, for La Cérémonie (1996). This did not change in 2013, nominated for her supporting role in Michael Haneke’s Amour (2012).


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Casually Poisoning Her Parents
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert was born in Paris in 1953 (some sources say 1955). She is the youngest of five daughters of Annick Beau, a teacher of English, and Raymond Huppert, a safe manufacturer. At age 13, she announced her intention to be an actor, and was encouraged by her mother. She studied at the Versailles Conservatoire and later attended the CNSAD (National Conservatory of Dramatic Art of Paris). Huppert made her film debut in Faustine et le bel été/Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972, Nina Companeez). Five years later, she already had appeared in 15 films and had worked with major directors. She played Romy Schneider's younger sister in César et Rosalie/Cesar and Rosalie (1972, Claude Sautet). In Bertrand Blier’s road movie Les valseuses/Going Places (1974), she played a bored teenager who runs off with three young vagabonds (Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou). For director Otto Preminger, Huppert made her English-language debut in Rosebud (1975) starring Peter O’Toole. Her international breakthrough came with her guileless performance as a simple, provincial girl destroyed by a summer romance with a middle-class student in La Dentelliere/The Lacemaker (1977, Claude Goretta). For this unforgettable portrayal she was awarded with both a BAFTA award (British Academy Award) and a David di Donatello (the Italian Oscar). At the next Cannes film festival, she won the Best Actress award for Violette Nozière (1978, Claude Chabrol). In this true story, she portrayed a woman who scandalized France in 1933 by casually poisoning her parents. She tied the award with Jill Clayburgh.


Dominique Sanda, Isabelle Huppert. Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Publicity still for Les ailes de la colombe/The Wings of the Dove (1981, Benoît Jacquot).


French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Nancy, in the collection Cinéma Couleur, no. MC 39. Publicity still for Loulou (1979, Maurice Pialat).

Legendary Disaster
Isabelle Huppert made her American film debut in the blockbuster Heaven's Gate (1980, Michael Cimino), which proved to be a legendary disaster at the box office. In France she continued to explore enigmatic and emotionally distant characters, such as an upper-class woman who is physically attracted by a young vagabond (Gérard Dépardieu) in Loulou (1980, Maurice Pialat), a prostitute in Sauve qui peut (la vie)/Slow Motion (1980, Jean-Luc Godard), the mistress of Philippe Noiret’s character in Coup de torchon/Clean Slate (1981, Bertrand Tavernier) and a Jewish refugee in Coup de foudre/Entre nous (1983, Diane Kurys). She used her influence to help non-commercial projects get off the ground, like Joseph Losey's La Truite/The Trout (1982) and sister Caroline Huppert's Signé Charlotte/Sincerely, Charlotte (1984). For her role in Une Affaire de Femmes/Story of Women (1988, Claude Chabrol), she received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice film festival. This time, she tied with Shirley MacLaine. She won the Volpi Cup again for her role in La Cérémonie (1995, Claude Chabrol) as a shy but manic and homicidal post-office mistress in a French village. This time she tied the award with her co-star in that film, Sandrine Bonnaire. For La Cérémonie, she also won her only César award. The offspring of her cinematic relationship with director Claude Chabrol also includes the widely acclaimed literary adaptation Madame Bovary (1991), the crime comedy Rien ne va plus/The Swindle (1997), and the thriller Merci pour le chocolat/Thanks for the Chocolate (2000). Stuart Jeffries in The Observer about their cooperation: “Huppert has excelled in the spiteful, the nasty, the unpleasant and - regularly - the murderous. More than that, she carries herself with imperious intelligence, and thus seems to be self-conscious about her own wickedness. No doubt that is why Chabrol has cast her so often. He's interested in guilt, manipulativeness and shame - all of which she loves portraying.”


French postcard, no. 222.

Greeted With A Mixture Of Boos And Applause
In 2001, Isabelle Huppert started a new interesting collaboration with Austrian film director Michael Haneke. In La Pianiste/The Piano Teacher (2001, Michael Haneke), an adaptation of the novel by Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, she played a sexually repressed and self-destructive piano teacher, who embarks on a dark journey into sadomasochism. Regarded as one of her most impressive turns, her performance won the 2001 acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The film also took the Grand Prix (second prize) and was greeted with a mixture of boos and applause, provoking the main debate of the festival. Huppert continued to work hard. In 2002, the entire cast of the popular black comedy 8 femmes/8 Women (2002, François Ozon), also including Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux and Fanny Ardant, was voted Best Actress at the European Film Awards. The same cast won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, at the 2002 Berlin film festival. Then Huppert was back at the set with Haneke for the disturbing Le temps du loup/The Time of the Wolf (2003, Michael Haneke) with Béatrice Dalle. In Ma mere/My Mother (2004, Christophe Honoré) based on a novel by George Bataille, Huppert starred as an attractive middle-aged mother who has an incestuous relationship with her teenage son (Louis Garrel). Since Heaven's Gate, Huppert only made a few more American movies. In The Bedroom Window (1987, Curtis Hanson) she played Steve Guttenberg’s mistress, and in Amateur (1994, Hal Hartley) a former nun writing porn. In I [Heart] Huckabees (2004, David O. Russell) she portrayed author Catherine Vauban, nemesis of existential detectives Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin. At the 2005 Venice film festival, Huppert received a special Lion for her role in Gabrielle (2005, Patrice Chéreau). The following year, she reunited with Claude Chabrol for L'ivresse du pouvoir/The Comedy of Power (2006). Recently she appeared on the Paris stage as the suicidal Hedda Gabler, in Henrik Ibsen's play. In 1994 she was made Chevalier (Knight) of the Ordre national du Mérite and in 2005 she was promoted to Officier (Officer). She was also made Chevalier (Knight) of the Légion d'honneur in 1999 and was promoted to Officier (Officer) in 2009. With her spouse, director Ronnie Chammah, she has three children: actress Lolita Chammah (1983), Lorenzo Chammah (1986) and Angelo Chammah (1997). Huppert likes to keep her private life private though. Her work is her main issue in interviews. In 2012, two of her films competed for the Palme d'Or in Cannes: Amour/Love (2012, Michael Haneke) and the South-Korean production Da-reun na-ra-e-seo/In Another Country (2012, Sang-soo Hong). Her part as the daughter of Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva in Amour also got her another César nomination. Her fourteenth, and it's probably not her last. She did not win, but the film itself won both a César and an Oscar.


French trailer La Dentelliere/The Lacemaker (1977). Source: Berny3000 (YouTube).


Trailer Coup de torchon/Clean Slate (1981). Source: WorleyClarence (YouTube).


Trailer Amour/Love (2012). Source: MovieclipsTrailers (YouTube).

Sources: Stuart Jeffries (The Observer), Rebecca Flint Marx (AllMovie), Yahoo! Movies, Wikipedia and IMDb.

June Ritchie

May 7, 2013, 11:00 pm

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British actress June Ritchie (1938) is perhaps best known for starring opposite Alan Bates in A Kind of Loving (1962).


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/190. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood. Publicity still for Die Dreigroschenoper/The Three Penny Opera (1962).

Polly Peachum
June R. Ritchie was born in Manchester, England, in 1938. Ritchie trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, where she later became an Associate Member. She started off her acting career with the Stretford Childrens Theatre in Manchester before landing her first major film role in the kitchen sink drama A Kind of Loving (1962, John Schlesinger). A Kind Of Loving was filmed in late 1961 and released in 1962 after being given an X certificate by the British Board of Film Censors. According to Eleanor Mannikka at AllMovie it is a 'well-wrought romance' situated in the industrial area of Lancashire, where a draftsman (Alan Bates) wants only a physical relationship with the woman of his choice, a typist (Ritchie) who wants true love. She becomes pregnant, which tests the mettle of their relationship more than anything else they could have imagined. June Ritchie’s next film role was Polly Peachum in a French-German adaptation of the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht piece Die Dreigroschenoper/The Three Penny Opera (1962, Wolfgang Staudte). The reactions on the film were mixed although the critics were positive about the central performances of Curd Jürgens as robber captain MacHeath and his romantic interest Polly Peachum, the daughter of beggar king J. J. Peachum (Gert Frobe). For the film's American release, distributor Joseph E. Levine hired Sammy Davis Jr. to play the Ballad Singer, who narrates the story, introduces the scenes, and sings the opera's most famous song Moritat (The Ballad of Mack the Knife).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1768, 1962. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Progress. Publicity still from A Kind of Loving (1962) with Alan Bates.

Pussycat Alley
June Ritchie also appeared in the comedy-drama Live Now Pay Later (1962, Jay Lewis) about an unscrupulous salesman, Albert (Ian Hendry), who is beset by a whole series of problems, all of his own making. She then appeared with Sylvia Sims in the dour drama The World Ten Times Over (1963, Wolf Rilla) as two prostitutes. The two women live together in an apartment in London, and work in a night club on Pussycat Alley. Ritchie also appeared in the comedy The Mouse on the Moon (1963, Richard Lester) a less-successful sequel to the The Mouse that Roared. Just when her film career was kicking off, June Ritchie married Marcus Goodrich and semi-retired. When she felt like it she played roles in films, TV-series or stage productions. In the cinema she was seen in films like the African adventure The Syndicate (1968, Frederic Goodis). On stage she made her London debut in Too True to Be Good (1965) at the Strand Theatre and she played Scarlett O'Hara in a musical version of Gone With the Wind (1972) at the Drury Lane Theatre opposite Harve Presnell as Rhett Butler. She appeared in many British television dramas including series like Pere Goriot (1968) an adaptation of Honoré de Balzac's tragic novel, The Persuaders (1971) with Roger Moore and Tony Curtis, the drama series You're On Your Own (1975) and Tales of the Unexpected (1982). June Ritchie still turns up in British radio plays quite regularly, and she is also still married to Marcus Goodrich.


Trailer for The World Ten Times Over. Source: DVDFilmFun (YouTube).

Sources: Eleanor Mannikka (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Abel Gance

May 8, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Great French film director Abel Gance (1889-1981) was also a producer, writer and actor. He is best known for his three silent masterpieces: J'accuse/I Accuse (1919), La Roue/The Wheel (1923), and the monumental Napoléon (1927).


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 473. Photo: publicity still for Napoléon (1927, Abel Gance), with Gance himself as Saint Just.


Albert Dieudonné in Napoléon (1927). German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 84/1. Photo: Ufa.

Love Of Literature And Art
Abel Gance was born in Paris in 1889. He was the illegitimate son of a wealthy doctor, Abel Flamant, and a working class mother, Françoise Péréthon (or Perthon). Initially taking his mother's name, he was brought up until the age of eight by his maternal grandparents in the coal mining town of Commentry in central France. He then returned to Paris to rejoin his mother who had by then married Adolphe Gance, a chauffeur and mechanic, whose name Abel then adopted. Although he later fabricated the history of a brilliant school career and middle-class background, Gance left school at the age of 14, and the love of literature and art which sustained him throughout his life was in part the result of self-education. He started working as a clerk in a solicitor's office, but after a couple of years he turned to acting in the theatre. When he was 18, he was given a season's contract at the Théâtre Royal du Parc in Brussels, where he developed a friendship with the actor Victor Francen. While in Brussels, Gance wrote his first film scenarios, which he sold to director Léonce Perret. Back in Paris in 1909, he acted in his first film, Molière (1909, Léonce Perret). At that stage he regarded the cinema as ‘infantile and stupid’ and was only drawn into film jobs by his poverty, but he nevertheless continued to write scenarios, and often sold them to Gaumont. During this period he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, often fatal at that time, but after a period of retreat in Vittel, he overcame the disease. With some friends he established a production company, Le Film Français, and began directing his own films in 1911. His first effort was La Digue/The Dam (1911), a historical film which featured the first screen appearance of Pierre Renoir. The film was never released. Gance tried to maintain a connection with the theatre and he finished writing a monumental tragedy entitled Victoire de Samothrace, in which he hoped that Sarah Bernhardt would star. Its five-hour length, and Gance's refusal to cut it, proved to be a stumbling block. With the outbreak of World War I, Gance was rejected from the army on medical grounds and in 1915 he started writing and directing for a new film company, Film d'Art. He soon caused controversy with La Folie du docteur Tube/The Madness of Dr. Tube (1915), in which a scientist (Albert Dieudonné) takes a white powder, and then hallucinates. Gance and his cameraman Léonce-Henry Burel created the arresting hallucinations with distorting mirrors. According to Wikipedia, the producers were outraged and refused to show the film. A print of the film survives and Gance continued working for Film d'Art until 1918, making over a dozen commercially successful films. His experiments included tracking shots, extreme close-ups, low-angle shots, and split-screen images. His subjects moved steadily away from simple action films towards psychological melodramas, such as Mater dolorosa/The Torture of Silence (1917) starring Emmy Lynn as a neglected wife who has an affair with her husband's brother. The film was a great commercial success, and it was followed by La Dixième Symphonie/The Tenth Symphony (1918), another marital drama featuring Emmy Lynn. Here Gance's mastery of lighting, composition and editing was accompanied by a range of literary and artistic references which some critics found pretentious and alienating. In 1917, Gance was at last drafted into the Army, in its Service Cinématographique. It deepened his preoccupation with the impact of the war and the depression which was caused by the deaths of many of his friends. He was discharged shortly after due to mustard gas poisoning.


Romuald Joubé and Maryse Dauvray. French postcard by Sadag de France, Imp., Paris, no. 109. Photo: publicity still for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919).


Séverin-Mars. French postcard by Sadag de France, Imp., Paris, no. 109. Photo: publicity still for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919).


Romuald Joubé. French postcard by Sadag de France, Imp., Paris, no. 109. Photo: publicity still for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919).


French postcard by Sadag de France, Imp., Paris, no. 109. Photo: publicity still for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919).


Edith (Marise Dauvray), Jean Diaz (Romuald Joubé) and little Angele (Angèle Guys) towards the end of J'accuse. French postcard by Sadag de France, Imp., Paris, no. 109. Photo: publicity still for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919).


French postcard by Sadag de France, Imp., Paris, no. 109. Photo: publicity still for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919).

The Horror and Absurdity of War
When Abel Gance parted company with Film d'Art over a shortage of funds, Charles Pathé stepped in, and produced his next film, J'accuse/I Accuse (1919) with Romuald Joubé and Séverin-Mars. Gance juxtaposed a romantic drama with the background of the waste and suffering of World War I. He re-enlisted himself into the Service Cinématographique in order to be able to film some scenes on a real battlefield at the front. The film's powerful depiction of wartime horrors, and particularly its climactic sequence of the ‘return of the dead’, made it an international success, and confirmed Gance as one of the most important directors in Europe. James Travers at Films de France: “Abel Gance’s powerful anti-war film still has the power to move and shock. Through the intimate microcosm of two soldiers united on the battlefield, Gance shows the horror and absurdity of war for all its worth. The question he poses is: if two rivals in love can settle their differences in peace, why cannot political leaders?“ In 1920 he developed his next project, La Roue/The Wheel (1923), while recuperating in Nice from Spanish flu, and its progress was deeply affected by the knowledge that his companion Ida Danis was dying of tuberculosis. His leading man and friend Séverin-Mars was also seriously ill - and died soon after completion of the film. Nevertheless Gance brought an unprecedented level of energy and imagination to the technical realisation of his film. The story is about a father (Séverin-Mars) and his son (Gabriel de Gravone) who both fall for the lovely adopted Norma (Ivy Close). This love triangle is set firstly against the dark and grimy background of locomotives and railway yards, and then among the snow-covered landscapes of the Alps. Gance employed elaborate editing techniques and innovative use of rapid cutting which made the film highly influential among other contemporary directors. The film cost 3 million French francs and took five years to complete, an extraordinarily risky venture at the time, and a major cause of anxiety for the film’s production company, Pathé. The finished film was originally in 32 reels and ran for nearly 9 hours, but it was subsequently edited down for distribution and these shorter versions have survived. Gance had a brief change of pace with Au secours/Help! (1924), a short haunted house comedy with Max Linder, which he filmed in only three days. Then he embarked on his greatest project, a six-part life of Napoléon Bonaparte. Only the first part was completed, tracing Bonaparte's early life, through the Revolution, and up to the invasion of Italy, but even this occupied a vast canvas with meticulously recreated historical scenes and scores of characters. Napoléon (1927), featuring Albert Dieudonné, is full of experimental techniques, combining rapid cutting, hand-held cameras, superimposition of images, and, most famously, his wide-screen sequences. Gance achieved them with a system he called Polyvision, by using triple cameras (and projectors) to create a spectacular panoramic effect. In the climactic finale, he created a widescreen image of a French flag with the outer two film panels tinted blue and red. The original version of Napoléon ran for 6 hours. A shortened version received a triumphant première at the Paris Opéra in April 1927 before a distinguished audience that included the future General de Gaulle. The length was reduced still further for French and European distribution, and it became even shorter when it was shown in America. This was not the end of the film's career however. Gance re-used material from it in later films, and the triumphant restoration of the silent film in the 1980’s confirmed it as his most famous work. James Travers: “Napoléon is both a stunningly visual work of cinema and a poetically beautiful telling of the life of France’s most famous general.”


Séverin-Mars. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 59. Photo: Film Abel Gance. Publicity still for La Roue/The Wheel (1923).


Gabriel de Gravone. French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, no. 224. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.


Nicolas Koline as Tristan Fleuri in Napoléon. French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 460. Publicity still for Napoléon (1927).

A Critical And Commercial Disaster
Abel Gance embraced the arrival of sound with enthusiasm and his first production was La Fin du monde/End of the World (1931) starring Victor Francen and Gance himself. This was an expensive science-fiction film about a comet hurling toward Earth on a collision course and the different reactions to people on the impending disaster. Gance had edited it to a running time of just over three hours. When the backers felt that the film was becoming far too long, they took production control away from Gance and cut the film to a shorter length. The result was a critical and commercial disaster. Thereafter the creative independence which Gance had enjoyed in the previous decade was seriously curtailed. He continued to be a busy film-maker throughout the 1930’s, but he characterised most of the films made during this period as ones that he did ‘not in order to live, but in order not to die’. In 1932 he tried to demonstrate his credentials as a reliable and efficient director by filming a remake of Mater dolorosa which he completed within 18 days and within budget. Among the other 'commercial' works that followed were Lucrèce Borgia/Lucretia Borgia (1935) with Edwige Feuillère, and Un Grand Amour de Beethoven/Beethoven's Great Love (1937), with Harry Baur as the composer. One of the more personal projects that he was able to undertake was a new version of J'accuse/I Accuse (1939) starring Victor Francen, not so much a remake of his 1919 film as a continuation of it. Gance conceived it as a warning against the new war that he saw impending. In the upheaval following the German invasion of France in the summer of 1940, Gance went to the Free Zone in the south. He arranged a contract to make a film, Vénus aveugle/Blind Venus (1941) featuring Viviane Romance, at the Victorine studios in Nice. He saw it as an allegory of the current state of France and a message of hope directed to the ordinary French people in their time of misfortune. At this period Gance was among those who saw Philippe Pétain as the means of the country's salvation, and in September 1941 Vénus aveugle had its first screening in Vichy, preceded by a speech in which Gance paid tribute to Pétain. On the other hand, even before its première the film became the object of an attack from the collaborationist and anti-Semitic newspaper Aujourd'hui, which insinuated that the freedoms of film-making in the unoccupied zone in the south of France were being exploited by Jews: the producer Jean-Jacques Mecatti, Viviane Romance, and Gance himself were singled out for derisive references to their Jewish connections. After completing one more film, Le Capitaine Fracasse/Captain Fracasse (1943) with Fernand Gravey, Gance went to Spain in August 1943, citing growing hostility from the German authorities in France. He remained there until October 1945. After the war, his difficulties in getting support for his projects increased and he made few films. The historical melodrama La Tour de Nesle/Tower of Nesle (1954) with Silvana Pampanini and Pierre Brasseur was his first film in colour. It provoked some revival of interest in his work, and François Truffaut named Gance a neglected auteur of genius. Gance returned to Napoleonic spectacle with Austerlitz/The Battle of Austerlitz (1960) starring Pierre Mondy as Napoleon. He made a further historical pageant in Cyrano et d'Artagnan/Cyrano and d'Artagnan (1963) starring José Ferrer and Jean-Pierre Cassel, and then moved into television for his final works, also on historical subjects. Throughout his life, Gance kept returning to Napoléon, often editing his own footage into shorter versions, adding a soundtrack, sometimes filming new material, and as a result the original 1927 film was lost from view for decades. After various attempts at reconstruction, the dedicated work of the film historian Kevin Brownlow produced a five-hour version of the film, still incomplete but fuller than anyone had seen since the 1920’s. This version was presented at the Telluride Film Festival in August 1979, with the frail 89-year old director in attendance. The occasion brought a belated triumph to Gance's career, and subsequent performances and further restoration made his name known to a worldwide audience. Abel Gance married three times: in 1912 to Mathilde Thizeau; in 1922 to Marguerite Danis (sister of Ida); in 1933 to Marie-Odette Vérité (Sylvie Grenade), who died in 1978. Gance died of tuberculosis in Paris in 1981 at the age of 92. He still had plans of making an epic film about Christopher Columbus.


Hungarian trailer for J'accuse/I Accuse (1919). Source: NemzetiFilmarchivum (YouTube).


Trailer for Napoleon (1927), presented by San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Source: SFSilent Film (YouTube).


Scene from Cyrano et d'Artagnan/Cyrano and d'Artagnan (1963) with José Ferrer, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sylva Koscina and Daliah Lavi. Source: Tarlait (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers (Films de France), Wikipedia, AllMovie and IMDb.

Bryan Forbes (1926-2013)

May 9, 2013, 5:40 am

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Yesterday, 8 May, director, actor and writer Bryan Forbes died. He was one of the leading figures of British post-war cinema. Among his best films are Whistle Down the Wind (1961) and The Whisperers (1967). His Hollywood films include the horror classic The Stepford Wives (1974). In later life he turned to the writing of books, both fiction and memoirs. Forbes was 86.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2621, 1966. retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: publicity still for An Inspector Calls (Guy Hamilton, 1954) with Eileen Moore.

Man Being Run Over By A Train
Bryan Forbes was born as John Theobald Clarke into a working-class home in West Ham, in east London in 1926. His cultural horizons were extended when he was evacuated during the second world war to the Truro home of Canon Gotto, a cultivated cleric with an enormous library and presence in local cultural life. Another mentor was the BBC radio producer Lionel Gamlin, who made him question master of the Junior Brains Trust. Though he got to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at 17, he thought he was seen as too short and too ‘working-class’ to play the bland upper-class juvenile leads then popular. He did not complete his studies, but started to play in repertory theatre. He had just taken over a part in Terence Rattigan's Flare Path when he was called up for second world war service, first in the Intelligence Corps and then the Combined Services Entertainment Unit. He finished military service in 1948, and continued acting. He was obliged to change his name by British Equity to avoid confusion with the adolescent actor John Clark and so he adopted Bryan Forbes as his stage name. He made his screen acting debut in the thriller The Small Back Room (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948) starring David Farrar. A published collection of short stories, Truth Lies Sleeping (1951), pointed to his promise as a writer, but his initial course was to continue acting, and take supporting film roles when possible. In the early 1950s, he went to Hollywood with Irish actress Constance Smith who was briefly his first wife. He languished there while she worked. It was not long before he returned to Britain and undertook the rewriting of scripts as well as acting. He appeared on the stage and played numerous supporting roles in British films including the romantic comedy The Million Pound Note (Ronald Neame, 1954) starring Gregory Peck, the mystery An Inspector Calls (Guy Hamilton, 1954) featuring Alastair Sim, and the war drama The Colditz Story (Guy Hamilton, 1955) alongside John Mills. He met his second wife, Nanette Newman, while playing a man being run over by a train. They got married in 1955. The turning point for him in cinema was the formation of the independent company Beaver Films with his friend Richard Attenborough in 1958. For the screenplay of their first production, The Angry Silence (Guy Green, 1960), Forbes received an Oscar nomination and a Bafta award. Craig Butler at AllMovie: “Controversial upon its release and still likely to cause a good bit of discussion, The Angry Silence is a small gem of a film. It's not a great film; it is at times a bit sloppy in its construction, it wears its heart on its sleeve at times when it should be focusing on dramatic intent, and there's more than a hint of manipulation to it. But there's also a real power to it”.


Leader The Angry Silence (1960). Source: FilmNoir2019 (YouTube).

An Attempt To Revive The Ailing British Film Industry
During the 1960s, Bryan Forbes wrote and/or directed a string of notable British productions. He both wrote and took the part of one of the disaffected officers turning to crime in The League of Gentlemen (Basil Dearden, 1960) starring Jack Hawkins. His directorial debut was with Whistle Down the Wind (Bryan Forbes, 1961), about children (Among who Hayley Mills) who mistake a convict on the run (Alan Bates) for Jesus. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Though the material, based on a novel by Mary Hayley Bell (Hayley Mills's mother) could have been mawkish and obvious in other hands, Forbes handles the situation and the characters realistically; even the blatant New Testament symbolism is logically incorporated into the proceedings.” Forbes took a novel by Lynne Reid Banks as the basis for the L-Shaped Room (Bryan Forbes, 1962) starring Leslie Caron, and one by Kingsley Amis for Only Two Can Play (Sidney Gilliat, 1962) with Peter Sellers. He provided both the screenplay for and directed Seance on a Wet Afternoon (Bryan Forbes, 1964), concerning the sinister abduction of a child by a psychic (Kim Stanley). In 1965 he went to Hollywood to make King Rat (Bryan Forbes, 1965), a thoughtful study of British and American soldiers in a Japanese prisoner of war camp that concentrated more on character than gung-ho antics. It was a critical success and did well commercially – except in America. He followed this with the comedy The Wrong Box (Bryan Forbes, 1966) with Ralph Richardson and John Mills, The Whisperers (Bryan Forbes, 1967), with Edith Evans as a lonely old woman, and the caper film Deadfall (Bryan Forbes, 1968) starring Michael Caine. In 1969 Forbes accepted the offer of the impresario Bernard Delfont, then with EMI, to run Elstree Film Studios, which the company had taken over. This amounted virtually to an attempt to revive the ailing British film industry by instituting a traditional studio system with a whole ‘slate’ of films in play. However, some EMI executives raised difficulties over Forbes both heading the studio and directing his own film, The Raging Moon (Bryan Forbes, 1971), starring his wife Nanette Newman as a woman paralysed from the waist down finding love with Malcolm McDowell. One success of the venture was the production of The Railway Children (Lionel Jeffries, 1970), but most of the announced films were never made. Forbes, who had a three-year contract, left after two years.


Trailer Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964). Source: Our Man in Havanna (YouTube).

A Massive, Runaway Hit
During the 1970s, Bryan Forbes directed four more feature films. For The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1974), William Goldman provided a screenplay from the surreal novel by Ira Levin. Nanette Newman played the figure who became the computerized fantasy of boorish men in a small American town. The Stepford Wives became a massive, runaway hit, earning four million dollars domestically. His next film, The Slipper and the Rose (Bryan Forbes, 1976) was a version of the Cinderella story. International Velvet (Bryan Forbes, 1978) was intended as a continuation of National Velvet (Clarence Brown, 1944), starring Tatum O'Neal and with Nanette Newman in the same role as Elizabeth Taylor in the earlier film. In The Naked Face (Bryan Forbes, 1984), Roger Moore played a psychiatrist who gets caught up with the Chicago mafia. The latter three were unsuccessful, and The Naked Face was Forbes’ final film direction. His last film as an actor was the crime comedy Restless Natives (Michael Hoffman, 1985). His last screenwriting credit came with Attenborough's Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992). When he returned to producing books, it was with wry fiction about the tribulations suffered by the creative spirit in showbiz, The Distant Laughter (1972) and The Rewrite Man (1983). Ned's Girl (1977) was a biography of Dame Edith Evans, and That Despicable Race (1980) concerned actors as a breed. Later novels were mostly about spies, though sometimes embraced comedy, as with Partly Cloudy (1995), about domestic disasters brought about by the clash of the generations during one traumatic weekend. Forbes was a founder of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain; with Attenborough he helped form Capital Radio, the London station launched in 1973; and he served as president of the National Youth Theatre. He was to write with incomparable irony about the bizarre workings of the film industry, as in his two volumes of autobiography, Notes for a Life (1974) and A Divided Life (1992). In 2004 he was made CBE for his services to the arts and the National Youth Theatre. Forbes had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1975 but doctors later admitted the diagnosis was wrong. On 8 May 2013, Forbes died at his home in Virginia Water at the age of 86. He is survived by his wife Nanette Newman and their two daughters, TV presenter Emma Forbes and journalist Sarah Standing.


Trailer Deadfall (1968). Source: benitogatocool (YouTube).

Sources: Dennis Barker (The Guardian), Sanchez Manning (The Independent), Craig Butler (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), BBC, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Stanley Baker

May 9, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Welsh actor and film producer Stanley Baker (1928 – 1976) started as a tough and gritty villain in the British cinema of the 1950’s. Later he became a star as a rugged working class anti-hero in many international productions. Several of his films dealt with African themes, most notably Zulu (1964).


Belgian collector's card by Merbotek, Bruxelles. Photo: Arthur Rank.

Wild Kid Only Interested In Football And Boxing
William Stanley ‘Stan’ Baker was born in the heart of mining community Ferndale, Wales, in 1928 as the youngest of three children. His father was a coal miner who lost a leg in a mine accident. Thereafter he was unemployed until the Second World War took men away into the services and he got work as a truck driver. Baker moved to London with his parents in the mid-1930’s. He grew up a self-proclaimed ‘wild kid only interested in football and boxing’, but his potential was recognised by a local teacher, Glynne Morse, who encouraged Baker to act. When he was 14, he was seen in a school play by a casting director from Ealing Studios. The casting director recommended the boy for a role in the war film Undercover (1943, Sergei Nolbandov), about the Yugoslav guerrillas in German-occupied Serbia. Baker was paid £20 a week and caught the acting bug, deciding to become a professional actor. Six months later he appeared on the West End alongside a young Richard Burton in Emlyn Williams’ play The Druid's Rest (1943). Baker worked for a time as an apprentice electrician. Then through Morse's influence he managed to secure a position with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1944. Three years later, he was called up to do his National Service. He served in the Royal Army Service Corps until 1948, achieving the rank of sergeant. After demobilisation he moved to London determined to resume his acting career. David Wishart at IMDb: “His was good-looking, but his features were angular, taut, austere and unwelcoming. His screen persona was taciturn, even surly, and the young actor displayed a predilection for introspection and blunt speaking, and was almost wilfully unromantic.” At Richard Burton's recommendation, he was cast in a small role in a play on the West End, Adventure Story by Terence Rattigan. He began appearing in films and on television, as well performing on stage for the Middlesex Repertory Company. His breakthrough came in Christopher Fry's anti-war play A Sleep of Prisoners (1950) alongside Denholm Elliott. The production later toured the United States. Baker impressed in the cinema as Hornblower’s bosun in the Hollywood-financed Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951, Raoul Walsh) featuring Gregory Peck. While appearing in A Sleep of Prisoners in New York, Baker read the novel The Cruel Sea. Attracted to the idea of playing the unpleasant and somewhat cowardly Bennett, he lobbied successfully for the role in the film version, The Cruel Sea (1953, Charles Frend) with Jack Hawkins. This WWII drama was the most successful film at the British box office in 1953 and was also a surprising hit in the USA. This success really established Baker in films, and led to a Hollywood offer when George Sanders fell ill and was unable to play Sir Mordred in the cinemascope epic Knights of the Round Table (1953, Richard Thorpe) starring Robert Taylor. Baker proved a unique screen presence - tough, gritty, combustible - and possessing an aura of dark, even menacing power. Baker's performance was received favourably and he soon developed a niche playing villains in films such as Hell Below Zero (1954, Mark Robson) starring Alan Ladd. His career received another boost when Laurence Olivier selected Baker to play Henry Tudor in Richard III (1955). He went on to play two important roles in other Hollywood costume epics: Achilles in Helen of Troy (1956, Robert Wise) featuring Rossana Podestà, and Attalus in Alexander the Great (1956, Robert Rossen) starring Richard Burton as Alexander.


Richard Burton. German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 226. Offered by Macaroni Honig, Gent (Belgium). Photo: Centfox.

A Tough Anti-Hero
Stanley Baker finally broke away from supporting parts when cast as the lead in Hell Drivers (1957, Cy Endfield). Mark Deming at AllMovie: "In this efficient British crime drama, Tom Yately (Stanley Baker) is an ex-con looking for honest work. He thinks he's found it when he takes a job as a truck driver, but he soon discovers that the trucking firm he's signed on with is not playing by the rules." The blacklisted American screenwriter-director Cy Endfield had first worked with Baker on Child in the House (1956) and went on to make six films in total with the actor. The success of Hell Drivers established Baker as a star and saw exhibitors vote him the 7th most popular British actor that year. He followed this up with a series of popular films that featured him as a tough anti-hero, usually an authority figure of some kind. These films include Violent Playground (1958, Basil Dearden) with Peter Cushing, Sea Fury (1958, Cy Endfield), Yesterday's Enemy (1959, Val Guest) and the murder mystery Blind Date (1959, Joseph Losey) with Hardy Krüger. The latter was the first of what would be four collaborations with director Joseph Losey of which his favourite was the prison drama The Criminal (1960) in which he played an unscrupulous mobster. The fourth was Eva (1962) with Jeanne Moreau. In 1959 his contract with Rank ended, and he started freelancing. In 1961 Baker was offered the role of superspy James Bond for the forthcoming film Dr. No (1961, Terence Young), but he turned it down because he was unwilling to commit to a three-picture contract. He may have regretted this decision because some years later he asked producer Albert R. Broccoli about playing a villain in one of the films. However, he was cast as Butcher Brown, a war-weary commando in the blockbuster war epic The Guns of Navarone (1961, J. Lee Thompson) with Gregory Peck and David Niven. Baker wanted to move into production, and to this end formed his own company, Diamond Films. While making Sodom and Gomorrah (1963, Robert Aldrich) he struck up a relationship with producer Joseph E. Levine which enabled him to raise the money for the historical war film Zulu (1964, Cy Endfield), depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift between the British Army and the Zulus in January 1879. Zulu was a massive success at the box office and helped make a star of Michael Caine. Baker played the lead part of Lieutenant John Chard VC in what remains his best-remembered-role. Baker later owned Chard's Victoria Cross and Zulu War Medal from 1972 until his death in 1976. Chard died at age 49 in 1897, only a year older than Baker at his death; both died of cancer. Baker then made two more films in Africa, Dingaka (1965, Jamie Uys) and Sands of the Kalahari (1965, Cy Endfield), also producing the latter. Neither was as successful as Zulu.


British postcard by Celebrity Publishers, London, in the Celebrity Autograph Series, no. 267. Photo: Rank Organisation. Publicity still for Hell Drivers (1957, Cy Endfield).

A Brilliantly Offhand Portrait
Stanley Baker formed another production company, Oakhurst Productions, in association with Michael Deeley. They produced such films as Robbery (1967, Peter Yates) inspired by the Great Train Robbery, the classic The Italian Job (1968, Peter Collinson) and Where's Jack? (1969, James Clavell). Baker starred in some of these and continued to act for other producers, giving one of his best performances in Joseph Losey's Accident (1967) opposite Dirk Bogarde. John Baxter at Film Reference: “he offered a brilliantly offhand portrait of an academic-turned-media-hero, narcissistic, petulant, languid, effortlessly agile in argument but helpless in anything requiring a trace of humanity.” In the 1970’s Baker expanded his business interests. He was one of the founder members of Harlech Television and continued to be a director of it up until his death. With Michael Deeley and Barry Spikings, he formed Great Western Enterprises, which were involved in a number of projects in the entertainment field, notably music concerts, and bought a large building on the River Thames. They were also part of a consortium that bought British Lion Films and Shepperton Studios, selling their building in order to finance it. Baker was the victim of bad timing. The British film industry went into serious decline at the end of the 1960’s, and a number of Oakhurst films were unsuccessful at the box office. His expansion into music festivals was ultimately disastrous, with the Great Western Bardney Pop Festival in Lincoln ending up losing ₤200,000. The British stock market crashed at the end of 1973, throwing the over-leveraged British Lion into turmoil. According to Wikipedia, Baker was forced to keep acting to pay the bills, accepting roles in poor films which affected his star status. However, at least interesting is the giallo Una lucertola con la pelle di donna/A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971, Lucio Fulci) with Florinda Bolkan and Jean Sorel. At AllMovie, Donald Guarisco reviews: “The storyline enthusiastic piles soap-opera melodramatics, crazy plot twists, red herrings, bad-trip dream sequences and a healthy lashing of skin and blood. Fulci's direction lives up to the story's fever-pitch thriller theatrics with a barrage of baroque visual trickery, using everything from split-screens to colorful optical effects to keep the viewer off-kilter.” Towards the end of his life Baker pulled back on his business activities and worked mostly as an actor, taking roles in television including the BBC plays The Changeling (1974, Anthony Page) with Helen Mirren, Robinson Crusoe (1974, James MacTaggart), and the series How Green Was My Valley (1975, Ronald Wilson). His final film was Zorro (1975, Duccio Tessari) starring Alain Delon as Diego de la Vega/Zorro and Baker as his opponent Colonel Huerta. On 27 May 1976 it was announced that Baker was to be awarded a knighthood but he did not live to be invested in person at Buckingham Palace. So he cannot be referred to as 'Sir'. A heavy cigarette and cigar smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 1976 and underwent surgery in the following month. However, the cancer had spread to his bones and he died that same year from pneumonia in Málaga, Spain, aged 48. In a floral tribute sent to his funeral, Zulu leader Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi who had worked with him at Zulu (1964) described him as ‘the most decent white man I have ever met’. Since 1950 Stanley Baker was married to actress Ellen Martin. She had been introduced to him by Richard Burton. Their partnership lasted until his death and produced four children, Martin and Sally (twins), Glyn and Adam.


Theatrical trailer Hell Drivers (1957). Source: TaylorHamKid (YouTube).


Trailer Zulu (1964). Source: 05HK09 (YouTube).


Trailer Accident (1967). Source: Cheltenhamff (YouTube).

Sources: John Baxter (Film Reference), David Wishart (IMDb), Brian McFarlane (Encyclopedia of British Film), Donald Guarisco (AllMovie), Mark Deming (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), BBC Wales, The Sir Stanley Baker Tribute Site, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

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Grace Lane

May 10, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Grace Lane (1876 - 1956) was a British stage actress, who also appeared in some films in the 1920’s and 1930’s. She and matinee idol Lewis Waller were a popular pair on the stages of the West End and on Broadway in the early 1910’s.


British postcard by G.B. & Co, London, no. 7134. Sent by mail in 1903. Photo: R. Thiele, London.

Glamorous Matinee Idol
Grace Mabel Lane was born in London, England, in 1876. She was the daughter of Pierrpont G. Lane and his wife Rosina Grace née Lilley. Grace was the sister of actress Dorothy Lane and actor Horace Lane. In 1902, she became a popular star of the West End with the play Monsieur Beaucaire with Lewis Waller as Beaucaire. This romantic comedy by Booth Tarkington and Mrs E. G. Sutherland ran for 430 performances at the Comedy Theatre. With glamorous matinee idol Waller, she appeared in several other plays on the stages of the West End and on Broadway during the early 1910’s. Later, she appeared with another popular leading man of the Edwardian stage, Bertram Wallis in the melodrama Beau Brocade (1911) at the Globe Theatre.


British postcard, no. 1595. Photo: Rotary Photo. A still from the popular 1902 play Monsieur Beaucaire with Lewis Waller as Beaucaire and Grace Lane as Mary.


British postcard by Rotary Photo, E.C., no. 11642-D. Photo: Foulsham & Hanfield, Ltd., London. Publicity still for the play Beau Brocade (1911) with Bertram Wallis as Beau Brocade and Grace Lane as Lady Patience Gascoyne.

The Honeypot
Grace Lane’s first film appearance was a supporting part in the romance The Honeypot (1920, Fred LeRoy Granville) with Lilian Hall-Davis. Another silent film in which she played was Owd Bob (1924) with Ralph Forbes. The film was directed by the well known British actor Henry Edwards who also directed 67 films between 1915 and 1937. Grace Lane next appeared in two early sound pictures, the Gainsborough comedy Taxi for Two (1929, Denison Clift, Alexander Esway), and the romance The Feather (1929, Leslie S. Hiscott). She played her last supporting film parts in The Mad Hatters (1935, Ivar Campbell) with the British It Girl Chili Bouchier, and Twelve Good Men (1936, Ralph Ince) starring Henry Kendall. At 79, Grace Lane died in 1956 in Hove, England. She was married to stage actor Kenneth Douglas. They were the parents of actor/dramatist Gerald Savory (1909 - 1996).


British postcard by the Philco Publishing Co., London, no. 3024E. Sent by mail in 1904. Photo: Lafayette.

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

Ingrid Ernest

May 11, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Beautiful Ingrid Ernest (1933 - 1975) was a German stage actress who appeared incidentally in films and on TV. She was married to Arno Hanke, the managing director of the Ufa.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 152. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Ufa.

Television Host
Ingrid Ernest (sometimes written as Ernst) was born as Ingrid Isolde Friedegard Schultze in Leipzig, Germany, in 1933. She was a sister of film actress Jeanette Schultze. Ingrid went to the theatre academy in Berlin. Afterwards she acted on the stages of the German provinces. From 1954 on she was a television host in Köln (Cologne), especially for Eurovision broadcasts. She made her first film appearance in 1958 in the Ufa family comedy Ist Mama nicht fabelhaft?/Isn't Mama Fabulous? (1958, Peter Beauvais) with Luise Ullrich. In the same year, she married Arno Hanke, the managing director of the Ufa, then the biggest film company in Germany. After her marriage she semi-retired, because she didn’t want to misuse the position of her husband. For another company, Roxy-Film,she played the title role in Ingeborg (1960, Wolfgang Liebeneiner) opposite Dietmar Schönherr and Walter Giller. The romantic comedy was based on the comedy of the same name by scripter Curt Goetz. It was to be her last film.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-223. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Joe Niczky / Ufa.


Belgian collector's card, no. 60.

Jail
In the 1960’s, Ingrid Ernest worked mainly on stage for the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf and appeared incidentally on television. The TV film Vor Sonnenuntergang/Before Sundown (1962, Karl-Heinz Stroux) was based on a play by Gerhart Hauptmann. It performed by the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, also with Ernst Deutsch and Gerda Maurus, the legendary star of Fritz Lang’s silent classics Spione/Spies (1928) and Frau im Mond/Woman in the Moon (1929). Next Ingrid Ernst played the female leading role in the second season of a Krimi mini-series about a London detective, Tim Frazer - Der Fall Salinger/Tim Frazer - The Salinger Affair (1964, Hans Quest), based on a mystery novel by Francis Durbridge and starring Max Eckard. The following year she caused a car accident and had to go to jail for two weeks. Ingrid Ernest’s last TV appearance was in another registration of a play performed by the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (1968), based on the famous play by Heinrich von Kleist. Ingrid Ernest died in 1975, only 42 years old.


Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam (Dutch licency holder for Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof), no. 4169. Photo: Betzler / Ufa.


German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 4130. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Weise / Ufa.

Sources: collector’s card, Filmportal.de, and IMDb.

Florelle

May 12, 2013, 11:00 pm

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French music hall star Florelle (1898 – 1974) was one of the queens of Paris. The petite blonde appeared in 54 films between 1912 and 1956, and also toured around the world. Her most beautiful role was as Fantine in a classic version of Les Miserables (1934).


French postcard by EC (Editions Chantal), no. 53. Photo: Pathé-Natan.

The Mask of Horror
Florelle was born Odette Elisa Joséphine Marguerite Rousseau in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France in 1898. Her father was a modest commercial employee. In 1905 her parents moved to Paris and her mother Diadéma became the cashier of La Cigale, a café-concert in Montmartre. At 14, Florelle appeared on stage in a sketch with Raimu. That same year she made her film debut credited as Mlle Rousseau in the Pathé production Le masque d'horreur/The Mask of Horror (1912). This short silent French horror film was directed by legendary director Abel Gance and co-starred famous French actors such as Edouard de Max and Charles de Rochefort. A mad sculptor, searching for the perfect realization of ‘the mask of horror’, places himself in front of a mirror after smearing blood over himself with the glass of an oil lamp. He then swallows a virulent poison to observe the effects of pain. Florelle then played in another silent short for the production company Le Film d’art, La petite Fifi/The Crime on the Coast (1913, Henri Pouctal) with Marcel Vibert. Florelle showed a gift for singing, and started to perform, first at La Cigale and other Montmartre venues, later in Austria, Romania, Turkey. From 1918 on, she was back in the Montmartre music halls and became one of the queens of Paris. From 1923 on, she continued her film career with such silent films as the mystery L'affaire de la rue de Lourcine/e Case of the Rue de Lourcine (1923, Henri Diamant-Berger) with Maurice Chevalier. She was now credited as Odette Florelle. For director Henri Diamant-Berger, she also appeared in L'accordeur/The tuner (1923, Henri Diamant-Berger), starring Louis Pré Fils and Albert Préjean, Jim Bougne, boxeur/ Boxer Jim Bougne (1923, Henri Diamant-Berger), and in Gonzague (1923, Henri Diamant-Berger) both again with Maurice Chevalier. But then, she went on tour again and performed in Cuba, South-America, Greece and Turkey.


French postcard in the Collection Astra, Les Sables-d'Olonne, no. 59. Posted by mail in 1937. Photo: Combier Mâcon.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 928. Photo: Pathé-Natan.

The Threepenny Opera
After the introduction of sound film, Florelle played in several of alternate language versions of foreign films. In 1930, she appeared at the side of Jean-Max and Colette Darfeuil in the French drama Le procureur Hallers/The Prosecutor Hallers (1930, Robert Wiene). It was the French-language version of the German Tobis-production Der Andere/The Other, based on a play by Paul Lindau. The two films were made at the same studio in Berlin, with director Robert Wiene beginning work on the French version immediately after finishing the German film. In Berlin, Georg Wilhelm Pabst invited her for a screen-test for his film L'opéra de quat' sous/The Threepenny Opera (1930). James Travers at Films de France: “In 1928, Bertolt Brecht et Kurt Weill worked on one of their most successful collaborations, Die Dreigroschenoper, a stage play based on John Gay’s 1728 satire, The Beggar’s Opera. The success of the play soon led to a film adaptation by G.W. Pabst, then one of Germany’s most prominent directors. Three versions of the film were planned – one in English, one in German, and one in French. The English version was abandoned at an early stage, and the German and French versions were made in parallel, with two separate casts. The German version, Die Dreigroschenoper, is the one which is most widely available. L’Opéra de quat’ sous was the name given to the French version.” Florelle got the role of Polly Peachum and her interpretations of the Kurt Weil songs were a huge success. The operetta Nuits de Venise/Venetian Nights (1931, Pierre Billon, Robert Wiene) was an alternative-language version of the German comedy Der Liebesexpreß/The Love Express (1931, Robert Wiene), made at the Emelka Studios in Munich. Florelle also played in the classic fantasy L'Atlantide (1932, Georg Wilhelm Pabst), an alternate language version of Die Herrin von Atlantis/Queen of Atlantis (1932, Georg Wilhelm Pabst). In both versions Brigitte Helm starred as the Queen of Atlantis. Florelle performed an unforgettable Can-can in the film. She then played the lead role in the British French-language comedy La dame de chez Maxim's/The Girl from Maxim's (1933, Alexander Korda). It was the alternate language version of The Girl from Maxim's (1933, Alexander Korda) made by London Film Productions. Both films were based on the 1899 farce La Dame de chez Maxim by Georges Feydeau. Her lively, fresh and carefree performances made her a popular film star, while she also was the ’vedette’ at the Folies Bergère, at the Moulin Rouge, and at the Casino de Paris...


French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 2009. Photo: Paramount.


French postcard by Editions Chantal (EC), Paris, no. 33. Photo: Utudjian.

Les Misérables
One of Florelle’s most important films was Les Misérables (1934), a film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel. It was written and directed by Raymond Bernard and starred Harry Baur as Jean Valjean and Charles Vanel as Javert. Florelle played Fantine, a woman forced into prostitution to help pay two cruel innkeepers. Wikipedia: “The film lasts four and a half hours and is considered by critics to be the greatest adaptation of the novel, due to its in-depth development of the themes and characters in comparison with most shorter adaptations.” It was released as three films that premiered over a period of three weeks. She had a small role in Liliom (1936, Fritz Lang) starring Charles Boyer. It is the only film Fritz Lang made in France, after he fled Nazi Germany and before moving to the States, and he brings all his skill and heart and humour to the wonderful Ferenc Molnar story. Another classic is Le Crime de Monsieur Lange/The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936, Jean Renoir) about a publishing cooperative. Wikipedia: “Imbued with the spirit of the left-wing political movement, Popular Front, which would have a major political victory that year, the film chronicles the story of M. Lange (René Lefèvre), a mild-mannered clerk at a publishing company who dreams of writing Western stories. He gets his chance when Batala (Jules Berry), the salacious head of the company, fakes his own death and the abandoned workers decide to form a cooperative. They have great success with Lange's stories about the cowboy, Arizona Jim — whose stories parallel the real-life experiences of the cooperative. At the same time, Lange and his neighbor, Valentine (Florelle), fall in love.” After 1940, the cinema seemed to have forgotten her, and she moved to North-Africa. Later, Florelle hosted a bar in Montmartre, and sang in cabarets and music halls. Incidentally, she appeared in small film parts. An example is the anthology film Trois femmes/Three Women (1952, André Michel), which was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. Later she had a part in Gervaise (1956, René Clément) with Maria Schell, and her final film was Le sang à la tête/Blood to the Head (1956, Gilles Grangier) starring Jean Gabin. At 76, Florelle died in La Roche-sur-Yon, France.


Florelle sings Barbara in L'opéra de quat' sous/The Threepenny Opera (1930). Source: Planetraptor420 (YouTube).


Scene from Le Crime de Monsieur Lange/The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936). Source: The Leon Vitali (YouTube).

Sources: Paul Dubé & Jacques Marchioro (Du temps des cerises aux feuilles mortes) (French), James Travers (Films de France), Ciné-Ressources (French), Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.

Elsa Merlini

May 13, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Elsa Merlini (1903-1983) was a star of the Italian cinema of the 1930's. She excelled in the 'telefoni bianchi', an Italian genre of sophisticated comedies which were wildly popular before WWII.

Italian postcard by N.M.M., Milano, 1941 - XIX. On the retro side: "Elsa Merlini - l'artista che sa accoppiare il brio più indiavolato, espressioni di languore e di malinconia" (Elsa Merlini - the artist who knows to pair the most devilish vivacity with expressions of languidness and melancholy). This card could be for the film Paprika (1933, Carl Boese) in which spicy Ilonka (Merlini) from Hungary becomes a housemaid in order to win the heart of her misogynist master (Renato Cialente).

Excellent Comedian
Elsa Merlini, pseudonym of Elsa Tscheliesnig, was born in Trieste in 1903, when the city was still part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. She moved to Florence where she worked on her diction because of her German and Slavic influences. She changed her name into the more Italian Merlini, and at 17, she made her stage debut with Annibale Ninchi, the future leading actor of the film Scipione l'Africano/Scipio the African (1937, Carmine Gallone). In 1930 she entered the Nicodemi companyand over the years she proved to be an excellent comedian, working with Sergio Tofano and Luigi Cimara . In 1934 she established a new company with her life partner Renato Cialente, Merlini-Cialente. They produced dramatic plays by Anton Chekhov and Luigi Pirandello. Merlini also started a career as a singer, recording several songs. She sometimes sang duets with Vittorio De Sica, such as the song Dammi un bacio e ti dico di si from the film Non ti conosco più/I Don't Know You Anymore (1936, Nunzio Malasomma, Mario Bonnard).


Italian postcard in the series Cines-Pittaluga by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2564. Card given as memory to a visit of La segretaria privata/The Private Secretary (1932, Goffredo Alessandrini) starring Merlini.


With Vittorio De Sica. Italian postcard. The caption 'Ritorna Elsa Merlini tutto pepe' translates as:' Elsa Merlini returns, all pepper'. Photo: probably a publicity still for the film Non ti conosco più/I Don't Know You Anymore (1936, Nunzio Malasomma, Mario Bonnard). The pepper refers to the title of her previous film Paprika (1933, Carl Boese).

Private Secretary
Elsa Merlini is best remembered for her telefoni bianchi, the elegant film comedies of the 1930's. Her first film set the tone: it was the musical comedy La segretaria privata/The Private Secretary (1931, Goffredo Alessandrini), an Italian version of the German film operetta Die Privatsekretärin (1931, Wilhelm Thiele) starring Renate Müller. Getting a simple job as a dactylograph - remember we are right in the Depression years - is enough for Elsa to sing out loud: "Oh come son felice, felice, felice", the recurring motif of the soundtrack. Unknowingly, she bonds with the director of the company who regards her as a fling first, but who is finally won over. After this hit, Merlini continued appearing in films such as Paprika (1933, Carl Boese) - again an Italian version of a German picture with the same title, Non ti conosco più/I Don't Know You Anymore (1936, Nunzio Malasomma), and La dama bianca/The White Lady (1938, Mario Mattoli). She often co-starred with Nino Besozzi, who plays the director in La segretaria privata, Renato Cialente, and with Vittorio De Sica.


With Nino Besozzi. Italian postcard by B.F.F. edit., no. 2598. Photo: Produzione SAPF.


Italian postcard by B.F.F. edit., no. 2631. Photo: Produzione SAPF.

Tragic Death
In 1943, Elsa Merlini's lover, Renato Cialente, was killed by a bypassing German car while he was leaving the theater. After the war and her partner's tragic death, Merlini returned to the stage, and did not perform in films until 1951. Then she was relaunched in the cinema with the comedy Cameriera bella presenza offresi/Housemaid (1951, Giorgi Pastina). An all-star cast surrounded Merlini: Gino Cervi,Eduardo and Titina De Filippo, Giulietta Masina, Vittorio De Sica and Isa Miranda. Few other films followed, however. From the late 1950's on, she also performed on television and she also had a prolific career at the radio, first for EIAR, then for the RAI. In 1968 she had her own radio programme La maga Merlini (The Sorceress Merlini). In1983, Elsa Merlini died of a tumor at the age of 80. From 1934 until his death in 1943 she was the partner of Renato Cialente. From 1965 on she was married to Luciano Zuccolini.


Elsa Merlini and Vittorio De Sica sing Dammi un Bacio e ti Dico di Sì. Source: maxmenox60 (YouTube).

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Iris Arlan

May 14, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Beautiful actress Iris Arlan (? - ?) worked for Max Reinhardt’s theatre and appeared in several German and Austrian silent films. Around 1936, after roles in a handful of sound films, she disappeared into oblivion.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5678. Photo: Angelo.

The German answer to Nanook of the North
Very little is known about Iris Arlan, who was sometimes credited as Iris Aslan. We could not find any information about where or when she was born. IMDb indicates that she began her film career in 1927 in the film Die Lindenwirtin am Rhein/The Linden Hostess on the Rhine (1927, Rolf Randolf) with Maly Delschaft and Gerd Briese. That same year she also appeared in supporting parts in Die weiße Spinne/The White Spider (1927, Carl Boese) starring Maria Paudler, and Orientexpress/Orient Express (1927, Wilhelm Thiele) with Lil Dagover. These films were all produced by Phoebus-Film AG, a German company that had produced and distributed films since 1914. The UFA production Milak, der Grönlandjäger/Milak the Greenland Hunter (1928, Georg Asagaroff, Bernhard Villinger), which Filmportal.de calls ‘The German answer to Nanook of the North’, was a curious mix of a documentary about a Greenland expedition (directed by Villinger) and a feature film (directed by Asagaroff), starring Ruth Weyher. In 1927, Arlan also appeared in Austria in Die beiden Seehunde/The two seals (1928, Max Neufeld) with Hans Junkermann, and Glück bei Frauen/Lucky With Women (1928, Hans Otto.) She then appeared in the Hungarian production Mária növér/Sister Maria (1929, Antal Forgács) opposite Werner Pittschau. In 1929 she appeared in five more silent Austrian productions, including Vater Radetzky/Father Radetzky (1929, Karl Reiter).


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5516.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5676. Photo: Residenz Atelier.

Max Reinhardt
After the arrival of sound film, there was an interval in Iris Arlan’s film career. A postcard in the collection of Virtual history indicates that she was at one time engaged by Max Reinhardt’s stage company. In 1932, she returned to the cinema in the German historical drama Die Tänzerin von Sans Souci/The Dancer of Sans Souci (1932, Friedrich Zelnik) starring Otto Gebühr as Frederick II. From 1934 on, she played supporting parts in five more films. These included the Austrian production Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten/Boards that mean the world (1935, Kurt Gerron) with Szöke Szakall, and the German comedy Kirschen in Nachbars Garten/ Fruit in the Neighbor's Garden (1935, Erich Engels) with Karl Valentin and Adele Sandrock. Possibly her last film was Arme kleine Inge/Poor Little Inge (1936, Robert Land) with Rolf Wanka. And then, what happened to Iris Aslan?


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 5513. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Virtual History, Filmportal.de and IMDb.

Sydne Rome

May 15, 2013, 11:00 pm

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United States-born Sydne Rome (1951) was a gorgeous starlet, who lived in Italy since the early 1970’s. She worked in Europe with interesting directors like Roman Polanski, Duccio Tessari, Claude Chabrol and Sergei Bondarchuk, although the results were not always successful. In the 1980's she became Jane Fonda's rival in the aerobics craze.


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

What?
Sydne Rome was born in Akron, U.S. in 1951. Her first name is often misspelled Sydney or Sidney. She grew up in a wealthy family in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Her father was president of a very successful Akron area plastics corporation. She started her career as a delectable double agent in the British spy comedy Some Girls Do (1969, Ralph Thomas) starring Richard Johnson and Daliah Lavi. It was the second of the revamped Jack ‘Bulldog’ Drummond films made in the wake of the success of 007. She then appeared in Italy in the spaghetti western Vivi o, preferibilmente, morti/Sundance and the Kid (1969, Duccio Tessari) starring Giuliano Gemma and Nino Benvenuti. Next she appeared opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the absurd comedy Che?/What? (1973, Roman Polanski). In this lesser known Polanski film, she played a young, seemingly innocent American girl, whose sexually charged adventure in a strange mansion are not unlike Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In Germany, Rome appeared in Reigen/Dance of Love (1973, Otto Schenk), an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's famous play, previously filmed as La Ronde by Max Ophüls in 1950 and Roger Vadim in 1964. In France, she starred with Alain Delon in the political drama La race des Seigneurs/Creezy (1974, Pierre Granier-Deferre) and in England with Roger Moore and Susannah York in the comedy That Lucky Touch (1975, Christopher Miles). Her films of the following years include the comedy fiasco Folies bourgeoisies/The Twist (1976, Claude Chabrol) starring Bruce Dern, Il mostro/The Monster (1977, Luigi Zampa) with Johnny Dorelli, and another debacle Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo/Just a Gigolo (1979, David Hemmings) starring David Bowie.


Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Aerobics Craze
In the early 1980’s, Sydne Rome became an icon of the aerobics craze and published several workout videos. She also recorded the album Aerobic Fitness Dancing, produced by Frank Farian and recorded in both German, Spanish and Italian. As a singer, she recorded the single Angelo prepotente (1980) for the Italian market and also released English (For You) and German (Wozu) versions of this song. She also recorded a cover version of Marty Balin's hit Hearts. Sporadically, she could be seen in films. She played journalist Louise Bryant in Krasnye kolokola/Red Bells (1982-1983, Sergei Bondarchuk), a two-parts film on the life and career of John Reed (played by Franco Nero), the well-known leftist journalist who first gained fame reporting on the Mexican Revolution and eventually wrote 10 Days that Shook the World on the 1917 Russian Revolution. The story already inspired Warren Beatty's Reds. Later, she mostly worked for television, such as a guest star for the American crime series In The Heat of the Night (1994, Larry Hagman) and in the TV Movie Callas e Onassis/Callas & Onassis: The Legendary Couple (2005, Giorgio Capitani) about Maria Callas and Aristoteles Onassis. In the cinema she regularly appeared in films by Pupi Avati; the mystery-thriller Il nascondiglio/The Hideout (2007, Pupi Avati), the comedy drama Il figlio più piccolo/The Youngest Son (2010, Pupi Avati) with Christian De Sica and Luca Zingaretti, and the drama Il cuore grande delle ragazze/The Big Heart of Girls (2011, Pupi Avati). Sydne Rome married twice. In 1973, she married Emilio Lari; subsequently, she married the noted gerontologist Roberto Bernabei. They live with their two adopted children in Rome.


Trailer Che?/What? (1973). Source: Zeroheadroom (YouTube).


Trailer Reigen/Dance of Love (1973). Source: VideoOnDemandDE (YouTube).

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.

Collection: Tatiana

May 16, 2013, 11:00 pm

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I was quite overwhelmed last week when the mail brought me a big envelope from the States. Inside were 39 film star postcards by Film-Foto-Verlag, the German publisher that was very active just during World War II. They were sent to me as a gift by Tatiana, who earlier has sent me scans of postcards of her relative Tamara Desni. Thank you so much, Tatiana!


Heinz Rühmann. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3852/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.


Gisela Uhlen. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3922/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.


Margot Hielscher. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. 3854/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Terra.

Glamorous And Perfectly Lit
In this post I show you twelve of Tatiana's Film-Foto-Verlag postcards. During the war years, these were distributed all over occupied Europe and thousands of people collected them. We have many of them in our collection. Of course at the time, you could not find any postcards of British or American actors here. And postcards of Jewish stars were also not longer available. So, it's a kind of a guilty pleasure to watch these Film-Foto-Verlag postcards, but still a real pleasure. The photos by studios like Star-Foto-Atelier, Baumann and Quick are glamorous and perfectly lit. Look how Mady Rahl lits her cigarette or how Iván Petrovich watches at us from the shadow under his hat...


Mady Rahl. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 212, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.


Irene von Meyendorff. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 201, 1941-1944. Photo: Foto Baumann.


Iván Petrovich. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 192, 1941-1944. Photo: Quick.

Ross And Film-Foto-Verlag
Film-Foto-Verlag was a continuation of the famous Ross Verlag. This publishing house had been a Jewish run business. Heinrich Ross, the founder of Ross Verlag, had been forced out of business by the Nazi's, and his company had been taken over by non-Jews. Around 1937, Ross Verlag was a subsidiary of film company Tobis. During the war, all film companies in Germany were owned by the government. The Nazis changed the name of the firm to Film Foto Verlag after the US entered the war in 1941. The cards stopped being published around 1944.


Marika Rökk. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 221. Photo: Ufa.


Hans Söhnker. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. K 1434. Photo: Foto Binz, Berlin.


Elfie Mayerhofer. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. G 217, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto-Atelier / Tobis.

A or G or K
Film-Foto-Verlag produced different series, as you can see in this post. Regular were the A cards, mostly with a white border around the photos (sometimes with a small border like at the Olga Tschechova postcard below). This series ran from A 1000/1 to A 4096/1. Another group of cards were known as the G Series. These seemed to be strictly German performers. They measured 4 1/8 by 5 7/8. Another series were knows as the K cards (like the Hans Söhnker one above). They were advertised as 'Kunstblätter'(art sheets). These are not postcards, but larger size photo portraits, similar to studio publicity photos. They came in sizes 20 x 25 cm, 20 X 30 cm, 18 x 24 cm and 15 x 20 cm. They also came in black and white, or the sepia brown as well as gloss finish. The K photos are not as common as the other cards, probably because they were more expensive to purchase.


Olga Tschechova. German postcard by Film-Foro-Verlag, no. A 3837/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.


Gustav Diessl. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3909/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Star-Foto Atelier / Tobis.


Magda Schneider. German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3826/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Hämmerer / Wien Film.

Source: Ross Cards.

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Eurovision Song Contest - Lys Assia

May 17, 2013, 11:00 pm

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EFSP salutes the Eurovision Song Contest! For Americans it must be a curious phenomenon, but for already, 57 years ESC is one of Europe's favourite TV events. The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 takes place in Malmö, Sweden, and the finals are tonight. The winner of the very first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 was Swiss singer and actress Lys Assia (1924). We saw her last thursday during an intermezzo of the second semi-finals. The still sparkling and beautiful grande dame of the German schlager appeared as a singer in several films of the 1950s.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf.no. 2428. Photo: Teldec.


German card by LYSassia.de. Publicity card for the album Sehnsucht nach dir. Photo: Gerd Nolte.

Legendary Venues
Lys Assia was born as Rosa Mina Schärer in Rupperswil in the canton Aargau, Switzerland, in 1924 (some sources indicate she was born in Berne in 1926). She studied at a conservatory and at the art academy of Zurich. At 16, she started her career as a dancer at Zurich's Corso-Palast. In 1940, she appeared with the Riva-Ballett for the French army, and in Nice she stood in for a female singer. People who heard her singing liked it so much that she decided for a career in front of the microphone. In 1942 she had her first record contract with His Master’s Voice. She had her breakthrough in Germany in 1950 with the hit song O mein Papa (O My Father) from the operetta Feuerwerk (Fire Works) by Paul Burkhard. Other well known songs of her were Moulin Rouge (1953), Schwedenmädel (Swedish Girl) (1954), Jolie Jacqueline (1955), Arrivederci Roma (1956), Was kann schöner sein (What Can Be More Beautiful?) (1956), Deine Liebe (Your Love) (1957) and Mi casa su casa (1957). She sang in such legendary venues as the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Olympia in Paris, the Plaza in New York and the Tropicana in Cuba. On screen she appeared as a schlager singer in German films like Palace Hotel (Emil Berna, Leonard Steckel, 1952) with Paul Hubschmid, Illusion in Moll/Illusion in a Minor Key (Rudolf Jugert, 1952) starring Hildegard Knef, Schlagerparade/Hit Parade (Erik Ode, 1953), Ein Mann Vergißt die Liebe/A Man Forgets Love (Volker von Collande), 1955 and Die Beine von Dolores/Dolores' Legs (Géza von Cziffra, 1957) with Germaine Damar. In the Italian classic Le Notti Bianchi/White Nights (1957, Luchino Visconti - yes, we think every Visconti film is a classic) with Marcello Mastroiannishe sang the song Scusami (Excuse Me).


German card by Telefunken Schallplatten. Photo: Teldec / Haenchen.


German card by Telefunken Schallplatten. Photo: Teldec / Haenchen.

Posing Nude
Lys Assia was the winner of the very first Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la chanson/Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. She sang the songs Das alte Karussell (The Old Carousel) and Refrain for Switzerland. She had also been in the German national final of that year. For Switzerland she returned to the contest in 1957, finishing eighth with L'enfant que j'étais (The Child I Was), and in 1958, finishing second with Giorgio. She was married twice, from 1953 till 1957 to the Swiss businessman Henry Kunz, and from 1963 till 1995 to the Danish general-consul and hotel mogul Oskar Pedersen. In 1964 she retired from show business and moved with her husband to Denmark. They opened hotels in Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Japan and South America. After her husband’s death, she returned to Germany and renewed her singing career. In 2007, at age 83, she appeared at the annual German-language television song contest Grand Prix der Volksmusik, performing Sag Mir Wo Wohnen die Engel (Tell Me Where the Angels Live) with her 18-year-old duet partner, Beatrice Egli. That same year, she also posed nude for the Swiss magazine Annabelle, for a feature titled Beauty with Age. Her most recent album is Refrain des Lebens (2008) on which she sings new songs and new versions of old hits like Oh mein Papa and Refrain. At the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow she handed Alexander Rybak the winner’s trophy. In September 2011, Assia entered her song C'était ma vie written by Ralph Siegel and Jean Paul Cara into the Swiss national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. The song, however, only came eighth in a closely fought national selection. She attended the event in Baku as a guest of honour. In 2012, Assia entered the Swiss National Final Die grosse Entscheidungs Show to represent Switzerland in Malmö at the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 with the song All In Your Head featuring the hip-hop band New Jack. Lys Assia lives on her estates in Cannes, France and Switzerland. But today, she is in Malmö, however not as a participant but as a lifelong fan of the European Song Contest.


Lys Assia sings Refrain at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956. Source: EurovisionTurkey09 (YouTube).


Music video of a recent version of O Mein Papa by Lys Assia. Source: Bersoli (YouTube).

Sources: Dave Thompson (All Music Guide), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Happy birthday, Sabrina!

May 18, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Today, voluptuous British Sabrina (1936) has her 77th birthday. The blonde pinup and cabaret star was the British answer to Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, and a rival to Diana Dors. With a 42½ inch bust and a 17 inch waist, her nickname became Britain's finest hourglass. Although she made just a few films, she was one of the most photographed celebrities of her day. Was she just a dumb, talent-free blonde or a promotional genius?


British postcard by D. Constance Ltd., London, no. 64. Licence holder for U.K. & Colonies for Ufa. Photo: Hoffmann / Ufa.

Remarkable Chest Expansion
Sabrina was born Norma Ann Sykes in Stockport, England in 1936. Her parents were Annie Sykes-Haslam, a seamstress, and Walter Sykes, who worked in Mechanical Engineering. From 1940 till 1949, she attended St George's School in Cheshire, where she won several medals for swimming. Her family moved to Blackpool in 1949, where she acquired a strong Lancashire accent. As a teenager, Norma Ann contracted polio for four years, and was hospitalized for two years. A doctor prescribed a rugged series of exercises to develop her muscles. Each day, she spent hours swimming in a heated pool and performing bodybuilding feats. Her remarkable chest expansion is by some sources seen as the result of these workouts. At 16, she went modelling in London to show off her new physique. Two TV producer Bill Ward was looking for a girl for the Beauty Spot feature in Arthur Askey's TV series Before Your Very Eyes. Sabrina's photograph was sent in by her agent, Bill Watts, along with 23 others. Ward decided his search was over. In the TV show she was a gimmick: a dumb blonde with an impossibly-proportioned figure. In his biography Before Your Very Eyes, Askey later recounted: “We held auditions for a suitable dumb-cluck and found one in Norma Sykes. She had a lovely face and figure, but could not act, sing, dance, or even walk properly, although she had come to London to try her luck as a model. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was making artificial jewellery, as her broken nails bore witness. Anyway, she was exactly what we wanted.” Till then, Before Your Very Eyes had been only moderately well received by critics and public alike. The introduction of the completely dumb voluptuous blonde with her tight fitting dresses was a big success in the show and Sabrina even outshone Askey himself. Fleet Street reporters and interviewers flocked to the studio. ‘British TV's first sex-symbol’, now named Sabrina, took acting, singing, dancing and elocution lessons with the money she earned. So when the TV contract stopped, she presented a polished cabaret act. She caused a scandal when an old nude picture turned up on the five of spades in a deck of playing cards. Photographer Russell Gay had made a series of nude pictures of her when she was 16, alone and hungry. American actor Steve Cochran later claimed that Sabrina had welcomed the exposure: "She saw her chance for a terrific piece of Marilyn Monroe kind of publicity and grabbed it." In fact, the photos had started her in show business. Glamour photographer Alex Sterling had seen the pictures and he summoned her to his studio. The resultant work was viewed in such men's magazines as Blighty and Spick & Span.


British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: Douglas Burn.


British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: Philip Gotlop Photographs Ltd.

Publicity Stunts
Sabrina made her film debut as Trixie in the adventure film Stock Car (Wolf Rilla, 1955). Despite the elocution lessons, Sabrina’s voice was dubbed with a harsh cockney accent. Ronevickers at IMDb: “Another in the long line of films distributed by Butchers Film Services, who specialised in British B-Movies. Stock Car is not without a certain period charm and, along with other similar efforts such as Wall of Death and Mystery Junction, it does pass away a pleasant enough hour or so.” By then, Sabrina had become a phenomenon. Millions of Brits, who watched The Goon Show on television, wet themselves whenever Spike Milligan slipped another reference to Sabrina past the BBC censors. The new star made personal appearances at £100 a time, lent her name to advertisers' products, and was on the front cover of English, French, German, Italian and American magazines. She had a cafe, boats, frocks and cocktails named after her. Sabrina debuted in variety: in French Capers at venues including Palace Theatre (Leicester), Chiswick Empire (London) and Palace Theatre (Chelsea). She also appeared with Arthur Askey in the comic Western Ramsbottom Rides Again (John Baxter, 1956). At The Encyclopaedis Sabrina, Mark the ‘SabrinaMaster’ writes: “She was a model, TV hostess, actor, singer, stage performer - and had no talent. Even she admitted that. Why then, was the Western world and the bearded president of Cuba so keen to see her that - at one time - 10,000 people in Perth caused an airport terminal to collapse?” She loved publicity stunts. The media reported how Sabrina's dress was torn off by a mob in Birkenhead in 1956. They reported about her dates with Steve Cochran, Prince Christian of Hanover and Harold Rothschild of the London banking tribe. In 1957, her 42,5 inch (39 or 41 inch according to other sources) bust was insured for £100,000 (£125,000 according to some sources). That year she made her best known film, Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (Frank Launder, 1957) with Terry-Thomas and Alastair Sim. Sabrina played one of the sexy school girls in the second film of the film series about the anarchic boarding school girls, based on the cartoons by Ronald Searle. For more than a year, she was one of the stars of the West End revue Pleasures of Paris. She also appeared in the sitcom series Living It Up (1957-1958), a TV version of the popular radio series Band Waggon with Arthur Askey. She signed a lucrative contract for TV appearances in the United States and engagements in Las Vegas, Hollywood, and New York night clubs. After that, she toured through Europe and Australia, where she starred again in Pleasures of Paris. She did a cameo in the British comedy Make Mine a Million (Lance Comfort, 1959), but Hollywood ignored her. So she toured on around the world.


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Friedrich W. Sander-Verlag, Minden-Westf./Kolibri-Verlag, no. 2161. Photo: Neubach / Constantin. Publicity still for Einer frisst den Andern/Dog Eat Dog (1964, Gustav Gavrin).


Jayne Mansfield. German postcard by Friedrich W. Sander-Verlag, Minden-Westf./Kolibri-Verlag, no. 2054. Photo: Neubach / Constantin. Publicity still for Einer frisst den Andern/Dog Eat Dog (1964, Gustav Gavrin).

The Death of Jayne Mansfield.
During the 1960s, Sabrina worked often in the US, but also performed in Australia, South America, South Africa and Great Britain. In 1960 she made a controversial visit to Cuba where she 'consorted' with its new revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro. She toured with her cabaret show , in the revue Playgirls (1961) and with the theatrical plays Pyjama Game (1965-1966), Loving Couch (1966) with Virginia Mayo, and Rattle of a Simple Man (1966). Sabrina also made a few B-movies. The first was Satan in High Heels (Jerald Intrator, 1962), which was not a success. She played a belly-dancer in the horror film House of the Black Death (Harold Daniels, Jerry Warren, 1965) with Lon Chaney jr. and John Carradine. On TV she appeared in a double episode of Tarzan (1967) featuring Ron Ely. Tragic circumstances lead to her role in the horror slasher The Ice House (Stuart E. McGowan, 1969). Jayne Mansfield had already signed to star in the film as the go-go dancing victim 'Venus De Marco'. Filming was slated to begin in July in Mexico, but Mansfield was killed in a car crash near New Orleans on 29 June 1967. Sabrina took over, but the result was disastrous. In 1967, the 31 year old Sabrina married Dr Harold Ludwig Melsheimer, a wealthy Hollywood surgeon. They settled down in Encino. Sabrina was seen in one more film, the Western The Phantom Gunslinger (Albert Zugsmith, 1970) starring Troy Donahue. Then she quitted show business and eased back into an opulent married life. She only appeared in 1974 on British TV in This is Your Life to celebrate Arthur Askey. It was her last public appearance. In 1977 she divorced Harold Melsheimer. At his incredible tribute site The Encyclopaedis Sabrina, Mark writes that Sabrina lives fairly well (with leg and back problems) in North Hollywood, US. Happy birthday, Sabrina!


Scene from Before Your Very Eyes (1956) with Arthur Askey. Source: Nylonnet (YouTube).


Scene from Stock Car (1955). Source: Nylonnet (YouTube).


Short naughty Goodnight with Sabrina. Source: Nylonnet (YouTube).


Trailer Satan in High Heels (1962). Source: CinemaTerrorDotCom (YouTube).

Sources: Mark (The Encyclopaedis Sabrina), AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Annibale Ninchi

May 19, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Italian stage and screen actor and playwright Annibale Ninchi (1889-1967) became famous as the title character in Scipione l’Africano (1937) but also as the father in Fellini’s La dolce vita (1960) and 8½ (1963).


Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna. S.I.F., no. 11.

Love Interest
Annibale Ninchi was born in Bologna in 1889 as the son of Arnaldo Ninchi and Lidia Bedetti. Father Arnaldo was from Ancona and worked as colonel of the artillery. In 1903 Annibale registered at the Regia Scuola di recitazione Tommaso Salvini in Florence, directed by Luigi Rasi. He stemmed from a family of actors. His elder brother Carlo Ninchi (1887 - 1967) and his cousin Ave Ninchi (1915 - 1997) were actors as well. In 1910 Annibale became Mason at the Loggia XI Settembre 1860 of the Oriente in Pesaro. In the same year he started his stage career as ‘primo attore giovane’ [first young actor] in the company of Giacinta Pezzana en Flavio Andò. In 1911-1913 he was ‘first actor’ at the Roman Teatro Argentina, and in 1914-1916 he was artistic leader of the Compagnia drammatica in Rome. In the meantime Ninchi had also become actor in silent cinema. His first part he played in Carmen (1909, Gerolamo Savio) for the company Film d’Arte Italiana. Ninchi played the toreador Escamillo, while the leads were for Vittoria Lepanto as Carmen and Dante Testa as Don José. Some scenes were shot in Vergato near Bologna, Ninchi’s hometown. In 1914 Ninchi started to act at Cines on a more regular basis, first in Ninna nanna/Il sorriso dell’innocenza/The Lullaby/The Smile of Innocence (1914, Guglielmo Zorzi). He played Giovanni, the editor of a socialist magazine, who marries Maria (Pina Menichelli). They have a child called Speranza (hope), but when the family loses its capital, the journal goes broke and conservatory newspapers refuse to help him, the couple decides to kill themselves. The smile of the child wakened up by the mother’s lullaby (ninna nanna in Italian) saves the family. In the same year Ninchi acted again opposite Menichelli in Il grido dell’innocenza/The Cry of Innocence (1914, Augusto Genina), in which Menichelli is a scheming adventuress who separates a noble family father and his young male secretary (Ninchi), who loves the family’s daughter (Lea Giunchi). The evil woman wants to marry the father for his money and when the daughter opposes, the golddigger shoots the father and accuses the daughter, who gets imprisoned. But in the end justice calls. Menichelli’s part seems to have been a prologue to her later diva and femme fatale roles with the company Itala. In Turin, Ninchi acted at Ambrosio in the films La Gorgona/The Gorgon (1915, Mario Caserini) and I pagliacci (1915, Francesco Bertolini). La Gorgona was based on the homonymous play by the then popular Italian playwright Sem Benelli, and starred the French actress Madeleine Céliat as a kind of Vestal Virgin in the Middle Ages, who needs to keep a fire burning for the return of her co-citizens fighting the Saracenes. She neglects her duty when she falls in love with a Florentine man (Ninchi). The film was an opulent production with a much praised choreography of the masses and with a lauded performance by Céliat. In I pagliacci, based on Leoncavallo’s opera, Ninchi played Silvio, the man with whom Nedda (Bianca Virginia Camagno) falls in love with, though she is married to travelling clown Canio (Achille Vitti). When Canio, warned by the jealous Tonio, catches the lovers, he first kills Nedda, then Silvio. During the last years of the First World War, Ninchi acted in L’ombra del sogno (1917, Rastignac aka Vincenzo Morello) starring the dilettant actress Marchioness Clelia Antici-Mattei. In La piccola fonte/The Little Well (1917, Roberto Roberti) the acclaimed film diva Francesca Bertini had the female lead. Ninchi played an aspiring writer who dumps his fragile wife for a princess, after which his frail, good wife loses her mind. In the same year 1917, Ninchi also acted in the romantic comedy Le mariage de Chiffon/The Marriage of Chiffon (1917, Alberto Carlo Lollo), released in 1918 and based on the novel by Gyp. The press praised in particular Ninchi’s performance as the love interest of the protagonist, played by Mary Bayma-Riva. Bayma-Riva and Ninchi were reunited in Il pastor fido/The Loyal Shepherd (1918, Telemaco Ruggeri), an arcaic idyll based on a late 16th century poem. Tito Alacci in the journal Film raved about the beauty of the actresses and actors, including Ninchi, who had the male lead.


Italian postcard by Edizioni Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 540.

Gigantic Sets and Mass Scenes
Annibale Ninchi focused on his stage career. In 1919 he was ‘capocomico’ of the Ernesto Ferrero-Maria Letizia Celli company, triumphing as Glauco in the homonymous work by Morselli. In subsequent years he created the Compagnia drammatica italiana Annibale Ninchi of which he was ‘primo attore’. In 1925 he interpreted with his company Le cocù magnifique/The Magnificent Cuckold, but the fascist government forbid the spectacle. In 1926-1929 Ninchi toured in Alexandria in Egypt. In 1936 he performed Oedipus at Colonus at the Greek theatre of Siracuse for the Istituto del dramma antico. In 1937 he played Aligi in La figlia di Jorio/The Daughter of Jorio by D’Annunzio, and again in Siracuse, Euripides' Cyclops. In the mid-1930's Ninchi also returned to the film set. First he played the protagonist in Fiordalisi d'oro'Golden Cornflowers (1936, Gioacchino Forzano), and then in the film he is well remembered for: Scipione l’Africano/Scipio Africanus (1937, Carmine Gallone). It was the first epic shot in the then new film studios of Cinecittà. It contained gigantic sets and mass scenes, culminating in the recreation of the Battle of Zama. Scipio, the proud, heroic and honest hero, was clearly designed as a mirror figure to the Duce, thus giving the Italians an alibi to invade Africa. The film was not a huge box office success and this clashed of course with Mussolini’s aspirations of mirroring his own ‘Third Rome’ with the First (i.e. Ancient) Rome. Only from the late 1940's on, Roman Antiquity would become popular again as setting for historical films, starting with Fabiola (1949, Alessandro Blasetti) and Quo vadis? (1951, Mervyn LeRoy). Ninchi might have been affected by the flop of Scipione l’Africano. After a part in the Italo-French coproduction Adrienne Lecouvreur (1938, Marcel L’Herbier) he focused on stage again. He became ‘capocomico’ of the Compagnia Ninchi-Abba-Pilotto, and in 1939 he was the protagonist of Il ventaglio/The range by Goldoni, Aminta by Tasso, Ajax by Sophocles and Hecuba by Euripides. In 1944-1945, after the liberation of Rome, Ninchi staged La guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu/The Trojan War will not take place by Jean Giraudoux at the Teatro Eliseo. He also acted in the Shakespeare tragedies Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear. In 1948-1950 he was artistic manager of the Istituto del dramma antico in Siracuse, and in 1952 he toured Malta and Tripoli with the company Ninchi-Picasso. Later he played in Veglia d’armi/Vigil of Arms by Diego Fabbri and toured all over Italy with the play. Also popular were his performances in Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac and Neri Chiaramantesi in Sem Benelli’s La cena delle beffe/The Jesters' Supper. In 1958, Ninchi acted in the play Veglia la mia casa, Angelo/Look homeward, angel written by Ketty Frings and directed by famous director Luchino Visconti. After Ariosto’s Lena, staged in 1960 at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Ninchi focused in film acting again for a while.


Marcello Mastroianni. German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden / Westf., no. 2361. Photo: Bavaria / Schorcht / Vogelmann. Publicity still for Mädchen und Männer/La ragazza della salina/Sand, Love and Salt (1957).

Federico Fellini
During the 1950's, Annibale Ninchi had played in a handful of films: Il diavolo in convento/The Devil in a convent (1950, Nunzio Malasomma), Non c'è amore più grande/There is no greater love (1955, Giorgio Bianchi), Adriana Lecouvreur (1955, Guido Salvini), Papà Eccellenza/Excellent Dad (1957, Tat'jana Pavlovna Pavlova), Medea (1957, Claudio Fino), and Vento del Sud/South Wind (1959, Enzo Provenzale), but it was Federico Fellini who brought international fame to Ninchi. Fellini invited him to play the father of the protagonist Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) in La dolce vita (1960). Ninchi plays an aged traveling salesman who visits modern Rome and, taken along by his son, he enjoys a cabaret where the French dancer Fanny (Magali Noël) performs and Polidor has an act with a trumpet and countless balloons. The father dances and jokes with the French girl and drinks too much champagne, so he has a mild heart attack at the dancer’s house. Marcello rushes to him and tries to persuade him to stay, but the father, aloof, sits still, watching the city, then takes a cab and leaves. Marcello’s attempt to reunite with his father is broken off. A reprisal of his role as the protagonist’s father occurred in Fellini’s Otto e mezzo/8½ (1963), this time together with Marcello’s mother (Giuditta Rissone), who has a bigger part in the film. The protagonist, the film director Guido (again Mastroianni) meets his parents in a cemetery. In the end they join the crowd that descends a staircase to join in for a polonaise around the circus arena, as being part of Guido’s world. In the early 1960's Ninchi acted in films like Che gioia vivere/Quel joie de vivre/The Joy of Living (1961, René Clément), Un soir sur la plage/One Night at the Beach (1961, Michel Boisrond), and Edipo a Colono/Oedipus at Colonus (1966, Maner Lualdi). Ninchi last stage role was in 1965 in Sophocles’ Antigone, after which he retired. Ninchi also worked for the Italian and the Swiss radio, acting in various stage plays such as Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. He also played on television, recorded monologues of his plays on records and wrote numerous stage plays. In his autobiography Annibale Ninchi racconta... (Pagine spregiudicate di un chierico-vagante)/Annibale Ninchi Tells... (Unscripulous pages of a wandering cleric), he described the life of actors in the early 20th century as well as his own experiences in those years. Finally, Ninchi taught several years at the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico in Rome. He was decorated Commendatore, then Grande Ufficiale of the Republic, by Italian president Einaudi. At 79, Annibale Ninchi died in Pesaro in 1967. He is the father of actor Arnaldo Ninchi, and grandfather of actor Alessandro Ninchi.


Scene from Scipione l’Africano (1937). Source: Caesar Fidelis (YouTube).


Scene from La dolce vita (1960). Source: RERH (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

Laya Raki

May 20, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Exotic dancer and film actress Laya Raki (1927) was a popular sex symbol in Germany during the 1950’s. She appeared in revealing outfits in films and on photos, and captured men's attention like no other German showgirl. Later she also became an international star with her roles in British films and TV productions.


Austrian postcard by HDH-Verlag (Verlag Hubmann), Wien (Vienna). Photo: Joe Niczky, München (Munich) / Ufa.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no 1637.


Vintage postcard.

Erotic Radiance
Laya Raki was born Brunhilde Marie Alma Herta Jörns in Calvörde near Helmstedt, Germany, in 1927. Her parents were acrobat Maria Althoff and her partner, acrobat and clown Wilhelm Jörns. As she was an admirer of the famous dancer La Jana and liked to drink raki, she assumed the stage name Laya Raki. She attracted attention for the first time in 1947-1950 as a glamour dancer (in German: Schönheitstänzerin) in Frankfurt and other German cities. When she performed in Berlin, her star began to rise: her 38-23-36 figure and erotic radiance became the talk of the town. Film company DEFA engaged her for a small role as a rumba dancer in Der Rat der Götter/The Council of the Gods (1950, Kurt Maetzig), which won two awards. The Berliner Morgenpost reported that she was a great dancer with an expressive face, rich in nuances. That same year the press department of Realfilm presented her as their new discovery in Die Dritte von rechts/The Third from the Right (1950, Géza von Cziffra). It was a rather boring revue film, but the highlight was the scene in which the scantily clad Raki (with only two white stars on her nipples) exposed herself to the lustful gazes of the cinema audiences. In 1953, she danced in Ehe für eine Nacht/Marriage for One Night (1953, Viktor Tourjansky), and in Die Rose von Stambul/The Rose of Stamboul (1953, Karl Anton) Austrian actor Paul Hörbiger wanted to marry her upon seeing her dancing.


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no 2556. Photo: Sascha-Lux-Gloria-Film / Niczky. Publicity still for Roter Mohn/Red Poppy (1956, Franz Antel).


German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H., Minden/Westf., no 1775.


German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 142. Photo: Sascha-Lux-Gloria-Film / Niczky.

Lured by a Swindler
In 1954 Laya Raki was lured to London by 'Major' Howard Rowson, a swindler with empty promises of film roles in the United Kingdom and Hollywood. Her unemployed situation made headlines that opened opportunities quickly. The J. Arthur Rank Film Company, which needed a slightly exotic type for a film in New Zealand, received her with open arms. They gave her the role of the seductive wife of a Maori chieftain's in The Seekers (1954, Ken Annakin) with Jack Hawkins and Glynis Johns. She created a worldwide stir by baring her breasts. Next she played in the comedy Up to His Neck (1954, John Paddy Carstairs) and in the adventure film Quentin Durward (1955, Richard Thorpe) starring Robert Taylor. She also appeared in German productions like Am Anfang war es Sünde/The Beginning Was Sin (1954, Frantisek Cáp) with Viktor Staal, and Die Frau des Botschafters/The Ambassador's Wife (1955, Hans Deppe) with Ingrid Andree. In the Heimatfilm Roter Mohn/Red Poppy (1956, Franz Antel) she played the gypsy girl Ilonka and conducted refreshing dialogues with famous Viennese comic Hans Moser. After some acting lessons in Hollywood, she appeared in several British TV productions, including 39 episodes of the series Crane (1962-1965). She played Moroccan dancer and bartender Halima, the partner of smuggler Richard Crane (Patrick Allen). In the meantime she modeled for postcards, pin-up photos and magazines all over the world. In 1962, she recorded the songs Faire l`amour and the twist song Oh Johnny hier nicht parken (Oh, Johnny don´t park here). The latter was banned by a Nuremberg court who thought her ecstatic moaning was imitating coitus. She continued to play in German films, including the Krimis Die Nylonschlinge/Nylon Noose (1963, Rudolf Zehetgruber) with Dietmar Schönherr, and Das Haus auf dem Hügel/The House on the Hill (1964, Werner Klingler) starring Australian actor Ron Randell. She also appeared with him in her last film, Savage Pampas (1966, Hugo Fregonese) starring Robert Taylor. In 1957, Laya Raki had married Randell in London. “He is the best and most beautiful man of the world”, she told the press, and she remained at his side until his death in 2005.


German postcard by ISV, no. C 10. Photo: Sascha-Lux / Gloria / Grein.


A British Pathé news item about the Earl´s Court Motor Show of 1964 with Lay Raki in a mink bikini seated on an Aston Martin. Source: British Pathé.

Sources: Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Claire Rommer

May 21, 2013, 11:00 pm

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Elegant German actress Claire Rommer (1904 - 1996) appeared in about 50 German film productions during the 1920’s and the early 1930’s. Her successful career was suddenly ended by the Nazis.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 566. Photo: Verleih E. Weil & Co.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1845/1, 1927-1928. Photo: A. Binder.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1933/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

Soubrette
Claire Rommer was born as Klara Romberger in Berlin, Germany, in 1904. Although her parents had sent her to a boarding-school she defied the opposition of her family and attended the famous Max-Reinhardt-Schule in Berlin. Almost 17-years old, she debuted as a temporary assistant at the Neuen Volkstheater(New People's Theater) and theVolksbühne(People's Stage). As a soubrette, she later appeared repeatedly in operettas and comedies on the Berlin stage, especially at the Lustspielhaus (Comedy House). In the season of 1925-1926 she was committed to the Vereinigten Bühnen(United Stages). However she became best known as a film actress. She appeared as a lover or a salon lady in dozens of silent films of the 1920’s. Rommer made her film debut in Wem nie durch Liebe Leid geschah/Those Who Never Suffered From Love (1922, Heinz Schall) starring Johannes Riemann. With a light touch she then played leading and supporting roles in such films as Menschen und Masken/People and Masks (1923, Harry Piel), Die eiserne Braut/The Iron Bride (1925, Carl Boese) opposite Otto Gebühr, Qualen der Nacht/Torments of the Night (1926, Kurt Bernhardt aka Curtis Bernhardt) with Ernö (Ernst) Verebes, Herkules Maier (1927, Alexander Esway) and Kinderseelen klagen euch an/Children’s Souls Accuse You (1927, Kurt Bernhardt) with Carla Bartheel.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 947/2, 1925-1926. Photo: Alex Binder.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 738. Photo: Treuhand-Film / Mondial A.G. / National. Publicity still for Die eiserne Braut/The Iron Bride (1925, Carl Boese) with Otto Gebühr.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1286/1, 1927-1928.

Millionaire from the Meat Industry
When the sound film was introduced, Claire Rommer also did vocal numbers. She played successfully in the productions Aschermittwoch/Ash Wednesday (1930, Johannes Meyer), Der Walzerkönig/The Waltz King (1930, Manfred Noa) opposite Hans Stüwe, Es geht um alles/It’s About Everything (1932, Max Nosseck) with Luciano Albertini, and Tausend für eine Nacht/A Thousand for One Night (1933, Max Mack). In 1934 she appeared on stage in the Revue Scala – etwas verrückt (Scala - A Little Crazy) in Berlin at the Scala Theater, when her film and stage career suddenly ended because of the seizure of power by the Nazis. In 1927 she had married the Jewish entrepreneur Adolf Strenger. In July 1938 she was excluded from any activity in the German film industry on the grounds that she probably was not Aryan too. In 1940 she emigrated with her husband from France via Lisbon to the USA. There she divorced Strenger and married a multi-millionaire from the meat industry. She never appeared in a film again. Claire Rommer died of pneumonia in 1996, at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4016/2, 1929-1930. Photo Alex Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4383/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Bieber.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6687/1, 1931-1932. Photo Atelier Schneider.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6788/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Schneider, Berlin.

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