European Film Star Postcards

Today a film special on one of the highlights of Cinema Ritrovata 2016, Madame Tallien/Madame Guillotine (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916), featuring diva Lyda Borelli. This Italian historical drama, set during the French revolution is part of the section ITALIA 1916: WOMEN AND WAR.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3271. Photo: Film Cines. Publicity still for Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916), starring Lyda Borellias Teresia Cabarus/Madame Tallien and Amleto Novellias Tallien. Caption: The release of the prisoners and Tallien.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3272. Photo: Film Cines. Renzo Fabiani as Robespierre and Amleto Novelli as Tallien in Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916). Caption: In café Venus in Paris, Robespierre communicates to Tallien who is his benefited conspirer from Bordeaux.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3274. Photo: Film Cines. Lyda Borelli as Teresia Cabarus/Madame Tallien and Amleto Novelli as Tallien in Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916). Caption: The beautiful Teresia, terribly compromised, is saved by the burning love of Tallien who invited her to represent the personage of the 'Goddess of Reason' at the party.

The Goddess of Reason

Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916) is an Italian production by Cines, based on the French play of the same name by Victorien Sardou.

Lyda Borelli stars as Marchioness Teresia Cabarus (in the play called Thérèse de Fontenay), who divorces her adulterous husband (Ettore Barcani) in order to marry young monarchist journalist Jean Guery (Ruggero Barni), but the French Revolution prevents this.

Teresia hides Guery in her house and when the French police searches her house, she pretends he is her husband, returned from the States. Teresia seduces Tallien (Amleto Novelli), member of the Comité au Salut Public, to calm the situation. She acts in public as The Goddess of Reason and becomes a success, enabling her to save many aristocratic head from the guillotine and conspiring with the royalists.

However when Teresia rejects Robespierre (Renzo Fabiani), she puts her life and that of Tallien at risk. The conspirators are arrested and Tallien cannot save Teresia. While the others, including her own husband and Guery, are brought the guillotine, Thérèse remains in prison and meets Tallien who promises to put an end to Robespierre if she becomes his. She agrees heartbroken.

In a heated session at the Convention Tallien attacks Robespierre, who is wounded, arrested and killed at the guillotine, as he had done with so many others before him. Guery is saved from beheading in the nick of time. Thérèse is liberated and knowing that Guery is safe she keeps her promise and becomes Madame Tallien. As a hero she is carried through the city.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3275. Photo: Film Cines. Lyda Borelli as Teresia Cabarus/Madame Tallien, and Amleto Novelli as Tallien in Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916). Caption: Teresia Cabarus gets a passport for Guery from the infatuated Tallien.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3276. Photo: Film Cines. Renzo Fabiani as Robespierre in Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916). Caption: Sergeant Meda injures Robespierre.

Catastrophe

During production a catastrophe occurred, when a footboard collapsed because of the weight of all the extras on it and one extra was killed.

Madame Tallien premiered in Rome on 18 November 1916. It was praised in the Italian press for the realism in depicting scenes from the French Revolution, in particular the scene in the Convention in which Tallien knows to change the pro-Robespierre mood in anti-Robespierre-mood, the start of Robespierre's downfall.

There was also praise for the performances of Lyda Borelli and the male actors Amleto Novelli, Renzo Fabiani and Ruggero Barni.

In Great Britain, the film was originally released in 1917 as Robespierre In 1924 the film was rereleased as Madame Guillotine. The British journal The Bioscope again praised the performances and certain scenes such as the parade with Therese as Goddess of Reason and the scene in the convention.

One of our sources, film historian Vittorio Martinelli mentions in his study Il cinema muto italiano, 1916, II a negative ending with Guery and Tallien killed and Thérèse all alone. This is not the version you can watch on YouTube. I am curious which version we will see at Cinema Ritrovata in Bologna.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3277. Photo: Film Cines. Lyda Borellias Teresia Cabarus/Madame Tallien, and Amleto Novelli as Tallien in Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916). Caption: Teresia with friends in complete oblivion of the terrible moment that drew nigh, were dedicated to the pastoral snobbishness then fashionable.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex / Uff. Rev. St. Terni, no. 3279. Photo: Film Cines. Ruggero Barni as Jean Guery in the silent film Madame Tallien (Mario Caserini, Enrico Guazzoni, 1916). Caption: The last cart. Guery is saved.

Madame Tallien (1916). Source: JOEPINO LANANNA (YouTube).

Sources: Source: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, 1916, II - Italian), Wikipedia and IMDb.

At Cinema Ritrovata 2016, a programme section is focused on director MARIO SOLDATI, AN ECLECTIC MAN AT CINECITTÀ. He often worked with Massimo Serato (1916-1989), like for the historical drama Piccolo mondo antico/Little Old Fashioned World (Mario Soldati, 1941). The Italian film actor had a career spanning over 40 years with more than 140 films. Serato was the virile hero of dozens of Peplum films and Spaghetti Westerns in Italy, but he also played roles in major international films.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 4242-A. Photo: Bragaglia.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 4293. Photo: Bragaglia.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 4294. Photo: Bragaglia.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit., no. 4587-A. Photo: E.N.I.C.

Italian postcard by A. Scarmaglia Ed. Roma (ASER). Photo: Ciolfi, Roma.

Tall, Blonde and Photogenic

Massimo Serato was born as Giuseppe Segato in 1916, in Oderzo, Italy. He abandoned his university studies, to attend the Centro Sperimentale, the Italian Film Academy in Rome.

He made his film debut in Inventiamo l'amore/Let’s Invent Love (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1938). His breakthrough was the historical drama Piccolo mondo antico/Little Old Fashioned World (Mario Soldati, 1941) with Alida Valli, about the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy.

From the early 1940s on, the tall, blonde and photogenic actor starred in films like L'uomo venuto dal mare/Man of the Sea (Belisario L. Randone, Roberto de Ribón, 1942), Giacomo l'idealista/Giacomo the Idealist (Alberto Lattuada, 1943), Le sorelle Materassi/The materassi Sisters (Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, 1944) and Quartieri alti/In High Places (Mario Soldati, 1943-1945).

After the war, he appeared in such Neorealist films like Il sole sorge ancora/Outcry (Aldo Vergano, 1946), Domenica D'Agosto/Sunday in August (Luciano Emmer, 1949) and the tragedy Febbre di vivere/Eager to Live (Claudio Gora, 1953) with Marina Berti.

He also appeared as the athletic hero in popular entertainment like La Traviata/The Lost One (Carmine Gallone, 1949) an adaptation of the opera of Giuseppe Verdi, the adventure Il Ladro di Venezia/The Thief of Venice (John Brahm, 1950) opposite Maria Montezin her last role, the historical drama Lucrece Borgia/Lucretia Borgia (Christian-Jacque, 1953) as the handsome lover of sex symbol Martine Carol, and L'Amante di Paride/The Loves of Three Queens (Marc Allégret, Edgar G. Ullmer, 1954) as one of the three loves of Hedy Lamarr.

Massimo Serato and Irene Galter in Il padrone delle ferriere

Italian postcard for the 'fotoromanzo'Il padrone delle ferriere, starring Massimo Serato and Irene Galter, published in 'Grand Hotel' in 1960. It was based on Georges Ohnet's famous novel Le maitre des forges.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni, no. 6617, 1941. Photo: Ferri / Sovrania Films.

Italian postcard by Bromostampa, Milano, no. 145.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1461. Photo: Agencia Liliana Biancini Sabatella.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin., no. 140/69. Retail price: 0,20 M. Photo: publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 256. Photo: Manuelli, Tirrenia.

Versatile Talent

Massimo Serrato demonstrated a versatile talent during his long career. He starred as the hero or as the bad guy in the Peplum (sword and sandal epics) as well as in the Giallo (the typical Italian thriller), in Spaghetti westerns and in comedies. He also appeared in Fotoromanzi, the popular Italian photo booklets.

Serato eased gracefully into robust character roles in the late 1950s, like in the classic Il Grido/The Cry (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1957).

He appeared in international films like The Naked Maja (Henry Koster, Mario Russo, 1959) starring Ava Gardner, and the extravagant blockbusters El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961) and 55 Days at Peking (Nicholas Ray, 1963) - both starring Charlton Heston.

In Italy he appeared in the Peplums David e Golia/David and Goliath (Ferdinando Baldi, Richard Pottier, 1960) with Orson Welles and Gli amori di Ercole/The Loves of Hercules (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1960) featuring husband and wife Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield.

Other interesting genre films in which he appeared were the SF-comedy La decima vittima/The Tenth Victim (Elio Petri, 1965) with Marcello Mastroianni, the Sexploitation Camille 2000 (Radley Metzger, 1969) as the father of Nino Castelnuovo, and the Spaghetti Western Anda muchacho, spara!/Dead Men Ride (Aldo Florio, 1971) starring Fabio Testi.

A highlight was the beautifully restrained psychological thriller Don't Look Now (Nicholas Roeg, 1973) with Julie Christie.

His final film part was in the James Hadley Chase adaptation L'avvoltoio può attendere/The Vulture Can Wait (Gian Pietro Calasso, 1991) starring Donald Pleasence.

Massimo Serato died in 1989, in Rome, Italy. He had a son, Cellino (1942 or 1943), from an affair with actress Anna Magnani, with whom he later appeared in Camicie rosse/Anita Garibaldi (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1951). Cellino, called Luca Magnani, contracted polio at an early age, and he would spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Scene from Piccolo mondo antico (1941). Source: IPdT-Community (YouTube).

Trailer Il Grido (1957). Source: Danios 12345 (YouTube).

Long scene from Afrodite Dea Dell'Amore/Aphrodite, Goddess of Love (1958). Source: PEPLUMTV (YouTube).

Italian trailer for La Decima Vittima/The Tenth Victim (1965). Source: Neverlando 74 (YouTube).

Theatrical Trailer Don't Look Now (1973). Source: TheGePeU (YouTube).

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

This week our blog is dedicated to the Cinema Ritrovata 2016 festival in Bologna, Italy. We are getting high on the great films from all periods of the cinematic history, found in archives all over the world. For Postcard Friendship Friday, we chose twelve postcards of stars who can be (re)discovered here at one of the five festival screens.

Vera Kholodnaya. Russian postcard, no. 40. Collection: Didier Hanson.
Kholodnaya is the star of Zhizn za zhizn/A Life for a Life (Yevgeni Bauer, 1916), shown in the section '100 Years Ago: A Selection of 1916'.

Paul Heidemann. German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin-Wilm., no. 5233. Photo: R. Dührkoop.
Comedian Paul Heidemann can be seen in the same section in the crazy comedy Die Entdeckung Deutschlands durch die Marsbewohner/The Discovery of Germany by the Martians (Otto Frankfurter, Georg Jacoby, 1916).

Vera Karalli. Russian postcard.
Karalli is the star of another pre-Soviet film of 100 years ago, Umirajuščij lebed’/The Dying Swan (Yevgeni Bauer, 1916).

Elena Makowska. Italian postcard, no. 29.
Newly preserved by the archives of Turin and Bologna is an incomplete version of La
Fiaccola sotto il moggio (Eleuterio Rodolfi, 16), starring Polish-born diva (H)Elena Makowska. Presented in '100 Years Ago: A Selection of 1916'.

Jenny Hasselqvist. Vintage postcard. Photo: Henry B. Goodwin, 1918. Collection: Marlène Pilaete.
Another highlight from 1916 is the Swedish film Balletprimadonnan (Mauritz Stiller, 1916), featuring La Hasselqvist. A new preservation is shown.

Buster Keaton. Soviet postcard, no. 1070. Photo: Phoebus Film (Probably the Ross Verlag card, no. 1037/2, was used for this card, produced in Kiev, now Ukraine). Publicity still for Our Hospitality (1923).
The Keaton Project, officially launched in 2015, continues at Cinema Ritrovato 2016. Our Hospitality is not presented this year, but we simply love to share this newly acquired postcard.

Madeleine Renaud and Paulette Elambert in La Maternelle (1933). Dutch postcard by M.B.&Z., no. 75. Photo: Muntfilm, Amsterdam. Publicity still for La Maternelle/Children of Montmartre (Jean Benoît-Lévy, Marie Epstein, 1933).
Marie Epstein, subject of 'Marie Epstein: cinéaste', was the screenwriter and co-director of at least four of her brother Jean Epstein’s silent films. In 1928 she and Jean Benoît-Lévy began directing poetic films on social issues that placed emphasis on the expressive power of amateur actors and young protagonists. Masterpieces like La Maternelle combined the objectivity of documentaries and the deep emotions evoked by Epstein’s screenplays.

Isa Miranda. Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1937-XV.
Miranda was the glamorous star of Malombra (1942), directed by brilliant and multi-faceted writer, director, and television pioneer Mario Soldati, one of the most inventive figures of 20th-century Italy and subject of the section 'Mario Soldati, an eclectic man at Cinécitta'.

Daniel Gélin. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 361. Photo: Sam Levin.
Arguably the most important section of this Cinema Ritrovato is 'Jean Becker - The very Idea of Freedom'. Becker was the best liked and the most respected among the French filmmakers in the days of the ‘Tradition of Quality’. Gélin starred in his manifesto Rendez-vous de juillet/Rendezvous in July (1949) about young jazz-loving Parisians.

Jean Gabin. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1094. Offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Marcel Bougureau.
Touchez pas au grisbi (Jean Becker, 1954) starring Jean Gabin is one of the greatest Film Noirs, ever.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1842, 1963. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein.
La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty is shown in the section 'Marie Epstein: cinéaste'. Epstein was one of the writers of the screenplay. EFSP presents a film special about this unusual film next week, on 6 July 2016.

French postcard by EDUG, no. 133. Sent by mail in 1961. Photo: publicity still for One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961) with Marlon Brando.
The pre-Leone Western One-Eyed Jacks is part of a 'Tribute to Marlon Brando' at Cinema Ritrovato. Brando, a monument of American cinema, became a legend the very moment he walked through the doors of the Actors Studio. He was the most virile and brazen of the three golden boys of his generation.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.

Gérard Philipe (1922–1959) played the artist Amedeo Modigliani in Montparnasse 19/The Lovers of Montparnasse (1958), one of the highlights of JACQUES BECKER – THE VERY IDEA OF FREEDOM at Cinema Ritrovata 2016. Philipe was adored for his good looks, but he was also a very talented actor. He was sought out by France's preeminent directors for his versatility and professionalism. His early death has elevated him to a near legendary status in France.

Gérard Philipe in Les amants de Montparnasse (1958)

French postcard by Sofraneme, Levallois Perret no. CP 210. Photo: publicity still for Les amants de Montparnasse/The Lovers of Montparnasse (Jacques Becker, 1958) with Gérard Philipe as painter Amedeo Modigliani.

French Postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 371. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 57. Photo: Discina.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 1041. Photo: UFA.

Rave Reviews

Gérard Philipe (sometimes written as Philippe) was born Gérard Philip in Cannes, France in 1922. In 1940, Gérard left school and his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. His mother noticed that he was only interested in acting, but his father was against the idea.

Gérard's father, a successful businessman, was a right-wing extremist and collaborated with the Nazis. After the war, he was forced to exile to Spain to escape a death sentence. Gérard himself was his whole life a staunch social liberal politically-wise.

Actor Claude Dauphin introduced the young Philippe in 1942 to the stage. One of his first parts was as the angel in Sodome et Gomorrhe by Jean Giraudoux in 1943.

Director Marc Allégret decided that the he showed some promise and gave him a small part in his film Les petites du quai aux fleurs/The Girls From the Quai aux Fleurs (Marc Allégret, 1944) starring Odette Joyeux.

With the support of his admirer Jean Cocteau, he entered the Paris Conservatory where, under the tutelage of Georges Le Roy he discovered his passion for live theatre. In 1945 he received rave reviews for his performance in the stage production of Albert Camus’ Caligula.

This success further opened the doors to the cinema. His first leading part in Le pays sans étoiles/Land Without Stars (Georges Lacombe, 1946) opposite Jany Holt got so many favourable reviews that he became a star.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 22. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), Paris, no. 31. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Gérard Philipe and Nicole Besnard in La Beauté du diable (1950)

French postcard by Editions P.I. / Editions du Musée Grévin., Paris, no. 4. Publicity still for La Beauté du diable/Beauty and the Devil (René Clair, 1950) with Nicole Besnard. Captions: Voyage de noces a Venise (Honeymoon in Venice).

Serbian postcard by Sedm Sil.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 51. Photo: Teddy Piaz, Paris.

Tongue-in-cheek Titular Swashbuckler

In 1947, Gérard Philipe exploded upon the European film scene in Le diable au corps/Devil in the Flesh (Claude Autant-Lara, 1947), playing Francois Jaubert, a callow youth in love with much-older and very married Micheline Presle.

Superstardom followed almost immediately: female filmgoers doted upon Philippe's sensitive, handsome features and strapping physique, while men identified with his soulfulness and introspection. Next he would take on prominent roles in such classic films as Une si jolie petite plage/Such a Pretty Little Beach (Yves Allégret, 1949), and La beauté du diable/Beauty and the Devil (René Clair, 1950) as Faust.

He was an international success as the tongue-in-cheek titular swashbuckler Fanfan la Tulipe/Fan-Fan the Tulip (Christian-Jaque, 1952), one of the most popular historical-adventure films made in France.

At Films de France, James Travers reviews: "Not only is the film impeccably made, with lavish production values, stunning cinematography and impressively choreographed fight scenes, but it has a timeless quality which will no doubt ensure it will remain a popular classic for years to come. Philipe excels in this film in what is regarded by many as his finest film role, the indefatiguable womaniser and agile swordsman Fanfan la Tulipe. Philipe is simply brilliant in the role, tackling the numerous swordfights and Henri Jeanson’s sparkling dialogue with equal relish."

He appeared with such great stars of the European cinema as Italian beauty Gina Lollobrigida in Les belles de nuit/Beauties of the Night (René Clair, 1952), with Michèle Morgan in both Les orgueilleux/The Proud Ones (Yves Allégret, 1953) and Les grandes manœuvres/The Grand Maneuver (René Clair, 1955).

In 1956, Philipe starred in and directed a filmization of the old folk tale Till Eulenspiegel, Les aventures de Till L'Espiègle/Bold Adventure (Gérard Philipe, Joris Ivens, 1956). The French-East-German coproduction was not a success. He simultaneously pursued his stage career, with a keen involvement in the Théatre National de Paris, which would endure up until his death. Whilst working at the TNP, Philipe, a strong believer in egalitarianism, would draw exactly the same salary as junior actors. He would also become president of the French actors union, actively promoting the rights of actors.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 73. Photo: Franco-London-Film S.A. Publicity still for Le rouge et le noir/The Red and the Black (Claude Autant-Lara, 1954).

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 1290, 1960. Photo: publicity still for Pot-Bouille/Lovers of Paris (Julien Duvivier, 1957).

Dany Carrel, Gérard Philipe and Danièle Darrieux in Pot-Bouille (1957)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 1294, 1960. Photo: publicity still for Pot-Bouille/Lovers of Paris (Julien Duvivier, 1957) with Dany Carrel and Danielle Darrieux.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, no. 2699. Retail price: 0,20 MDN. Photo: publicity still for Le joueur/The Gambler (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) with Liselotte Pulver.

Gérard Philipe and Anouk Aimée in Les amants de Montparnasse (1958)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin no. 1272, 1960. Photo: publicity still for Les amants de Montparnasse/The Lovers of Montparnasse (Jacques Becker, 1958) with Anouk Aimée.

Legendary Status

Gérard Philipe continued his string of film successes throughout the 1950s. Among these films were the Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation Le joueur/The Gambler (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958) with Liselotte Pulver, and Les liaisons dangereuses/Dangerous Liaisons (Roger Vadim, 1959) opposite Jeanne Moreau.

In 1959 doctors told Philippe that he had liver cancer. On 25 November that year, while working on Luis Buñuel's Le Fievre Monte a El Pao/Fever Mounts at El Pao (Luis Buñuel, 1959), he died at the peak of his popularity. He was just 36 years old.

The news provoked an immediate and intense out-pouring of grief. His early death elevated him to a near legendary status in France. Since 1951, Philipe was married to actress and writer Nicole Fourcade, with whom he had two children, writer and actor Anne-Marie Philipe (1954) and Olivier Philipe (1957).

Nicole adopted the pseudonym Anne Philipe, and wrote two books about her husband, Souvenirs (1960) and Le Temps d'un soupir (1963, No Longer Than a Sigh). In 1961, Gérard's portrait appeared on a French commemorative postage stamp. There is a film festival named in his honor as well as a number of theaters, schools and colleges in various parts of France. He was also very popular in Germany, and a Berlin theatre has been named after him.

Trailer for La Beauté du diable/Beauty and the Devil (René Clair, 1950). Source: entertainmentone (YouTube).

French trailer for Les belles de nuit/Beauties of the Night (1952). Source: Imineo (YouTube).

Trailer for Fanfan la Tulipe/Fan-Fan the Tulip (Christian-Jaque, 1952). Source: Retrotrailer (YouTube).

Compilation of scenes from Les grandes manœuvres/The Grand Maneuver (1955). Source: Slava Batareykin (YouTube).

French trailer for Les amants de Montparnasse/The Lovers of Montparnasse (Jacques Becker, 1958). Source: Gaumont (YouTube).

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

Vittorio Gassman (1922-2000) was one of the greatest Italian theatre and film actors. With his powerful voice he was an extremely versatile, magnetic interpreter. He had an extraordinary career that spanned five decades and included both highlights of the Commedia all'Italiana genre as well as powerful melodramas in which he played the beloved rogue.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 111F. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1954.

Italian postcard by Totalfoto / Ed. Garami, no. 78. Photo: Lux Film. Publicity still for the film Il cavaliere misterioso/The Mysterious Rider (Riccardo Freda, 1948) on Giacomo Casanova. Gassman played Casanova.

Italian postcard by Casa Editr. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (BFF), no. 2962. Photo: Columbia / CEIAD.

Vittorio Gassman and Silvano Mangano in Riso Amaro (1949)

Dutch postcard by Centrafilm, Dordrecht. Photo: Vittorio Gassman and Silvana Mangano in Riso amaro/Bitter Rice (Giuseppe de Santis, 1949). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Instituut.

Dutch postcard by Takken / 't Sticht, no. AX 1677.

Tall, Dark and Handsome

Vittorio Gassman (sometimes written as Gassmann) was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1922, to a father from a wealthy family of German origins and a Pisan mother. At a very young age he moved to Rome, where he first studied law, and then acting at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica(National Academy of Dramatic Art). It was his mother who encouraged Gassman to become an actor.

He made his stage debut in Milan in Dario Niccodemi's Nemica (The Female Enemy, 1942). He then moved to the Teatro Eliseoin Rome. There he specialised in classical plays and established himself as a major stage star.

He made his film debut in the love triangle Preludio d'amore/Love Prelude (Giovanni Paolucci, 1946) with Massimo Girotti and Marina Berti. The following year, the tall, dark and handsome actor starred in five more dramatic or romantic film roles, like opposite Sarah Churchill in Daniele Cortis (Mario Soldati, 1947), La figlia del capitano/The Captain’s Daughter (Mario Camerini, 1947) and opposite Valentina Cortesein L'ebreo errante/The Wandering Jew (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1948).

Then he had his international breakthrough in the Oscar nominated box office hit Riso amaro/Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949), in which he played the fugitive lover of sexy riceworker Silvana Mangano. He had further success playing the villainous Vittorio to Mangano's Anna in Anna (Alberto Lattuada, 1951). Again and again he would repeat this type, the beloved rogue who inflicts pain and pleasure at the same time. There was always a hint of treachery in his wry half smile.

On stage, Gassman achieved major successes with Luchino Visconti's company. He played a vigorous Stanley Kowalskiin Tennessee Williams'Un tram che si chiama desiderio/A Streetcar Named Desire, then emphatic in Shakespeare's Rosalinda or in Vittorio Alfieri's Oreste. He then joined the Teatro Nazionale for a successful performance in Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen.

In 1952 he co-founded and co-directed with Luigi Squarzina the Teatro d'Arte Italiano. They produced the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy, and later staged rare works such as Lucius Annaeus Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus'The Persians.

Italian postcard by Italphoto, no. 260. Photo: Ponti-De Laurentiis.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto no. 828.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1183. Photo: Daily News.

Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 78.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Terni no. 49457. Photo: publicity still for Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961).

Heading for Hollywood

With his natural charisma and his fluency in English Vittorio Gassman scored a number of roles in Hollywood. In 1952, he headed to America to call on Shelley Winters. The two married shortly thereafter and Gassman was contracted by MGM.

He appeared in the cold war pastiche The Glass Wall (Maxwell Shane, 1953) with Gloria Grahame, the musical Sombrero (Norman Foster, 1953) with Pier Angeli, the Film Noir Cry of the Hunted (Joseph H. Lewis, 1953), Rhapsody (Charles Vidor, 1954) with Elizabeth Taylor, and finally Mambo (Robert Rossen, 1954) with both Silvana Mangano and Shelley Winters.

These mediocre films did little to popularise him in the US and later Gassman himself considered his 1950's Hollywood films among the worst he had made during his long career. He eventually tired of trying to make it in America and after divorcing Winters, he returned to the Italian stage.

1956 was a key year in Gassman's career. He then established the Teatro Popolare Italiano, his own theatre troupe. He played a memorable Othello with Salvo Randone, exchanging with him the roles of the Moor and Iago. In the television series Il Mattatore (translates as Monstre sacré or stage giant) he obtained unexpected success and Il Mattatore became the nickname that accompanied him for the rest of his life.

He cut his directorial teeth on a biography of Edmund Kean, a famous British stage actor for Kean (Vittorio Gassman, Francesco Rosi, 1956). The film was not a success but it did serve to add fuel to Gassman's reputation for occasionally hamming up his roles.

In the cinema he also played Anatole in War and Peace (King Vidor, 1956) opposite Audrey Hepburn and he re-established himself as a star in the Rififi parody I soliti ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958) with Renato Salvatori. His part as an inept ex-boxer turned criminal in I soliti ignoti was his first entry in the commedia all'italiana genre.

So far, he had been known only as a dramatic actor, not a comic one. Gassman himself was dubious of the results, but his role was so successful that he would become one of the mainstays of the genre, together with Alberto Sordi, Marcello Mastroianni, Nino Manfrediand Ugo Tognazzi.

Other famous film comedies featuring Gassman include the Oscar nominated La Grande Guerra/The Great War (Mario Monicelli, 1959) with Alberto Sordi, the sequel Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti/Fiasco in Milan (Nanni Loy, 1960) with Claudia Cardinale, the road movie Il sorpasso/The Easy Life (Dino Risi. 1962) with Jean-Louis Trintignant, La marcia su Roma/March on Rome (Dino Risi, 1962) with Ugo Tognazzi, the anthology I mostri/15 from Rome (Dino Risi, 1963), La congiuntura/Hard Time for Princes (Ettore Scola, 1965) opposite Joan Collins, L'Armata Brancaleone/Brancaleone’s Army (Mario Monicelli, 1966) with Gian Maria Volonté, and the sequel Brancaleone alle crociate/Brancaleone at the Cross (Mario Monicelli, 1967).

He also appeared in the international slapstick comedy 12 + 1 (Nicolas Gessner) with Sharon Tate and Orson Welles, and in the thriller In nome del popolo italiano/In the Name of the Italian People (Dino Risi, 1971).

Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. 5936. Vittorio Gassman in Sombrero (Norman Foster, 1953), distributed by Filmax.

Spanish postcard by Edicion Archivo Bernajos.

Spanish postcard by Raker, no. 1089. Sent by mail in 1964.

Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. C-248, 1965.

Spanish postcard, no. 58.

Career in High Gear

In 1975 Vittorio Gassman won the Cannes Film Festival awardand the Premi David di Donatello(the Italian Oscar) for his portrayal of a sightless captain in Profumo di donna/Scent of a Woman (Dino Risi, 1974). The film was later remade in Hollywood as Scent of a Woman (Martin Brest, 1992) with Al Pacino.

It was a highlight in Gassman’s career, which then continued in high gear through the mid-1980s with such notable films as C'Eravama Tanto Amati/Those Were the Years (Ettore Scola, 1974) with Nino Manfredi, Il Deserto dei Tartari/The Desert of the Tartars (Valerio Zurlini, 1976) with Giuliano Gemma, Caro Papà/Dear Father (Dino Risi, 1979), La terrazzo/The Terrace (Ettore Scola, 1980) with Marcello Mastroianni, and La Famiglia/The Family (Ettore Scola, 1987) with Fanny Ardantand Stefania Sandrelli.

He worked frequently abroad. In the US he made films like A Wedding (Robert Altman, 1978) and The Nude Bomb (Clive Donner, 1980) with Sylvia Kristel, and in France he appeared in La Vie est un Roman/Life is a bed of Roses (Alain Resnais, 1983) with Geraldine Chaplin.

After 1985, Gassman began to appear less in films, though he did have memorable turns in Mortacci/Death to You (Sergio Citti, 1989 with Malcolm McDowell, the comedy Zio Indegno/The Sleazy Uncle (Franco Brusati, 1989) with Giancarlo Giannini, and the Spanish film El Largo Invierno/The Long Winter of ’39 (Jaime Camino, 1991). He played a crime lord in the tense Hollywood drama Sleepers (Barry Levinson, 1996) starring Kevin Bacon and Robert De Niro.

In the theatre, Gassman accepted the challenge of directing Adelchi, one of the less known and more difficult works by Alessandro Manzoni. He toured with his Teatro Popolare Itinerante through Italy and performed this production for half a million spectators. His other productions included works of most of the famous authors of the 20th century, and the classics of William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the Greeks. He also founded a theatre school in Florence, which formed many talented actors.

Gassman had such an interesting, flexible voice and such an outstanding acting talent that he made everything that he read entertaining and intense. In the mid-1990s, a satirical show on Italian national television gave him a 2 minutes space named Gassman Lo Legge (Gassman Reads) where he just ‘acted’ a few lines from banal, utterly non-poetic texts, e.g. a telephone bill or the classifieds page in a local newspaper. The segment was a success.

He won the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 1996 and Spain’s Prince of Asturias prize in 1997. In his late years he was a victim of depression. Vittorio Gassman died of a heart attack in his Roman home in 2000.

He had been married to three actresses: from 1944 till 1952 to Nora Ricci (with whom he had a daughter, actress Paola Gassman); from 1952 till 1954 to Shelley Winters (mother of his daughter Vittoria); and from 1972 till his death in 2000 to Diletta D'Andrea (with whom he had a son, Jacopo). His divorces created a scandal in Roman Catholic Italy of the 1950s, but he did never shy away from some controversy. From a relationship with actress Juliette Mayniel a son, actor Alessandro Gassman (1965), was born.

In his last film, the Mafia comedy La Bomba/The Bomb (Giulio Base, 1999), Vittorio Gassman appeared both with his son Alessandro Gassman and his ex-wife Shelley Winters, whose last film this was too.

Scene from Riso amaro/Bitter Rice (1949). Source: Proccu (YouTube).

Trailer for I soliti ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). Source: Criterion (YouTube).

Short episode La strada è di tutti/The Street is for Everybody from the anthology film I mostri/15 from Rome (1963). Source: Stephanie Laporte (YouTube).

French subtitled trailer for C'Eravama Tanto Amati/Those Were the Years (1974). Source: Buzzati (YouTube).

Trailer of Sleepers (1996). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).

Sources: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Volker Boehm (IMDb), Antonio Monda and Richard Peña (New York Film Festival), Britannica Online, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Georges Wague (1874-1965) was a French mime, teacher and silent film actor. Between 1907 and 1922 he also performed in more than forty films. He started his film career with the silent film L'Enfant prodigue/The Prodigal Son (Michel Carré, 1907), where he played a Pierrot. His last film performance was in Faust (Gérard Bourgeois, 1922).

French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Waléry, Paris.

French postcard. Photo: Waléry, Paris. Georges Wague and Marietta Ricotti in L'Aragonaise by A. Gailhard. L'Aragonaise was a pantomime by Wague, with songs by Gailhard/Gaillard. Ricotti was a singer from the Paris Opera.

Cantomime

Georges Wague was born Georges Marie Valentin Waag in Paris in 1874.

In the early 1890s Wague participated in the soirées of La Plume, the literary magazine founded by Léon Deschamps, where he was noticed for his verse recitals. Xavier Privas proposed to sing songs while Georges Wague mimed them, creating a new artistic expression they called 'cantomime'.

In the cantomimes, which began in 1893 at the Café Procope, Wague performed on stage with a singer and piano in the wings. Often the character was Pierrot.The established mime Félicia Mallet assisted Wague in developing his highly individual style during the early part of his career. Cantomimes included Noël de Pierrot (1894) and Le Testament de Pierrot (1895).

Wague staged his first pantomime at the Théâtre Montparnasse in 1895, Le Voeu de Musette. Many others followed over the years. To revive his career after his return from military service in 1898, Georges Wague began to participate in soirées of the 'Veillées artistiques de Plaisance'. Cantomimes included Pierrot Chante (1899) and Sommeil Blanc (1899). Sommeil blanc (White Sleep) was written for him by Xavier Privas, with music by Louis Huvey.

Due to rivalry with other performers of cantomimes, Wague created a company with Christiane Mandelys (or Mendelys), who became his wife, to preserve his rights as inventor of the concept. With his troupe, he played La Roulotte (The Caravan) directed by Georges Chartron. He won success and began touring in France and abroad, leading to presentation of the last show at the Exposition Universelle (1900) where he played Pierrot parts such as unfaithful Pierrot and Christmas Pierrot.

Georges Wague decided to move into white pantomime, where large gestures and movements are made, and the pantomime is dramatic. For this he changed his stage play: his mime consisted of gestures reduced to the simplest attitudes to express the full range of thought in constant movement. He did not use the conventional alphabet of mimes in this original form of expression.

Georges Wague and Colette Willy in La Chair (1907)

French postcard. Photo: Waléry, Paris. Publicity still for the mime drama La Chair/The Flesh (1907) with Colette. The drama was written by Georges Wague and Leon Lambert, with music by Albert Chantrier.

French postcard by Editions artistique de Walery. Photo: Walery, Paris. Publicity still for the play Giska la Bohémienne (1908) by Ed. Leroy.

More than forty films

Georges Wague taught pantomime, notably to the writer Colette, with whom he made a tour from 1906 to 1912 and caused a scandal with presentations of La Chair (Flesh) where Colette was largely naked. Wague performed in many stage pantomimes including Scaramouche, Barbe Bluette and L'homme aux poupées, and played silent roles in ballet and opera.

Between 1907 and 1922 he also performed in more than forty films. He started his film career with the silent film L'Enfant prodigue/The Prodigal Son (Michel Carré, 1907), where he played a Pierrot. His last film performance was in Faust (Gérard Bourgeois, 1922).

He continued to play a white-faced Pierrot at the Opéra-Comique during the 1920s. In 1925 he performed with the flamenco dancer Antonia Mercé y Luque, 'La Argentina', in El amor brujo at the Théâtre Trianon-Lyrique. From 1916 Wague taught at the Conservatoire national supérieur d'art dramatique. Wague taught mimes who went on to great fame such as Christine Kerf, Caroline Otéro, Angèle Héraud and Charlotte Wiehé.

He also taught actors and opera singers how to use their bodies to express their feelings. This skill was much neglected in opera, where often the singers were chosen for their voice rather than their appearance and had little acting ability. Wague collaborated with the mime and actor Jean-Louis Barrault when he played Jean-Gaspard Deburau in the film Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1943), the basis for his 1946 mime piece Baptiste.

Georges Wague was awarded the Grande médaille de vermeil by the city of Paris in 1962. In 1965, he died in Menton in the Alpes-Maritimes, aged 91.

Georges Wague and Christine Kerf in Épreuve Fatale

French postcard by Editions artistique de Walery. Photo: Walery, Paris. Publicity still for the play Épreuve Fatale (1913) with Christine Herf, by Leon Charbonnel and Emile Artaud.

French postcard by Walery, Paris, 1929. Photo: Walery, Paris. Publicity still for the Ballets Argentina / Operas Comique production of Triana by Albeniz. Collection: Didier Hanson.

French postcard. Photo: Waléry, Paris.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Alain Souchon (1944) is a French singer-songwriter and actor. He has released 15 albums and has played roles in a dozen films, most notably opposite Isabelle Adjani in the sensual thriller L'été Meurtrier/One Deadly Summer (1983).

French postcard by Edition Lyna, Paris, no. 2094. Photo: Pierre Guyot / RCA.

French postcard by Éditions Damilla, Paris, no. 95025. Photo: G. Schachmes / Sygma.

Isabelle Adjani and Alain Souchon in L'Été Meurtrier (1983)

French postcard by Ebullitions, no. 17. Photo: publicity still for L'Été Meurtrier/One Deadly Summer (1983) with Isabelle Adjani.

Love on the Run

Alain Souchon was born Alain Kienast in Casablanca, French Protectorate of Morocco (now Morocco), in 1944. His family on his mother's side is Swiss, and he has dual French-Swiss nationality.

Six months after he was born, his family moved to France. When he was 15 his father died in an accident. His mother sent him to a French college in England, but due to problems registering he decided to stay in London and work.

Upon returning to France he took up the guitar, influenced by English and American music. In 1970, he married and had his first son. He continued to play in the cabarets and bars in the Rive Gauche of Paris. Souchon signed his first contract in 1971 with the Pathé-Marconi label but had no success.

Bob Socquet, the artistic director of RCA encouraged him to perform his song L'amour 1830 at the Rose D'Or of Antibes contest. Souchon then began to collaborate with composer/arranger Laurent Voulzy. They would write together, but each released albums under his own name.

Souchon's first hit was J'ai 10 ans (1974), from the album of the same name. He continued releasing albums and in 1978 wrote the theme for François Truffaut's film L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979). At this time his second son was born. In 1980, he was invited to perform at Paris´s most famous music hall, the Olympia.

French postcard by La Roue Tourne, Paris.

French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron in the Signes Zodiaque series, no 14: Alain Souchon - Gemeaux (Gemini).

French postcard by Editions Humour à la Carte, Paris, no. A-C 375. Photo: Frédéric Schall / Virgin France. Caption: C'est comme vous voulez.

One Deadly Summer

In 1980, Alain Souchon also began his acting career with a part in the romantic drama Je vous aime/I Love All of You (Claude Berri, 1980) as one of the four former lovers, who Catherine Deneuve for dinner of New Year's Eve at the same time in her house. Next he appeared in the action comedy Tout feu, tout flamme/All Fired Up (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1982) with Yves Montand and Isabelle Adjani.

His most notable film is the thriller L'été Meurtrier/One Deadly Summer (Jean Becker, 1983), in which he starred opposite Isabelle Adjani. The film was a massive hit in France gaining 5,137,040 admissions and was the 2nd highest grossing film of the year. The film won several awards. Souchon was nominated for the César, the French Oscar, but did not win. Craig Butler in his review at AllMovie: “the surprising performance comes from singer Alain Souchon, who is just about perfect as the man with whom Adjani becomes involved.”

Later, he appeared in Jane B. par Agnès V./Jane B. By Agnès V (1988), Agnès Varda’s personal documentary about Jane Birkin, and in the TV film Le soldat Rose/The Pink Soldier (Jean-Louis Cap, 2006).

Following the album On avance, he left RCA and signed with Virgin Records. In 1989 La beauté de Ava Gardner was voted best title of the year by the Victoires de la Musique, an annual French award ceremony. Then came Souchon's biggest hit Foule sentimentale from his million-selling album C'est déja ça (1993). The #1 hit became one of the most emblematic songs of the singer. At the 20th anniversary of the Victoires de la Musique in 1995, Alain Souchon received the award for best ´Chanson Originale´ for Foule Sentimentale.

In 1996, he received the ´le Prix Vincent Scotto´ award given by the SACEM (Societe des Auteurs Compositeurs) for his song Sous les Jupes des Filles. Souchon returned in 2005 with the hugely successful album La vie Théodore which contained the hit single ...Et si en plus y'a personne. In 2014, his joint album Alain Souchon & Laurent Voulzy reached the top of the charts in both France and Belgium.

A fan-made music video for L'été Meurtrier/One Deadly Summer (1983). Source: Cine, film, movie (YouTube).

Clip of Foule sentimentale. Source: Alain Souchon (YouTube).

Clip et si en plus y'a personne. Source: Alain Souchon (YouTube).

Sources: Craig Butler (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Today, a film special at EFSP about the unusual French-Czech coproduction La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady, Robert Hossein and René Lefèvre. In the middle of the Cold War, there was this non-political film about love and nature. The East-German film distributor Progress produced this series of cards for the film.

Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein in La liberté surveillée (1958)

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 1, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein.

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 2, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein.

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 3, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein.

A good use of colour and cinemascope

La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) is a French-Czechoslovakian co-production, with two directors and a cast with both French and Czech actors, all speaking their language.

The screenplay was co-written by Colette Audry, Marie Epstein, Joseph Picek and Vladimír Vlcek.

Filmed on location in Eastern Europe, the photography by Vladimír Novotný and Gustave Raulet of the landscapes is beautiful, with a good use of colour and cinemascope.

The stars are Marina Vlady, who was of Russian descent and Robert Hossein, born in the Ukraine, but he plays a French man in the film.

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 4, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958).

Marina Vlady in La liberté surveillé (1958)

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 5, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady.

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 6, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958).

Robert Hossein and Marina Vlady in La liberté surveillée (1958)

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 8, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein.

Marina Vlady in La liberté surveillée (1958)

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 9, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady.

Yearning to live in communist Czechoslovakia

The first scene of La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty shows Hossein with the police hot on his heels.

DB DuMonteil at IMDb: "But, and that's the main originality of the screenplay, we only learn why in the very last scene.The rest of the movie is not really a thriller. The impostor subject does not really interest the writers who depict some time in Czechoslovakia."

What is unusual here is that the hero is a Frenchman who yearns to live in communist Czechoslovakia. His wish is granted when, mistaken as a masseur of a French boating team, he manages to elude the democratic authorities long enough to scamper over the Czech border.

It turns out that he is motivated by romance rather than politics. The film shows a race, a funny scene when Hossein is taught his job by an ageing René Lefèvre, then a holiday on a peaceful river, complete with country fair, campfires, songs, and a love affair between Hossein and Vlady.

DuMonteil notes that 'River movie' best depicts this unusual film, which has almost nothing to do with the gangster flicks which were thriving in France during the 1950s.

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 11, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady.

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 13, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein.

Robert Hossein in La liberté surveillée (1958)

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 15, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Robert Hossein.

René Lefèvre and Robert Hossein in La liberté surveillée (1958)

Big East-German card by Progress, no. 13002, 16, 1963. Publicity still for La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with René Lefèvre and Robert Hossein.

Sources: DB DuMonteil (IMDb), Unifrance and IMDb.

German film actress Karin Baal (1940) has appeared in over 90 films since 1956. She started as a teenage rebel in the cult film Die Halbstarken (1956) and became one of the brightest stars of the Wirtschaftswunder cinema.

Karin Baal and Horst Buchholz in Die Halbstarken (1956)

Austrian postcard by Lichtbild-Vertrieb Paula Weizmann, Wien, no. F 7. Photo: Interwest / Union-Film / Haenchen. Publicity still for Die Halbstarken/Teenage Wolfpack (Georg Tressler, 1956) with Horst Buchholz.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 190. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 291. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Joe Niczky / Ufa.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 334. Photo: Klaus Collignon / Ufa.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 392. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Georg Michalke / Ufa.

Zeitgeist

Karin Baal was born as Karin Blauermel in Berlin, Germany, in 1940. Her mother was a seamstress. She and her brother grew up under difficult social conditions without a father, and living with their grandmother. After finishing secondary school, she attended a school for fashion design.

In 1956, she learned that a young actress was sought for the film Die Halbstarken/The Hooligans (Georg Tressler, 1956), which embodied the so-called Zeitgeist. Without any acting training the 16-year-old Baal was chosen out of 700 applicants to play the main female role opposite Horst Buchholz. She also got a three-year actor training contract.

Filmportal.de: “In Georg Tressler's film, Baal made a convincing performance as the 15-year old Sissy Bohl, who – with her self-confidence and aplomb – is superior to the boys and in the end does not shy away from taking up arms.”

From then on she was cast in roles as a blonde rebel. She played a supporting role as a prostitute in Das Mädchen Rosemarie/The Girl Rosemarie (Rolf Thiele, 1958), a film adaptation of the scandalous life and death of the prostitute Rosemarie Nitribitt (Nadja Tiller).

She played another ‘loose girl’ in Arzt ohne Gewissen/Doctor Without Scruples (Falk Harnack, 1959), she was a teenage delinquent in Der Jugendrichter/The Judge and the Sinner (Paul Verhoeven, 1959) opposite Heinz Rühmann, and she seduced the father (Rudolf Prack) of her friend in Die junge Sünderin/The Young Sinner (Rudolf Jugert, 1960).

In 1959 she finished her acting training and had her first stage roles in München (Munich). From then on, she regularly appeared on stage. In 1959, she married boyfriend and fellow actor from Die Halbstarken, Karl Heinz Gaffkus, with whom she has a son, Thomas. They divorced two years later, and Baal married in 1962 with actor Helmuth Lohner. In 1967 their daughter Therese Lohner was born, who is now an actress too.

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2096. Photo: Interwest / Union. Publicity still for Die Halbstarken (1956).

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf. Photo: Interwest / Union / Haenchen. Publicity still for Die Halbstarken (1956).

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2329. Photo: Interwest / Union / Haenchen. Publicity still for Die Halbstarken/The Hooligans (Georg Tressler, 1956) with Horst Buchholz.

German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel. Photo: Interwest / Union / Haenchen. Publicity still for Die Halbstarken/The Hooligans (Georg Tressler, 1956) with Horst Buchholz.

Karin Baal and Albert Rueprecht in Der müde Theodor (1957)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2507. Photo: DFH / Lilo. Publicity still for Der müde Theodor/Tired Theodore (Géza von Cziffra, 1957) with Albert Rueprecht.

Threatened Blonde Innocence

In 1961 Karin Baal was awarded the Silver Bambi awardand the prize of the German Film Critics for Best Young Actress. In the 1960s she appeared in several Edgar Wallace thrillers, including Die Toten Augen von London/The Dark Eyes of London (Alfred Vohrer, 1961) with Joachim Fuchsberger, and Der Hund von Blackwood Castle/The Hound of Blackwood Castle (Alfred Vohrer, 1967).

Her parts as the threatened blonde innocence in these thrillers were a break with the independent characters she had played in the 1950s. In 1966 she was again awarded, this time with the Golden Camera by the magazine Hörzu. She incidentally appeared in international films, such as the thriller Hannibal Brooks (Michael Winner, 1969) starring Oliver Reed.

From the 1970s on, Baal was offered less film roles and focused on television. She often guest-starred in such Krimi series as Der Kommissar/The Commissioner (1975), Tatort (1979 and 1990), Derrick (1980 and 1981), Die Männer vom K3/The Men from K3 (1987 and 1991), Ein Fall für Zwei/A Case for Two (1990 and 1995), Der Alte/The Old Man (1990), Marleneken (1990), Doppelter Einsatz/Double Down (1994), Rosa Roth (1995) and Polizeiruf 110/Police 110 (1996).

On TV she also played leading roles in the six-part series Ein Jahr ohne Sonntag/A Year Without Sundays (1970) opposite Götz George, and in the 13-part TV series Wenn Engel reisen/When Angels Travel (Uwe Friessner, 1993). She also worked in popular family TV shows like Liebling Kreuzberg (1985), Schwarzwaldklinik/Black Forest Clinic (1985), and Praxis Bülowbogen/Practice Bülowbogen (1990).

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3567. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Wesel / Arion Film.

German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 4489. Retail price: 25 Pfg. Photo: Mrszalek / Kurt Ulrich-Film/DFH. Publicity still for So angelt man keinen Mann/That's No Way to Land a Man (Hans Deppe, 1959).

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 626. Photo: Kurt Ulrich-Film / Dt. Film Hansa (DFH) / Marszalek. Publicity still for So angelt man keinen Mann/That's No Way to Land a Man (Hans Deppe, 1959).

Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam no. 1324. Photo: Weisse / Ufa.

German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen no. 616. Photo: Erwin Schneider.

Karin Baal in Zwischen Schanghai und St. Pauli (1962)

German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf, no. 1898. Photo: Rapid / Gloria / Guzman. Publicity still for Zwischen Schanghai und St. Pauli/Voyage to Danger (Roberto Bianchi Montero, Wolfgang Schleif, 1962).

Alcohol Problems and Break-downs

Karin Baal collaborated three times with filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She played Franz Biberkopf’s (Günther Lamprecht) sister-in-law in the monumental TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979), a resistance fighter in Lili Marleen (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980) and Barbara Sukowa’s mother in Lola (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1981).

In Ula Stöckl's Erikas Leidenschaften/Erika's Passions (1976), a two-person film with Vera Tschechowa, Baal's role starts out as a 'little woman' but becomes more and more confident in the course of the film. In Desperado City (Vadim Glowna, 1980), Baal played a cab driver and was able to show her former strength once more as part of the personality of an elderly woman.

Other prominent film roles were her parts in Reinhard Hauff‘s Der Mann auf der Mauer/The Man at the Wall (1982), and Margarethe von Trotta‘s Rosa Luxemburg (1986) starring Barbara Sukowa. Highlights of her theatre work were the plays Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum/The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1977) based on the novel by Heinrich Böll, Geschlossene Gesellschaft/No Exit (1986) based on Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos, and Mord um Mitternacht/Murder at midnight (1986) based on the thriller by Francis Durbridge.

Baal divorced from Helmut Lohner in 1977. Her third husband was actor Volker Eckstein, who died of cancer in 1993. His death rushed her in a severe personal crisis of seven years. Alcohol problems and break-downs damaged her career.

In 2006 she made her stage comeback with the play 8 Frauen/8 Women in which she appeared opposite her daughter, Therese Lohner. At the same time she was honoured with a retrospective at the Düsseldorf Film Museum. In 2000 she married the 30 years younger Kurdish actor Cevdet Çelik, from whom she lives separately since 2004.

Among her more recent films are Der Tunnel/The Tunnel (Roland Suso Richter, 2001) with Sebastian Koch, based on a true story about a group of East Berliners escaping to the West, and the drama Sieben Tage Sonntag/Seven days Sunday (Niels Laupert, 2006) of two bored 16-year-old boys who commit a murder on an innocent human being.

Her most recent film is Vergiss nie, dass ich Dich Liebe/Remember I'll Always Love You (Carlo Rola, 2011). In 2012, she published her memoir Ungezähmt – Mein Leben (Untamed - My Life). Karin Baal lives in Berlin.

Scene from Die Halbstarken (1956). Source: Susiedarling69 (YouTube).

Long scene from Das Mädchen Rosemarie/The Girl Rosemarie (Rolf Thiele, 1958). Source: TV Kult (YouTube).

Trailer for Die Toten Augen von London/The Dark Eyes of London (1961). Source: RialtoFilm (YouTube).

German trailer for What Have You Done to Solange? (1971). Source: Thomas Crommentuyn (YouTube).

Trailer for Lola (1981). Source: RialtoFilm (YouTube).

Sources: Stephanie D’heil (Steffi-line) (German), Filmportal.de, Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (German), Prisma.de (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

French photographer Sam Lévin (1904-1992) was one of the most important glamour photographers of the 20th century. He photographed generations of actors and actresses, artists, politicians and royalty. Lévin's work embraces the Golden Age of French cinema perfectly. For 20 years, he was the photographer of Brigitte Bardot, and his photos of her contributed to a radically new image of women in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Alain Delon. French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 22. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Marina Vlady. French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 74. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Johnny Hallyday. French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 171. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Right From the Heart

Sam Lévin was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine in 1904. Two years later, the rising anti-Semitism forced his parents to move to France. Sam Lévin attended classes to become a chemic, but since the age of 7, Lévin’s passion had been photography.

As a young man he could start to work as a photographer for a Northern-French newspaper and soon Lévin sold his pictures to such magazines as Match and Paris Soir and later to the New York Times.

In 1934, Lévin and his assistant Lucienne Chevert started their own studio in Paris. Their cooperation at this portrait studio continued till Chevert’s death in 1982.

In 1935 Sam Lévin was asked to replace a sick photographer at a film set. This proved to be a great start for a career as a set photographer. For the famous film maker Jean Renoir, Lévin made the set photos for the film classic La grande lllusion/The Great Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937). Renoir taught Lévin that "you never should film (photograph) something that doesn’t come right from the heart".

This would become Lévin's motto, as well in his portrait photography. Renoir asked Lévin also to photograph his films La Marseillaise/The Marseillaise (Jean Renoir, 1938), La bête humaine/The Human Beast (Jean Renoir, 1938) starring Jean Gabin, and La règle du jeu/The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939) with Nora Gregor.

Later, Lėvin would also work with other major European filmmakers of his time: Max Ophüls, René Clair, Henri Georges Clouzot and Jean Cocteau.

Gérard Philipe. French Postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 371. Photo by Sam Lėvin.

Simone Signoret. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 195. Publicity card for Les carbones Korès. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Martine Carol. French postcard by Edition du Globe (EDUG), Paris, no. 321. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Main Claim to Fame

Sam Lévin’s main claim to fame is not his set photography but his portrait photography. He became one of the greatest celebrity photographers in France. He combined ‘chic’ with infallible technique and thus he built an incomparable portrait gallery.

In the intimacy of his beautifully decorated studio and thanks to his modest character and his personal interest, many film stars felt comfortable. The results were pictures which showed the natural beauty of his models. He allowed the spectator to desire. Sam Lévin suggested eroticism and sexuality, but did not show them. His erotic suggestions are shiny eyes or lips and the stylisation of the body like an amphora.

Among the film stars whom he portrayed are Jean Marais, Simone Signoret, Jean Gabin, Romy Schneider, Alain Delon, Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, Catherine Deneuve, Yves Montandand Edith Piaf. Even the Empress of Persia, Farah Diba, and Princess Grace of Monaco asked him to make their picture.

Skilled in his use of colour, he glorified actresses by creating a modern, striking and timeless image. Using black and white, Sam Lévin studied each face and worked on the pose and the lighting to model his figure. Out of France, Lévin also worked for Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) and for the Cinecittà studios in Rome.

There Lévin pictured such international superstars as Burt Lancaster, Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardner, Orson Welles, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

Gina Lollobrigida. French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), Paris, no. 360. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Dominique Wilms. French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 394. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Brigitte Bardot. French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 601. Photo: Sam Lévin, 1956.

Sensuality and Slight Immorality

Sam Lévin's strongest work is with Brigitte Bardot. 'Discovering' the girl in the mid 1950s, he was the one who considerably contributed to Bardot's early career with images 'of sensuality and slight immorality.'

During this time, France was looking for a new symbol of the nation and via Levin's images, found this in Bardot. Portraying her in vibrant colours, with tousled hair and bare feet, Levin broke away from traditional studio shoot conventions to create a new fashion aesthetic and sexual vocabulary.

Thus he conjured a refreshing image of childish naivete, coupled with an almost animalistic sexuality, which made Bardot a young tabula rasa on which France was able to stamp their objectives of modernity. Levin's photos of Bardot were one of the main forces that propelled Bardot's image to compete with Hollywood sirens for publicity.

In 1960 it was rumoured that Lėvin's photo of Bardot from behind in a white corset sold more postcards than that of the Eiffel Tower.

In 1992, Sam Lévin died in Paris, shortly after he was honoured with a major exhibition in Japan. His wife, Sabine Lévin donated his complete photographic heritage to the French state: about 400,000 negatives with the portraits of more than 4,000 people made between 1931 and 1985.

Brigitte Bardot. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 346. Photo: Sam Lėvin / Ufa.

Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/96, ca. 1961. Photo Sam Lėvin. Publicity photo for Amours célèbres (Michel Boisrond, 1961). Alain Delon and Brigitte Bardot starred in the segment Agnès Bernauer.

Brigitte Bardot. French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1018. Photo: Sam Lévin.

See also our Sam Lévin album at Flickr with more than 300 postcards.

Sources: Ruud van Capelleveen (Dutch - Absofacts2), RMN Grand Palais (French), and IMDb.

Singer-songwriter and poet Georges Brassens (1921-1981) is an iconic figure in France. With his guitar, he performed more than a hundred of his poems, as well as texts from authors such as Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine, and Louis Aragon. Between 1952 and 1976, he recorded fourteen albums that include several popular French Chansons. Most of his texts are black humour-tinged and often anarchist-minded. His most famous film is Porte des Lilas/Gates of Paris (René Clair, 1957).

French postcard by PSG, offered by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 1131. Photo: Aubert-Philips.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris. no. 965. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

French postcard by Editions Cap Theojac, Toulouse. Photo: Jimmy Rague. Caption: J'ferai la tombe buissonnière. J'quitterai la vie à reculons. (I'll skip the tomb. I leave life backwards).

A gift for poetry and creativity

Georges Charles Brassens was born in 1921 in the town of Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier. Brassens grew up in the family home in Sète with his mother, Elvira Dagrosa, father Jean-Louis, half-sister Simone, and paternal grandfather Jules. His mother was a devout Roman Catholic, while his father was an easy-going, generous, open minded, anticlerical man. Brassens grew up between these two starkly contrasting personalities, who nonetheless shared a love for music. His mother, Simone and Jules, were always singing. This environment imparted to Brassens a passion for singing that would come to define his life.

A poor student, Brassens performed badly in school. Alphonse Bonnafé, his literature teacher strongly encouraged the 15-years-old Brassens’s apparent gift for poetry and creativity. Bonnafé would later write the first Brassens biography in 1963. Georges listened constantly to his early idols: Charles Trenet, Tino Rossi, and Ray Ventura.

At age seventeen, Georges and his gang started to steal from their families and others. Georges stole a ring and a bracelet from his sister. The police found and caught him, which caused a scandal. The young men were publicly characterised as ‘voyous’ (high school scum). Brassens was expelled from school.

Following a short trial as an apprentice mason in his father's business, he moved to Paris in 1940 to live with his aunt and work at the Renault car factory. In the meantime, he learned piano and wrote some of his first original compositions. He stayed there after World War II had broken out while he felt that this was where his future lay and wrote his first collection of poems. Brassens published two short poetry collections in 1942, thanks to the money of his family and friends.

In 1943, he was forced by the Germans to work in a labour camp at a BMW aircraft engine plant in Basdorf near Berlin in Germany. Here Brassens met some of his future friends, such as Pierre Onténiente, whom he called Gibraltar because he was "steady as a rock." Onténiente later became his right-hand man and his private secretary.

After being given ten days' leave in France, he took refuge in a small cul-de-sac called 'Impasse Florimont', in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. Without much else to occupy him, Brassens spent his days composing songs and writing music, eventually teaching himself the guitar based on his prior experience with the mandolin. There he lived for several years with its owner, Jeanne Planche and her husband Marcel, in relative poverty: without gas, running water, or electricity. Brassens remained hidden there until the end of the war five months later, but ended up staying for 22 years. Planche was the inspiration for Brassens's song Jeanne.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 238. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 239. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 760. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 536. Photo: Staval.

Gates of Paris

In 1946, after the war had ended, Georges Brassens published the first of a series of virulent, black humour-tinged articles in the anarchist journal Le Libertaire. The following year, he also published his first novel, La Lune Écoute Aux Portes, and met Joha Heiman, the woman he would love - and write about - for the remainder of his life.

His friends who heard and liked his songs urged him to go and try them out in a cabaret, café or concert hall. He was shy and had difficulty performing in front of people. At first, he wanted to sell his songs to well-known singers such as les frères Jacques.

In 1952 he met the singer Patachou, owner of a very well known cafe, Les Trois Baudets. Though Brassens had never considered himself a singer, Patachou convinced him to try his hand at performing himself. A bass player present at the audition, Pierre Nicolas, quickly joined Brassens in support, and would serve in that capacity for the remainder of the singer's career. Jacques Brel and Léo Ferré came also into the music industry with the help of Patachou. With her help, Brassens met Polydor exec Jacques Canetti, and he landed a record deal.

His first single, Le Gorille, was released later in 1952, and stirred up controversy with its strong anti-death penalty stance; in fact, it was banned from French radio until 1955. In these years, Brassens achieved fame with his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and articulate, diverse lyrics. He won the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque de l'Academie Charles Cros in 1954 for his EP Le Parapluie, and spent much of the year touring Europe and northern Africa.

In 1957, he made his film debut in Porte des Lilas/Gates of Paris (René Clair, 1957). An old bum (Pierre Brasseur) becomes infatuated with a pretty young girl (Dany Carrel) who gets entangled with a young gangster (Henri Vidal). Brassens played an important part as the bum’s friend, L'Artiste, a taciturn, solitary bard, whose character seems based on Brassens himself.

Peter Beagle at IMDb: “The film turned out to be a delightful, warmhearted work, holding up remarkably well on repeated viewings, and Brassens makes an excellent deadpan foil for the great Pierre Brasseur. And the songs he wrote for the film remain among the best of his classic repertoire.”

Brassens performed his songs in several other films, but his main focus was live performing. He later on made several appearances at the Paris Olympia and at the Bobino music hall theatre. He toured with Pierre Louki, who wrote a book of recollections entitled Avec Brassens. During these performances he accompanied himself on acoustic guitar. Most of the time the only other accompaniment came from his friend Pierre Nicolas with a double bass, and sometimes a second guitar (Barthélémy Rosso, Joël Favreau).

He released several more LPs over the remainder of the 1950s, during which time chronic kidney ailments began to affect his health, resulting in periodic hospitalizations. In the following decades he continued to tour. His songs often decry hypocrisy and self-righteousness in the conservative French society of the time, especially among the religious, the well-to-do, and those in law enforcement. The criticism is often indirect, focusing on the good deeds or innocence of others in contrast. His elegant use of florid language and dark humor, along with bouncy rhythms, often give a rather jocular feel to even the grimmest lyrics. Brassens’s lyrics are difficult to translate, though his work is translated in more than 20 languages.

Georges Brassens died of cancer in 1981, in Saint-Gély-du-Fesc, having suffered health problems for many years. He was 60. Brassens rests at the Cimetière le Py in Sète. Steve Huey at AllMusic: “Along with Jacques Brel, he became one of the most unique voices on the French cabaret circuit, and exerted a tremendous influence on many other singers and songwriters of the postwar era. His poetry and lyrics are still studied as part of France's standard educational curriculum.”

French postcard.

French postcard by Editions Cap Theojac, Toulouse. Photo: Jimmy Rague. Caption: Quand vous ne nous le caressez pas, chèries, vous nous les cassez. (When you do not stroke us, darlings, you break us).

French postcard by Editions Cap Theojac, Toulouse. Sent by mail in 1986. Photos: Jimmy Rague.

Gorges Brassens sings Le Gorille. Source: fabrizio lencioni (YouTube).

Scene from Porte des Lilas/Gates of Paris (René Clair, 1957) with Brassens singing Au Bois de Mon Coeur. Source: Daniel Bernard (YouTube).

Sources: Peter Beagle (IMDb), Steve Huey (AllMusic), Wikipedia and IMDb.

On 27 June, 86-years old Bud Spencer has died in Rome, Italy of natural causes. The huge Italian actor with his trademark black beard was the popular star of many Spaghetti Westerns and low-budget action films of the late 1960s and 1970s. In 18 films he co-starred with his long time film partner Terence Hill. In his youth, Spencer (then: Carlo Pedersoli) was the first Italian to swim 100 metres in less than a minute. He also had a degree in law, and he registered several patents.

German autograph card by BRAVO.

With Terence Hill. German autograph card by BRAVO.

Italian postcard. Promotional card for Io Sto Con Gli Ippopotami/I'm for the Hippopotamus (Italo Zingarelli, 1979).

Bitten By the Acting Bug

Bud Spencer was born Carlo Pedersoli in Santa Lucia, a historical part of the city of Naples, in 1929. He was educated as an attorney and he even got a Juris Doctor degree, but Carlo was bitten by the acting bug.

His first film role was as a member of the Praetorian guard in the MGM epic Quo Vadis (Mervyn Leroy, 1951), shot in Italy. During the 1950s, he appeared in minor parts in various films made for the Italian market. Italian director Mario Monicelli gave him his first big role in Un eroe dei nostri tempi/A Hero of Our Times (Mario Monicelli, 1955) with Alberto Sordi.

Pedersoli was also a successful swimmer. In 1950, he was the first Italian to swim the 100 m freestyle in less than one minute (59.5 seconds). In the 1951 Mediterranean Games, he won a silver medal in the same 100 m freestyle event.

He participated in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, reaching the semi-finals in the 100 m freestyle (58.8 s heats, 58.9 s semi final). Four years later, in Melbourne, he also entered the semi-finals in the same category (58.5 s heat, 59.0 s semi final). As a water polo player, he won the Italian Championship in 1954, with S.S. Lazio. His swimming career ended abruptly in 1957.

Pedersoli appeared in some more Italian films such as the Peplum Annibale/Hannibal (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, Edgar G. Ulmer, 1959) starring Victor Mature, but for most of the 1960s his film career would stay minor league.

Italian postcard by Alterocca, Ferni.

Terence Hill. Italian postcard by Alterocca, Ferni.

God Forgives... I Don't!

In 1967 Carlo Pedersoli changed his screen name to Bud Spencer. Reportedly he chose this pseudonym to pay homage to Hollywood star Spencer Tracy as well as to his favourite Czech-American beer, Budweiser. Other sources report that he found it funny to call himself ‘Bud’ despite his weight and his height at 1.94 m, which made him beloved as 'the big friendly giant' of the screen.

With Terence Hill a.k.a. Mario Girotti, he appeared in the Spaghetti Western Dio perdona... Io no!/God Forgives... I Don't! (Giuseppe Colizzi, 1967). Their pairing was a coincidence while a foot injury had forced lead actor Peter Martell (Pietro Martellanza) off the picture. Terence Hill took over the part of the pistolero Cat Stevens, and the rest is history.

Their dual outings made both actors famous, particularly in Europe. At IMDb, reviewer Benjamin Gauss calls Dio perdona... Io no!/God Forgives... I Don't! one of their best films: “Although the movie has many gags and humorous parts, God Forgives... I Don't! is not one of the usual Spencer/Hill comedies, but a pretty brutal and rather serious Spaghetti Western”.

Dio perdona... Io no!/God Forgives... I Don't! wasn’t their first film together. Both had also appeared in the Peplum Annibale/Hannibal (1959). After the success of Dio perdona... Io no! followed such Westerns as I quattro dell'Ave Maria/Ace High (Giuseppe Colizzi, 1967) with Eli Wallach, and La collina degli stivali/Boot Hill (Giuseppe Colizzi, 1969) with Woody Strode.

Then they played two brothers in Lo chiamavano Trinità.../They Call Me Trinity (Enzo Barboni a.k.a. E.B. Clucher, 1970), a comedic spoof of the Spaghetti Western genre. They Call Me Trinity became Italy’s top-grossing title.The enormous success lead to the sequel ...continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità/Trinity Is STILL My Name! (Enzo Barboni, 1971) with Harry Carey Jr., which became an even bigger success.

Most of these films have alternate titles, depending upon the country and distributor. Some films have longer Italian versions that were edited for release abroad. Hill and Spencer also appeared together in other action genres, such as in the pirate adventure Il corsaro nero/Blackie the Pirate (Lorenzo Gicca Palli, 1971), the action film ...Altrimenti ci arrabbiamo!/Watch Out, We're Mad (Marcello Fondato, 1974) with Donald Pleasence, and another actioner I due superpiedi quasi piatti/Crime Busters (Enzo Barboni, 1977).

Practically all of Bud Spencer's films have him playing the role of a bearded, balding, and brawny omnipotent who usually ends a fist fight by striking a hammer-like blow on the top of his opponent's head.

Bud Spencer and Terence Hill in Trinity is still my name (1971)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità/Trinity is still my name (Enzo Barboni a.k.a. E.B. Clucher, 1971) with Terence Hill.

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 53189.

Bud Spencer and Baldwin Dakile in Piedone l'africano (1978)

Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 43 157. Photo: publicity still for Piedone l'africano/The knock-out cop (Steno, 1978) with Baldwin Dakile.

Extralarge

Bud Spencer also appeared solo in many films. He played in the Spaghetti Westerns Oggi a me... domani a te!/Today It's Me (Tonino Cervi, 1968) starring Brett Halsey aka Montgomery Ford, and Un esercito di cinque uomini/The Five Man Army (Don Taylor, Italo Zingarelli, 1969) with Peter Graves.

Spenver made a rare entry in the horror genre in 4 mosche di velluto grigio/4 Flies on Grey Velvet (Dario Argento, 1971) with Mimsy Farmer. Then he played a dramatic role as a man innocently kept in prison in Torino nera/Black Turin (Carlo Lizzani, 1972) with Françoise Fabian as his wife.

Later films include the action-packed potboilers Piedone lo sbirro/Piedone, the cop (Steno, 1973), and Lo chiamavano Bulldozer/They Call Him Bulldozer (Michele Lupo, 1978) with Raimund Harmstorf. Spencer also wrote the complete or partial screenplay for some of his films.

His feature film career slowed down after 1983, shifting more toward television. He also became a jet airplane and helicopter pilot in 1972. He established Mistral Air in 1984, an air-mail company that also transported pilgrims. He later sold it to Poste Italiane to buy a textile mill that produced clothes for children. He also has registered several patents.

In the 1990s he acted on TV in the comic action series Extralarge (Enzo G. Castellari, 1990-1993) and Noi siamo angeli/We Are Angels (Ruggero Deodato, 1997), both with Philip Michael Thomas, best known from the 1980s TV hit Miami Vice. His final film with Terence Hill was Botte di Natale/Troublemakers (Terence Hill, 1994).

After he made a film with internationally renowned Italian director Ermanno Olmi, Cantando dietro i paraventi/Singing Behind Screens (2003), Spencer confessed that was perhaps the first time he felt he was an actor. “I always said that I was only a character” as opposed to an actor, he said. The adventure-drama is loosely inspired to real life events of Chinese pirate Ching Shih. The film won three David di Donatello and four Nastro d'Argento Awards.

In 2005, Pedersoli briefly entered politics. Then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi asked him to run as a regional councilor in Lazio for the centre-right Forza Italia party, but he was not elected. That same year he was awarded with the Caimano d'oro (Gold Caiman) by the Italian Swimming Federation. Two years later, he received swim and water polo coach diplomas from the Italian Swimming Federation's president Paolo Barelli.

Bud Spencer continued to appear on TV, and could be seen in the Italian Giallo-comedy television series I delitti del cuoco/Recipe for Crime (Alessandro Capone, 2010) and in an episode of the American comedy series Ninja the Mission Force (2013). Since 1960, Carlo Pedersoli was married to Maria Amato. They had three children: Giuseppe (1961), Christine (1962) and Diamante (1972).

Pedersoli passed away “peacefully” in Rome on 27 June 2016, his son Giuseppe said in a media statement. Spencer said sports taught him humility. “One day you wake up and someone goes better than you. And you’re not anyone anymore. It’s the same way in cinema.”

Trailer of I quattro dell'Ave Maria/Ace High (1968). Source: Bud Spencer Official (YouTube).

Trailer of ...continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità/Trinity Is STILL My Name! (1971). Source: spencerhilltrailer (YouTube).

Trailer for Pari e dispari/Odds and Evens (1978). Source: Bud Spencer Official (YouTube).

Trailer for Non c'è due senza quattro/Double Trouble (1984). Source: spencerhilltrailer (YouTube).

Sources: Jon C. Hopwood (IMDb), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Nick Vivarelli (Variety), The Washington Times, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

After a short illness, German actor Götz George has passed away in Hamburg, Germany on 19 June 2016. George (1938-2016) was a popular film and theatre star for five decades. He gained international stardom on television in the Krimi TV series Tatort as the maverick police detective Horst Schimanski. George was 77.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 23/6/3264, 1957. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: DEFA / Wenzel. Publicity still for Alter Kahn und Junge Liebe/Old Barge, Young Love (Hans Heinrich, 1957).

German postcard by Rüdel Verlag, no. C 16. Photo: Rialto / Constantin / Vogelmann. Still for Der Schatz im Silbersee/The Treasure of Silver Lake (Harald Reinl, 1962).

German collectors card. Photo: Constantin / Rialto. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964).

Promotion card for Pioneer, Die jeans mit der nummer.

Ufa-Nachwuchsstudio

Götz George was born as Götz Schulz into an actors family in Berlin in 1938. His father Heinrich Georgewas a famous film and theatre star of his era; his mother Berta Drews was a well-known character actress. George is named after his father's favourite character, the Imperial knight Götz von Berlichingen, immortalised by Goethe.

After the war, his father was imprisoned in the former Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen by the Soviets and died, exhausted and starving, in 1946, after a botched appendix operation at the Soviet concentration camp Speziallager Nr. 7 Sachsenhausen.

George grew up in Berlin with his elder brother Jan and his mother. He went to school in Berlin-Lichterfelde and later attended the Lyzeum Alpinumin Zuoz. In 1950 George made his stage debut at the Hebbel-Theater in Berlin, performing a role in William Saroyan's Mein Herz ist im Hochland.

In 1953 he was able to get a small film role next to Romy Schneiderin Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht/When the White Lilacs Bloom Again (Hans Deppe, 1953). In the same year he played, as he would often do from then on, next to his mother in William Shakespeare's Richard III on stage.

From 1955 to 1958 he studied at the Berlin Ufa-Nachwuchsstudio(the Ufa drama school). During that period, he starred in the DEFA comedy Alter Kahn und Junge Liebe/Old Barge, Young Love (Hans Heinrich, 1957).

The crucial part of his acting education, he received between 1958 and 1963. Following his mother's advice he occasionally played at the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen under the direction of Heinz Hilpert. After Hilpert's death, George would never join a fixed theatre company again, although he did regularly perform on tours and as a guest performer.

German postcard, no. ED 54. Photo: Constantin. Still from Der Schatz in Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962).

German postcard, no. E 58. Photo: Constantin. Still from Der Schatz im Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962).

German postcard, no. E 61. Photo: Constantin. Still from Der Schatz im Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962).

Karl May Westerns

After some supporting parts during the 1950s, Götz George broke through with film audiences and critics in the romance Jacqueline (Wolfgang Liebeneiner, 1959) with Johanna von Koczian. George was awarded the Bundesfilmpreis (the Gold Ribbon – a major German Film Award) for Best Newcomer and the Preis der Filmkritik(the German Critics Award).

Between 1959 and 1969 he appeared in 26 cinema features. First followed roles in Kirmes/The Fair (Wolfgang Staudte, 1960) playing a desperate Wehrmacht deserter, the thriller Die Fastnachtsbeichte/The Carnival Confession (William Dieterle, 1960), Der Teufel spielt Balaleika/Until Hell Is Frozen (Leopold Lahola, 1961), Mörderspiel/Murder Party (Helmut Ashley, 1961) with Magali Noël, Unser Haus in Kamerun/Our House in Cameroon (Alfred Vohrer, 1961) and the drama Das Mädchen und der Staatsanwalt/The Girl and the Prosecutor (Jürgen Goslar, 1962) with Elke Sommer.

He became well-known to a broad audience when, during his theatre tour in Göttingen, producer Horst Wendlandt persuaded him to play in the Karl May series of Westerns, which he started in 1962 with the successful Der Schatz im Silbersee/Treasure of Silver Lake (Harald Reinl, 1962). It was originally planned to give George the lead role of the farmer son Fred Engel, but this plan was abandoned when Lex Barkerbecame engaged, playing the role of Old Shatterhand.

In 1962 George received the public Bambi-award as the most popular German actor. The following years he often performed in comedies like Liebe will gelernt sein/Love Has To Be Learned (Kurt Hoffmann, 1963) and action-oriented films as the war film Herrenpartie/Destination Death (Wolfgang Staudte, 1964) which benefited from his physical presence.

George performs all stunts himself, like in his lead role as sheriff in the Euro-western Sie nannten ihn Gringo/Man Called Gringo (Roy Rowland, 1965). Later he appeared in such films as the horror film The Blood of Fu Manchu (Jesus Franco, 1968) with Christopher Lee, and the war film Commandos (Armando Crispino, 1968) with Lee Van Cleef.

He also appeared in the experiment Le vent d'est/East Wind (Groupe Dziga Vertov – a.o Jean Luc Godard, 1970) with Gian Maria Volonté. Filmportal:"Although he enjoyed great popularity, George always looked for new challenges as an actor."

German postcard, no. ED 62. Photo: Constantin. Still from Der Schatz in Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962).

Götz George and Karin Dor in Der Schatz im Silbersee

German postcard, no. ED 65. Photo: Constantin. Still from Der Schatz in Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962).

Götz George, Karin Dor, Der Schatz im Silbersee

German postcard, no. E 76. Photo: Constantin. Still from Der Schatz im Silbersee (Harald Reinl, 1962).

Auschwitz Commander

In the 1970s, Götz George turned primarily to stage roles and to television, including many episodes of Krimis like Der Komissar (1970-1973), Derrick (1978), and Der Alte/The Old Fox (1978-1979). Hansgünther Heyme signed him in 1972 to the Kölner Schauspielhaus, where George played Martin Luther in Dieter Forte's Martin Luther und Thomas Münzer.

It was not until 1977 that he was cast in a prominent film role again. He gave a highly praised performance in Aus einem Deutschen Leben/Death Is My Trade (Theodor Kotulla, 1977) as Franz Lang, a character modeled after Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss.

Notable stage appearances were in Troilos and Cressida, and in Endstation Sehnsucht (A Streetcar Named Desire), as Stanley Kowalski. His most important stage achievement, in his own opinion, was the lead role in Büchner's Dantons Tod during the Salzburger Festspiele(Salzburg Festival) in 1981.

In 1986 and 1987 George, together with Eberhard Feik and Helmut Stauss, stage-managed Gogol's Revisor. Performing in Anton Tschechow's Platonov (1990), George went on his hitherto last theatre tour. He later admitted in an interview he feared the glances of the audience on stage.

Stewart Granger and Götz George in Unter Geiern

German postcard by ISV, no. C 11. Photo: Constantin. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964) with Stewart Granger.

Elke Sommer and Götz George in Unter Geiern

German postcard by ISV, no. C 13. Photo: Constantin. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (1964, Alfred Vohrer) with Elke Sommer.

German postcard by ISV, no. C 16. Photo: Constantin. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964).

German postcard by ISV, no. C 20. Photo: Constantin. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964).

German postcard, no. 43. Photo: Constantin / Rialto. Publicity still for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (Alfred Vohrer, 1964). Caption: 'Nur allzugern sind die Geier bereit, Martin zu hängen' (All too glad, the vultures are ready to hang Martin (Götz George)).

Schimanski

Götz George had his greatest popular success in the 1980s on television. In Tatort TV films broadcast from 1981 to 1991 by the WDR, he portrayed police officer Horst Schimanski. This rough-hewed, working-class cop from Duisburg eventually became a cult figure. Later, George kept returning to the role, playing Schimanski in 48 episodes of Tatort over the course of 32 years. Aside from their success in Germany, the Schimanski films have introduced George to TV audiences worldwide: 427 million people have watched so far.

The series Schulz & Schulz (1989-1993), dealing with the issue of the German reunification, gave him the opportunity to show his talents as a comedian in a double role, as did the role of a industry consultant in the series Morlock (1993-1994), which was very far away from the roughneck charm of Schimanski.

The films Abwärts/Out of Order (Carl Schenkel, 1984) with Renee Soutendijk, and Zahn um Zahn/A Tooth for a Tooth (Hajo Gies, 1985) which was based on the TV-series Tatort, were both successful at the box office and among critics. In 1985, George received the Charlie-Chaplin-Schuh(German Cinema Award) and the Bundesfilmpreis (Gold Ribbon) as best German film actor.

After starring in another Schimanski-adaption for the cinema, Zabou/The Crack Connection (Hajo Gies, 1987) and the action thriller Die Katze/The Cat (Dominik Graf, 1988) opposite Gudrun Landgrebe, George appeared in the film Der Bruch/The Breach (Frank Beyer, 1988), the first East-West-German co-production. The location of his next film was Argentina, where he starred in Blauäugig/Blue-Eyed (Reinhard Hauff, 1989).

German postcard by Stöckel & Co., Hannover.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 2.002, 1964. Retail price: 0,20 DM.

German postcard by WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Köln). Photo: WDR / Michael Böhme. Publicity still for Tatort (1981-1991).

The Death Angel of Auschwitz

In 1991, Götz George played a lead role in the social satire Schtonk (Helmut Dietl, 1991) about the forged Hitler diaries. It was a big success in Germany among audience and critics, and the official German nomination for the Oscar. For this performance, George again received the Bundesfilmpreis (Gold Ribbon) as best actor.

An impressive role was his TV appearance in Der Sandmann/The Sandman (Nico Hofmann, 1995) in which he portrayed the alleged serial killer and writer Henry Kupfer as a cold, calculating and manipulative intellectual. Another remarkable TV performance was the title role in Die Bubi-Scholz-Story/The Bubi Scholz Story (Roland Suso Richter, 1997), the trauma of an aged, broken boxer.

Always seeking a great diversity in his choices and not afraid of taking risks, he played the serial killer Fritz Haarmann in Der Totmacher/Deathmaker (Romuald Karmakar, 1995). For this film he received the Coppa Volpi, the actor's award of the Venice Film Festival in 1995 and, once more, the Bundesfilmpreis (Gold Ribbon) in 1996. In the same year he again appeared in another highly successful comedy Rossini (Helmut Dietl, 1996) with Mario Adorf.

George then starred in the gay comedy Das Trio/The Trio (Hermine Huntgeburth, 1997), and the thriller Solo für Klarinette/Solo for Clarinet (Nico Hofmann, 1998), a film adaption of the successful novel by Elsa Lewin. Next Götz George starred as Nazi-Doctor Dr. Josef Mengele - the ´death angel of Auschwitz, who killed more than 300.000 people, in Nichts als die Wahrheit/After the Truth (Roland Suso Richter, 1999). In 2000 he played the advertiser Eddie Kaminski in Viktor Vogel - Commercial Man/Advertising Rules! (Lars Kraume, 2001), he was strange bird Heinrich in the drama Gott ist tot/God is Dead (Kadir Sözen, 2003) and designer Jost in Maria an Callas/Maria on Callas (Petra K. Wagner, 2005).

After a six-year-intermission, Schimanski returned to German TV-screens as Schimanski in 1997. Schimanski and George's other roles in numerous successful TV features have made him the most well-known and mostly decorated German actor of our time. In 2002 Götz George played one of the leads in the TV film Mein Vater/Coming Home (Andreas Kleinert, 2002) which won the Emmy Award for best foreign feature film in 2003. The Schimanski-episodes Das Geheimnis des Golem/The Secret of the Golem (2004) and Asyl/Asylum (2002) were nominated for the Emmy in 2004.

In 2007, Götz George received the Founders' Honorary Award of the German Television Award for his career achievement as an actor. In 2013, he starred in a very personal project: the biopic George (Joachim Lang, 2013). In this TV-film, he portrayed his father, Heinrich George, whose legacy is overshadowed by his appearance in Nazi propaganda films. In 2014 George was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz, Germany's Federal Cross of Merit.

Götz George was married to Loni von Friedl from 1966 to 1976. She gave birth to their daughter Tanja-Nicole in 1967. Since 1997 he lived together with Hamburg journalist Marika Ullrich. The couple married in 2014. George died 19 June 2016, but his death was kept secret until he was buried in Hamburg.

Trailer for Unter Geiern/Among Vultures (1964). Source: RialtoFilm (YouTube).

German trailer for Wartezimmer zum Jenseits (1964). Source: RialtoFilm (YouTube).

German trailer for Aus einem Deutschen Leben/Death Is My Trade (1977). Source: Filmportal (YouTube).

German trailer for Abwärts/Out of Order (1984). Source: disc-planet.ch (YouTube).

German trailer for Das Trio/The Trio (1997). Source: Edition Salzgeber (YouTube).

Sources: Scott Roxborough (The Hollywood Reporter), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

On 25 June, French actress Nicole Courcel (1931-2016) died. She appeared in 43 films between 1947 and 1979. Though Courcel is mostly unknown outside of France, she graced the screen with a number of sensitive performances through the 1950s and 1960s. Courcel was 84.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 809, 1960.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 808, 1958. Retail price: 0,20 DM.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 58A. Offered by Les carbones Korès Carboplane. P.I. was the French licency holder for the UFA. Photo: Unifrance Film / UFA.

French postcard by Editions P.I., no. 660. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Youth Culture

Nicole Courcel was born Nicole Marie-Anne Andrieux in Saint-Cloud, a western suburb of Paris, in 1931. Her father was a French journalist and her mother came from Monaco. Some of her early childhood was spent in Catholic boarding schools and with her grandmother in the small township of Martel.

While in her mid-teens, Nicole began acting in amateur theatre. She studied acting at the Cours René Simon in Paris, and from 1947, she served as an extra in a few films.

At 18, she won a major role in Rendez-vous de juillet/Appointment with Life (Jacques Becker, 1949), opposite Daniel Gélin and Brigitte Auber. Rendez-vous de juillet has been credited as the first post-war European film to accurately depict the ‘youth culture’. The teenagers in the film shuttle between theatre classes, jazz bars and coffee houses and seem rather ill-equipped for ‘real life’. The film won the critics' award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Nicole adopted the stage name Courcel from her character (Christine Courcel) in Rendez-vous de juillet (1949). Under this name, she worked with neorealist writer-director Marcello Pagliero at the drama Les Amants de Brasmart/The Lovers of Brasmart (1950) in which she played the girl of Franck Villard.

The following years, she had notable parts in such productions as the romantic drama La Marie du port/Marie of the Port (Marcel Carné, 1950) opposite Jean Gabin, Sacha Guitry's historical spectacle Si Versailles M'Etait Conté/Royal Affairs in Versailles (1954), the Jean-Paul Sartre drama Huis clos/No Exit (Jacqueline Audry, 1954) with Arletty, and La Sorcière/The Blonde Witch (André Michel, 1956) starring Marina Vlady.

I.S. Mowis at IMDb:"An actress of considerable poise, beauty and sensitivity, Courcel reached the peak of her popularity just prior to the beginning of the New Wave movement." A popular success was Papa, Maman, la Bonne et Moi/ Papa, Mama the Maid and I (Jean-Paul Le Chanois, 1954) with Robert Lamoureux.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 151. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 1713. Photo: Sam Lévin / Unifrance Film.

German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3897. Photo: Sam Lévin / Unifrance Film.

French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), Paris, no. 99. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Compassionate But Possessive and Jealous

Nicole Courcel is best known for her complex role in Les Dimanches de Ville d'Avray/Sundays and Cybele (Serge Bourguignon, 1962), based on a novel by Bernard Eschasseriaux. The exquisitely photographed Les Dimanches de Ville d'Avray won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award in 1962.

Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Her most widely circulated film was also one of the most hauntingly beautiful French productions of the 1960s. In René Clement's Sundays and Cybele, Nicole Courcel played Madeleine, the compassionate but possessive and jealous nurse of mental patient Hardy Kruger.”

Courcel made a few international appearances. She played a French piano teacher in the Heinz Rühmanncomedy, Ein Mann geht durch die Wand/The Man Who Walked Through the Wall (Ladislao Vajda, 1959), and a nurse in the cold war drama, Verspätung in Marienborn/Stop Train 349 (Rolf Hädrich, 1963), starring Sean Flynn, son of Errol Flynn and Lily Damita. She also had a small part, as Raymonde, in the psychological thriller The Night of the Generals (Anatole Litvak, 1967) starring Peter O’Toole.

In the following decade Nicole Courcel was seen in the adventure comedy L'aventure, c'est l'aventure/Money Money Money (Claude Lelouch, 1972) and the coming-of-age comedy La Gifle/The Slap (Claude Pinoteau, 1974) with Lino Ventura and Isabelle Adjani. However, she confined her acting from then on more and more to the small screen. She could often be seen in period drama, notably in the title role of the Gustave Flaubert adaptation Madame Bovary (Pierre Cardinal, 1974).

Later in life, she appeared in different TV films, including Credo (Jacques Deray, 1983) with Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Mini-series such as Les Thibault/The Thibaults (Jean-Daniel Verhaeghe, 2003) with Jean Yanne. Her final screen appearance was in the Alexandre Dumas adaptation Milady (Josée Dayan, 2004) as Jeanne De Breuil, the grandmother of the title figure (Arielle Dombasle).

Nicole Courcel died on 25 June 2016 in Paris, France. She was 84. Courcel was the mother of French television personality and food critic Julie Andrieu. In 1980, Courcel published a memoir dedicated to her daughter, Julie tempête.

French postcard by O.P., Paris, no. 93. Photo: Teddy Piaz, Paris.

Yugoslavian postcard by Studio Sombor.

French postcard by Imp. de Marchi Frères, Marseille.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), I.S. Mowis (IMDb), Thomas Sotinel (Le Monde - French), Culturebox (French), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Il romanzo di Maud/Maud's romance (1917) was the second film Diana Karenne directed herself, after Lea (1916). She also played the lead. On the Italian postcards with French (!) and sometimes Italian captions in this post, the Ambrosio production is called Demi vierges, after the title of the French book by Marcel Prevost on which the film is based.

Diana Karenne in Il romanzo di Maud/ Demi-vierges

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4035. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "Maud, don't play with my passion". For this post we followed the postcard numbers, but the numbering does not seem to follow the narrative.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4037. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "The secret anxieties pass inadvertently without disturbing the party rhythm."

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4038. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "One step further and I throw myself from the window."

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4039. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "But if you will love your husband? No only you, forever!"

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4040. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "Faithful to her promise, she goes to her sweet rendez-vous."

Just a modern woman?

Il romanzo di Maud (Diana Karenne, 1917) is based on Les demi-vierges (1895) by Marcel Prevost. Polish born diva of the silent Italian cinema Diana Karenne plays the free-spirited Maud de Rouvre. Alberto Capozzi plays Maxime and Francesco Cacace acts as Julien.

Maud has an affair with an opportunistic and dubious gentleman, Julien de Suberceaux. When their relationship has an impasse, Maud sees new perspectives in the rich provincial noble Maxime de Chantel. Julien doesn't give up and forces her to see him in secret.

When Maud en Maxime are about to marry, the jealous Julien tells Maxime the truth, but Maud denies all and chases him away. When Julien threatens to kill himself, Maud coldly responds that she doesn't care. Julien shoots himself.

When Maxime forces her to tell, Maud confesses her former affair, but says she only loves Maxime now. Eventually, Maxime, though, cannot forgive Maud and abandons her.

The story is drenched in 19th century bourgeois ideology, i.e. the woman can only succeed in a rat race for a rich marriage with her beauty as only weapon, as the perspective of a working career is considered humiliation. Is the blasé, calculating and flirtatious Parisian Maud in fact just a modern woman?

The film was heavily censored in Italy. The Italian censor not only ordered many cuts, but also forced Ambrosio to change the original title from Les demi-vierges into Il romanzo di Maud. However, after first screenings the film was mostly distributed as Les demi-vierges. Today Il romanzo di Maud is considered lost.

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4041. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "And his eyes express the passion that his lips dare not speak."

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4042. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "It is tea time."

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4043. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "I love you Julien... that should be enough for you!"

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4044. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "But the token of love was not collected by Maxime."

Italian postcard by IPA CT Duplex, Terni, no. 4045. Photo: Film Soc. An. Ambrosio, Torino (Turin). Caption: "A gaze, a smile and so love is born."

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Il cinema muto italiano, 1917 - Italian) and IMDb.

Former Cuban actress, dancer and sex-symbol Chelo Alonso (1933) was a star in the Italian cinema of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In several sword and sandal epics she played femme fatales with fiery tempers and she did sensual dance scenes, mixing Afro-Cuban rhythms with ‘bump and grind’. In the DVD era, the ‘Cuban H-bomb’ became a cult heroine for many international B-film buffs.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/118.

Sensual, Exotic Style

Darkly stunning Chelo Alonso was born Isabella Garcia in 1933 in Central Lugareño, Cuba, to a Cuban father and a Mexican mother. At a very young age, it became evident that Isabella possessed a great talent for dancing. At 17, she began performing seriously in Havana and soon earned notoriety at Cuba's National Theatre for her sensual, exotic style.

As Chelo Alonso, she toured many cities all over the world, including Havana, Puerto Rico, St. Domingo, Haiti, Miami, New Orleans, New York (Broadway), and finally she arrived in Paris in 1957.

At the Folies Bergère, she was the main star and billed as the ‘new Josephine Baker’, who had become famous at the Folies more than 30 years before her. Alonso was billed as the ‘Cuban H-Bomb’, and mixed her native Latin Rhythms such as Mambo and Son, and fused them with the classic ‘bump and grind’.

Soon her sensual beauty and allure were discovered for the cinema. She went to the Mecca of the European film industry at the time, Rome. Many of Alonso's later films were Peplums, Italian sword and sandal films in the style of Le Fatiche di Ercole/Hercules (Pietro Francisci, 1958). This box office sensation had starred bodybuilder Steve Reeves and had created a wildly popular new film genre. Hercules paved the way for several Italian B-films attempting to emulate its success. These films required exotic talent, and Alonso's dark beauty fit the bill.

Chelo Alonso was first noticed internationally as Erica the slave dancer and conspirator in Nel segno di Roma/Sign of the Gladiator (Guido Brignone, 1959), which starred Anita Ekberg and Georges Marchal. Alonso’s billing was upped due to a particularly erotic dance number, and she became the second female lead. Her picture and name on the posters became even more prominent than either of the two stars, reportedly much to Anita Ekberg’s displeasure.

That year Alonso also played a princess opposite Lex Barker and Massimo Serratoin La Scimitarra del Saraceno/The Pirate and the Slave Girl (Piero Pierotti, 1959), and she starred with Steve Reeves himself in Il Terrore dei barbari/Goliath and the Barbarians (Carlo Campogalliani, 1959). Her part in the latter film earned Alonso the award of ‘Italian Cinema's Female Discovery’.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/196. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

Anita Ekberg. French postcard by De Marchi Frères, Marseille.

Che Guevara's Invitation

With her volcanic temperament, highly distinctive cheekbones and wild mane of dark hair, Chelo Alonso went on to star in a dozen Peplums and other adventure films. She charmed muscleman co-stars like Steve Reeves, Mark Forest, Jacques Sernas, Rik Battaglia and Gordon Mitchell in such films as Maciste nella valle dei re/Maciste the Mighty (Carlo Campogalliani, 1960), Terrore della maschera rossa/Terror of the Red Mask (Luigi Capuano, 1960), La regina dei tartari/The Queen of the Tartars (Sergio Grieco, 1960), and Morgan il pirata/Morgan the Pirate (André De Toth, Primo Zeglio, 1960).

That same year she also filmed a comedy, Gastone (Mario Bonnard, 1960), alongside two giants of the Italian cinema, Alberto Sordi and Vittoria De Sica. A year later, she married Aldo Pomilia, a production manager and producer whom she had met while working on Morgan the Pirate. She later bore him son Aldino.

Chelo reportedly refused Che Guevara's invitation to come back to Havana during the revolution, preferring to remain in Rome. Following Quattro notti don Alba/Desert War (Luigi Filippo D'Amico, 1962), Alonso left film for a time to turn her attention to television. She even took part in a cooking show, where the public could witness her preparing a typical Cuban meal of rice and chicken.

She did not return to the screen until the classic Spaghetti Western Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo/The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966). Ironically, in her most widely distributed film she only played a small, mute role. She played the unfortunate Mexican wife of Stevens (Antonio Casas) murdered by Lee Van Cleef in one of the film’s most striking sequences.

Then followed supporting parts in two other interesting Spaghetti Westerns. The first was the underrated Corri uomo corri/Big Gundown 2 (Sergio Sollima, 1968) starring Tomas Milian. Her final film was the obscure La Notte dei serpenti/Night of the Serpent (Giulio Petroni, 1970).

After the death of her producer-husband in 1986, Alonso moved to the city of Siena in Tuscany, Italy. She opened a small cat-breeding farm, which became a luxurious four-star hotel.

Chelo Alonso’s film career was brief, but we do agree with Ben Chenier at Cult Sirens: “She was in no more than 20 films but had she played in only one, we still couldn't forget her. (...) One of the most astounding beauty of her time (or any time, in my view), Chelo Alonso lit up the screen every time she appeared before a camera. That gorgeous figure, those amazing cheekbones, that heavy mane of hair... all elements to nominate her at the Pantheon of Immortal Movie Goddesses”.

Trailer Il Terrore dei barbari/Goliath and the Barbarians (1959). Source: Sword and Sandal FLIX (YouTube).

The dance scene from Nel segno di Roma/Sign of the Gladiator (1959) Source: Peplum TV (YouTube).

Sources: Ben Chenier (Cult Sirens), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Matt Blake (The Wild Eye), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

In 1914 'Little Mary' Pickford became the most popular actress in America, if not the world. During the silent era, she was beloved for her beauty and charm. Even when she was an adult, Pickford often appeared on screen in young girl roles. In Europe many film stars followed in her footsteps. In the 1920s, the modern girl became boyish yet feminine - short hair, gawky limbs, a young flapper on the edge of sexuality, affectionately known in Germany as a 'Backfisch' (literally meaning fish to fry).

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1166/1, 1927-1928. Photo: United Artists.

Mary Pickford (1892-1972) was known as 'America’s sweetheart.' She was a founder of United Artists and helped to establish the Academy.

Vintage postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Suzanne Grandais (1893-1920) was the most beautiful and sophisticated actress of the French silent cinema. Her nickname was 'the French Mary Pickford' because of her angel face and blond hair.

German small photo for the album by Dr. Oskar Kalbus, Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst, Vol. I, Der Stummfilm (Cigaretten Bilderdienst, 1935). Asta Nielsen in Engelein (Urban Gad, 1914).

Danish silent film actress Asta Nielsen (1881-1972), was one of the most popular leading ladies of the 1910s and one of the first international film stars.

German postcard by Verlag Hans Dursthoff, Berlin, no. 897. Photo: Karl Schenker, Berlin / Oliver Film.

German silent film actress Dorrit Weixler (1892-1916) anticipated such better known comedy stars of the German cinema as Ossi Oswalda and Anny Ondra. The career of the bright and light comedienne was like a candle burning on both sides.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 286. Photo: Alard Walten, Berlin.

Ossi Oswalda (1895-1947) was one of the most popular comediennes of the German silent cinema.

German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 1826. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.

Blandine Ebinger (1899-1993) was a German cabaret singer and actress. Her cinema career continued for seventy (70!) years.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 310/4 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass.

Eva May (1902-1924) was the daughter of film star Mia May and producer Joe May. It was only natural that she would follow suit. She became ‘everybody’s darling’ but in 1924 she committed suicide.

German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 225/1. Ca. 1919.

Little is known about Lu L'Arronge(1902-1991), who was a star of the German silent cinema, just after the First World War. The actress, who specialised in playing high-spirited teenagers, had her own production company with which she produced several films.

German postcard in the Film Sterne series by Becker & Maass, Berlin, no. 138/2. Photo: Eiko Film.

German actress, writer and producer Hedda Vernon (1866-?) appeared in more than 60 films of the early silent period. During the 1910s she was such a popular film star that she got her own Hedda Vernon serial.

German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin Wilm., no. 3976. Photo: Rembrandt, Charlottenburg.

German actress Lisa Weise (?-1952) starred in silent films of the 1910s. Most of her films were directed by Friedrich Zelnik and often her film partner was Karl Beckersachs.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3087/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ernst Schneider, Berlin.

Hanni Weisse (1892-1967) belonged to the great film divas of the early German silent film. She was able to maintain her stardom till the late 1920s and then still could play temperamental teenagers.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3823/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Hegewald Film. Collection: Egbert Barten.

Dutch film star Truus van Aalten (1910-1999) made 29 films in the 1920s and 1930s, and only one of them in the Netherlands. She was a typical 'Backfisch' of the late Weimar cinema. Because of her informal acting and her humour, Truus's nickname in Germany became 'die kleine holländische Käse' (the Little Dutch Cheese).

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.

Beautiful French actress Agnès Laurent (1936-2010) featured in a dozen European sexploitation films of the late 1950s and early 1960s. She was touted as 'The New French sex kitten', a rival to Brigitte Bardot.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1013. Photo: Sam Lévin.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/233. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-182. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.

German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/77.

German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-199. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Sam Lévin / Ufa.

Striptease

Agnès Laurent was born Josette Chouleur in Lyon, France in 1936 (according to Les Gens du Cinema, based on her birth certificate) or 1938 (according to CITWF). After working for a few months as a secretary, she had some acting classes from Eve Francis and Charles Dullin.

She made her film début in the short film Axelle et son Clochard/Axelle and her Tramp (Pierre Foucaud, 1956). The film was produced by René Thévenet, who would also produce some of her later films. Her next stint was a small part in Mannequins de Paris/Mannequins of Paris (André Hunebelle, 1956) starring Madeleine Robinson and Ivan Desny.

In her following film she was already top-billed, Les Collegiennes/The Twilight Girls (André Hunebelle, 1956) about the turbulent emotions among girls on a regimented French girls' school. In the film also appeared a young Catherine Deneuve. In the sexploitation melodrama Marchands De Filles/Sellers Of Girls (Maurice Cloche, 1957) she gets involved with a white slavery racket. While on a ship to South America, she becomes engaged to a crewman, played by Georges Marchal, and then she tackles the syndicate head-on.

In the sex comedy Mademoiselle Striptease/The Nude Set (Pierre Foucaud, 1957), she played a spoiled young provincial girl who coerces her wealthy parents into sending her to Paris. In gay Paris, Agnes discovers the bohemian nightclubs where striptease has become so popular - in no time the timid country girl goes from spectator to performer.

Mark Deming calls it at AllMovie‘a charming sexual frolic that features outstanding striptease and cabaret performances’. When Audubon Films released The Nude Set in 1961 in the US, the big selling point was Agnès Laurent. The film's sexy young star was touted by Audubon as 'The New French Sex Kitten'. She was hailed as a rival to Brigitte Bardot.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 896. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 935. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 964. Photo: Studio Vauclair.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 727. Photo: Sam Lévin.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1025. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Miniature Girl

1957 was a busy year for Agnès Laurent. She also appeared as Monette, the sexy assistant of scientist Prof. Jerome (Jean Marais) in the Sci-Fi comedy Un amour de poche/Girl in His Pocket (Pierre Kast, 1957).

The professor stumbles upon a formula that shrinks people. When his wife suspects that her husband is carrying on a romance with Monette (she's right), the naked Monette hides herself by drinking the potion and shrinks to 3 inches tall. The professor keeps her in his pocket until he can find an antidote. The film was based on The Diminishing Draft, a short story by Waldemar Kaempfert from 1918.

The following year she appeared in the German-French war film Die grünen Teufel von Monte Cassino/The green Devils of Monte Cassino (Harald Reinl, 1958) featuringJoachim Fuchsberger.

In 1959, Lauerent starred in the Spanish production Un mundo para mí/Soft Skin and Black Lace (José Antonio de la Loma, 1959). Scenes were later edited in Radley Metzger’s compilation film Dictionary of Sex (1964).

In Spain she also appeared in Altas variedades/The Big Show (Francisco Rovira Beleta, 1960) opposite Christian Marquand, and in Italy she made the adventure film La notte del grande assalto/The Night of the Great Attack (Giuseppe Maria Scotese, 1960).

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. FK 4138. Photo: Contact Organisation, Paris / Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof.

French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 692 Photo: Studio Harcourt.

German postcard by Ufa. Photo: Dieter E. Schmidt / Ufa.

German postcard by Ufa. Photo: Unifrance-Film.

German postcard by UFA, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 4503. Photo: Bernard Vauclair / Unifrance / Ufa.

Plenty of Ooh la la!

In 1960 Agnès Laurent moved over to England to appear in the British comedy A French Mistress (Roy Boulting, 1960). She played a gorgeous new French language teacher on a traditional British boys' school, who causes countless crushes of the young lads and their profs. Jenny Evans at IMDb calls it ‘a breezy comedy with plenty of ooh la la!’.

The next year she appeared in another British comedy Mary Had A Little... (Edward Buzzell, 1961). This was Britain's first sex comedy, according to David McGillivray in his history of the British sex film, Doing Rude Things.

In 1961 she also appeared opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in the episode Lauzun of the anthology film Amours célèbres/Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond a.o., 1961).

Later she worked for television in TV films like Peril au Paradis/Peril in the Paradise (Edmond T. Greville, 1964).

Laurent then abandoned acting and wrote some crime novels, including Au cœur de ma nuit (In the heart of my night, 1970) and Requiem pour un fantôme (Requiem for a ghost, 1973).

In 2010, Agnés Laurent passed away in Grenoble, France. She was 74.

Agnès Laurent in Péché de jeunesse (1958)

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1103, 1959. Photo: publicity still for Péché de jeunesse/Sins of Youth (Louis Duchesne, 1958).

East-German postcard by VEB progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1105, 1962. Photo: Progress.

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 1122. Photo: Unidex. Publicity still for Amours célèbres/Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961).

This clip is a special feature that describes the making of the American version of Les Collegiennes (1956), The Twilight Girls. This film broke new ground in the country's legal definition of pornography and was the cause of a landmark judicial decision in late-1950s New York's censorship statutes. Source: Georgina Spelvin (YouTube).

American trailer for Marchands De Filles/Sellers Of Girls (1957). Source: SomethingWeirdDotCom (YouTube).

Sources: Mark Deming (AllMovie), Yvan Foucart (Le coin du cinéphage - French), CITWF, Les gens du cinema (French), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

French actress Elmire Vautier (1897-1954) had a career in cinema between the late 1910s and the early 1940s.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 51. Photo: Studio Pathé.

An Illegitimate Child

Armandine Elmire Vautier was born in Grandchain, Eure, France in 1897.

She made her film debut in Sa gosse/Her Kid (1919), directed by Henri Desfontaines. It was the story about a woman from the countryside who moves to Paris after having an illegitimate child, but she does not like the capital and longs for her daughter.

From then on Vautier had a prolific career in French silent cinema, often paired with René Navarre, but also with Renée Sylvaire.

Memorable titles are Le roi de Camargue/The King of the Camargue (André Hugon, 1922), Judith (Georges Monca, Rose Pansini, 1922), the serial L'homme aux trois masques/The Man with Three Masks (Émile Keppens, René Navarre, 1922) with Gina Manès, Vidoq (Jean Kemm, 1923), Ferragus (Gaston Ravel, 1923) with British actor Stewart Rome, Jean Chouan (Luitz-Morat, 1925), Belphégor (Henri Desfontaines, 1927), and La tentation/Temptation (René Barberis, René Leprince, 1929).

In Le roi de Camargue Vautier, she plays Lisette, a girl who is in love with Renaud (Charles de Rochefort), the 'king' of the Camargue. When he falls for a dashing gypsy woman, she tries to drown herself.

In Judith she is a countess whose husband is suspected of murder, and in Vidoq she is Manon la blonde, wife of Vidoq (René Navarre) but now the mistress of a rich man.

In Ferragus she is the daughter of an ex-convict (Navarre), now leader of a powerful secret society. A young man (Lucien Dalsace) is interested in her, but her father fears the unmasking of the family reputation.

French postcard by Editions Filma in the series Les Vedettes du Cinéma, no. 10. Photo: Super-Film.

René Navarre. French postcard. Photo: DIX, Paris.

Dressed As A Ghost

One of Elmire Vautier's leading roles in the 1920s was that of Simone Desroches, who haunts the Louvre dressed as the ghost Belphégor, trying to steal from the museum. Eventually she is unmasked by the detective Chantecoq (René Navarre) and her own friend, the journalist Jacques Bellegarde (Lucien Dalsace).

In 1930 Vautier made the passage to sound film, playing in French productions shot at the Parisian Paramount studios. From 1931 and 1934 she was away from the screen for a while, and when she returned her parts had become smaller.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s she still acted in a few period pieces like Le patriote/The Mad Emperor (Maurice Tourneur, 1938) with Harry Baur, and Mam'zelle Bonaparte/Miss Bonaparte (Maurice Tourneur, 1942) starring Edwige Feuillère, but then her film career was over.

Elmire Vautier died in Livilliers, Val d'Oise, France in 1954. She was 56. For a time, she was married to René Navarre, but no exact dates are available.

French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 266. Photo: G.L. Manuel Frères.

Sources: Ciné-Artistes (French), Cinefil, Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

Beautiful Dina Sassoli (1920-2008) was an Italian stage and screen actress, who broke through with the historical drama I promessi sposi/The Betrothed (Mario Camerini, 1941).

Italian postcard by Stab. Angell, Terni / A. Terzeli, Roma, no. 138. Photo: Foto Villoresi.

Success with a Twist

Dina Sassoli was born in Rimini, Italy in 1920. In 1941, she suddenly became famous internationally by her performance as Lucia in the historical drama film I promessi sposi/The Betrothed aka The Spirit and the Flesh (1941) by Mario Camerini.

I promessi sposi is an adaptation of the famous 1827 novel The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni. The film's producers organised a competition to select the lead actress, which was eventually won by Sassoli. The competition was modelled on the hunt for Scarlett O'Hara by the American producer David O. Selznick for Gone With the Wind.

Sassoli's success came with a twist. She had married a young journalist, who was considered antifascist by the government. In 1942, he disappeared. Devastated, Sassoli almost gave up her career.

However, in the war years she played several leads in films. An example is Nessuno torna indietro/None came back (Alessandro Blasetti, 1943, released 1945), adapted from the novel of Alba de Cespedes.

In this film on seven college girls she plays Milly, a shy and romantic girl who loves music. She falls in love with a blind man, but then suddenly dies. Her co-stars were Valentina Cortese, Maria Mercader, Doris Duranti, Elisa Cegani, Mariella Lotti and Maria Denis.

Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1942-XX. Photo: Scalera Film. Publicity still for Don Giovanni/Loves of Don Juan (Dino Falconi, 1942).

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit. (Ballerini & Fratini), Firenze, no. 4301. Photo: Scalera Film / Foto Pesce. Publicity still for Don Giovanni/Loves of Don Juan (Dino Falconi, 1942).

Tormented Love Affair

Dina Sassoli also starred in memorable films from the postwar era such as Un giorno nella vita/A day in the life (Alessandro Blasetti, 1946), Umanità/Humanity (Jack Salvatori, 1946), and Il mulino del Po/The Mill on the Po (Alberto Lattuada, 1948), in which she plays the sister of Jacques Sernas.

In the war drama Un giorno nella vita, Sassoli was one of the nuns who take care of a group of partisans, after which German revenge follows. In the little known production Umanità, she is a young refugee who sincerely suffered the war and has an affair with a refugee camp doctor, until her fiancé shows up and the doctor goes back to his wife. The film was shot in the makeshift refugee camp in Cinecittà.

However, Sassoli discovered the stage in the postwar era as well, acting with Vittorio Gassman in Kean and with Gino Cervi in Cyrano de Bergerac, and also with Anna Proclemer and Gabriele Lavia.

Until the mid-1980s – and with an intermission between the mid-1950s and 1970 - Sassoli would act in mostly smaller parts in about fifty films made by directors such as Guido Brignone, Corrado d’Errico, Mario Mattioli, Camillo Mastrocinque, Larry Peerce, Giuliano Montaldo, Giuseppe Bertolucci and Luigi Comencini.

Her last film parts were in Voltati Eugenio/Eugenio (Luigi Comencini, 1980) with Francesco Bonelli, Oggetti smarriti/An Italian Woman (Giuseppe Bertolucci, 1980) with Bruno Ganz, and in La storia/History (Luigi Comencini, 1985) starring Claudia Cardinale.

Of Sassoli's TV performances the one best remembered is her interpretation in the television drama Sorelle Materassi (1972) directed by Mario Ferrero.

Famous was Dina Sassoli's tormented love affair with Massimo Serato who ultimately left her for Anna Magnani. Dina Sassoli died in Rome in 2008.

Gino Cervi and Dina Sassoli in I promessi sposi (1941)

Italian postcard by S.A. Grafitalia, Milano (Milan), no. 10. Photo: Film Lux. Publicity still for I Promessi Sposi/The Spirit and the Flesh (Mario Camerini, 1941) with Dina Sassoli (Lucia), Luis Hurtado (Fra' Cristoforo), Gino Cervi (Renzo), and Gilda Marchiò (Agnese, Lucia's mother).

Sources: Christophe Lawniczak (Ciné-Artistes - French), Wikipedia (Italian and English) and IMDb.