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Luis Mariano

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Luis Mariano (1914-1970) was a popular tenor of Spanish Basque origin, and was also a popular film star in the 1940s and 1950s. He reached celebrity in 1946 with the operetta La belle de Cadix. For more than ten years he dominated the French chanson and operetta world.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 213. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 38. Photo: Discina.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 34. Photo: Films Gloria.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 7. Photo: Teddy Piaz, Paris.

Luis Mariano in Der Zarewitsch (1954)
Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. AX 3143. Photo: Melior. Publicity still for Der Zarewitsch/The Little Czar (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1954).

The Beautiful Lady of Cadix


Luis Mariano was born as Mariano Eusebio González y García in Irún, Spain in 1914 as the son of a mechanic. His family moved to France at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

Luis studied at the École des Beaux-arts in Bordeaux. When he wanted to enter the Conservatoire de Bordeaux, his singing talent was discovered by singer Jeannine Micheau. She introduced him to Miguel Fontecha, who taught him further on.

Mariano made his debut at the Palais de Chaillot in 1943, as Ernesto in Don Pasquale. He also sang in variety shows on the radio and became well known. He met Francis Lopez and Raymond Vinci, and sang in their operetta La belle de Cadix/The Beautiful Lady of Cadix, which became his breakthrough. The run of the operetta continued for more than two years.

In 1943 he also made his first film appearances in Le Chant de l'exilé/The Song of the Exile (André Hugon, 1943) starring Tino Rossi, and L'escalier sans fin/The Stairs Without an End (Georges Lacombe, 1943) with Pierre Fresnay.

Luis Mariano
French postcard, no. 252. Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 187. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Carmen Sevilla and Luis Mariano in Andalousie (1951)
Dutch postcard. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Andalousie/Andalucia (Robert Vernay, 1951) with Carmen Sevilla.

Luis Mariano in Der Zarewitsch (1954)
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 1336. Photo: CCC / Gloria / Arthur Grimm. Publicity still for Der Zarewitsch/The Little Czar (Arthur Maria Rabenalt, 1954).

Mexican Singer


Rapidly, Luis Mariano became popular. For more than ten years he dominated the French chanson and operetta world.

In the cinema he starred with Martine Carol in the comedy Je n'aime que toi/I Like Only You (Pierre Montazel, 1949), and in the Spanish-French musical El Sueño de Andalucía/Andalousie/Andalusia (Luis Lucia, Robert Vernay, 1951).

The highpoint of his career was in the 1951-1952 season, when he was a big success as the ‘Mexican Singer’ in the operetta Le chanteur de Mexico, had a huge hit with the song Mexico, and made the musical film Violetas imperiales/Violettes impériales (Richard Pottier, 1952) with Carmen Sevilla.

In total he made some twenty musical films. The following years he toured through Europe, and North and South America. When the yé-yé (the French beat music) conquered the French radio and TV in 1958-1960, Luis Mariano decided to direct his focus entirely on the operetta.

His last film appearance was a bit part in the comedy Les pieds dans le plâtre/Feet in the plaster (Jacques Fabbri, Pierre Lary, 1965).

Luis Mariano died in 1970 in Paris of cerebral hemorrhage. He was only 55. In 1996 his music was featured prominently in the award winning Belgian film Le Huitième Jour/The Eighth Day (Jaco van Dormael, 1996) in which he is played by Laszlo Harmati during the hallucination scenes.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by JPB. Photo: disques La Voix de son Maitre.

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions Rameaux, Ascain, no. 85/391. Photo: Patxi Lacan. Publicity still for the stage operetta Le Secret de Marco Polo/The Secret of Marco Polo (1959).

Luis Mariano
French postcard by Editions Rameaux, Ascain. Photo: Patxi Lacan.

Luis Mariano and Annie Cordy
With Annie Cordy. French promotion card by S.I.A.T., Paris for Pathé. On the backside the text of the song Visa pour l'amour.



Luis Mariano sings Mexico. Source: Zdrobygdo (YouTube).

Sources: Mariano Lacan (Luis Mariano Official Website - French), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Rose Bernd (1919)

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Rose Bernd (1919) was an acclaimed film of Henny Porten, one of the three major film divas of the German silent cinema. Alfred Halm adapted the film from the the play of the same name by Gerhart Hauptmann.

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 350/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publiciity for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919).

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 350/2. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919).

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 350/3. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919).

Forbidden Love


Rose Bernd (Henny Porten) is a good-natured as well as a brave and loving peasant daughter. She has nursed in a self-sacrificing manner the seriously ill son of the well-to-do family Flamm until he dies.

His father, mayor Christoph Flamm (Alexander Wirth), is more and more interested in the young girl, and so he presses on Rose massively. Finally, she surrenders to the haughty seduction of the married and much older man. Meanwhile, Flame's wife (Ilka Grüning) is also very ill, she knows nothing about her husband's imitations. Finally, Rose Bernd gets pregnant from Flamm.

To all this, the young woman is also caught in the clutches of Arthur Streckmann (Emil Jannings), who is just as robust as he is bullish-rude and character-wrecked. He has observed Rose and the old Flamm at a tête-à-tête and now claims his 'right' at Rose. He threatens to betray her 'forbidden' love with Flamm and make it public, so he blackmails her to give in to him sexually. Yet, Rose remains firm, so Streckmann brutally rapes her.

A third candidate for Rose Bernd's favour is the pious bookkeeper August Keil (Paul Bildt). He officially asks Rose's father (Werner Krauss) for her hand, but his wooing is negated by the young woman's deaf ears. In the meantime Streckmann spreads rumours about Rose Bernd, which should bring her into disrepute. Then her father and the old Flamm accuse Streckmann of scandal and slander.

It comes to a court case. Rose Bernd, deeply ashamed of the events, denies the affair with Flamm as well as her pregnancy, and even out of shame commits perjury. As a last act of deep, inner turmoil and despair, Rose Bernd runs into the forest and gives birth to her child with her last efforts. Then she strangles her newborn child and returns to the city, shaken by febrile convulsions.

Rose Bernd was shot in August 1919. The premiere took place on 5 October 1919 at the Berlin Mozartsaal cinema as a charity matinee for poor, single mothers. General release started on 17 October 1919. Sets were by Hans Baluschek, cinematography by Willi Gabel, while director Alfred Halm also wrote the script, based on Gerhart Hauptmann's play.

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 630/1. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919), with Henny Porten and Emil Jannings.

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 630/3. Photo: Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919).

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 630/4. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919), with Henny Porten and Werner Krauss (right).

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 630/5. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919), with Henny Porten and Alexander Wirth.

Henny Porten in Rose Bernd
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 630/6. Photo: Becker & Maass, Berlin / Messter-Film. Publicity still for Rose Bernd (Alfred Halm, 1919), with Henny Porten and Emil Jannings.

Source: Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Sabu

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British Indian actor Sabu (1924-1963) became an instant star with the release of the British film Elephant Boy (1937). He also starred as Abu, the thief in the Arabian fantasy-adventure The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and as Mowgli in Jungle Book (1942). Sabu had 'a smile as broad as the Ganges and charm enough to lure the stripes off a tiger'. His succession of tropical Technicolor treats delighted audiences before and during WW II. Although restricted to stereotypical roles, he was the first Indian actor to make it big in Hollywood.

Sabu
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 1155. Photo: United Artists.

Sabu
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 1155b. Photo: London Films.

Sabu in The Thief of Baghdad (1940)
British postcard in the Colourgraph Series, London, no. C. 338. Photo: Alexander Korda Productions. Publicity still for The Thief of Baghdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, 1940).

Sabu in Jungle Book (1942)
Vintage collectors card. Photo: publicity still for Jungle Book (Zoltan Korda, 1942) with Sabu as Mowgli.

Sabu in Black Narcissus (1947)
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. W 343. Photo: Cannons. Publicity still for Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947).

A smile as broad as the Ganges


Sabu was born in the jungles of Karapur, in the little town of Mysore in southern British India, in 1924. Most reference books list his full name as Sabu Dastigir, but research by journalist Philip Leibfried learned that this was his brother's first name, and that Sabu's full name was, in fact, Selar Shaik Sabu. Sabu's son Paul later confirmed this. Sabu's mother died when he was still very young and he was raised by his father, a Mahout (elephant driver) in service for the Maharajah of Mysore.

When his father also passed away in 1931, the six-year-old Sabu was taken into the service of the Maharajah of Mysore, first as a stable boy, then as a mahout in his own right. It was when riding one of his beloved elephants that director Robert Flaherty first saw him when looking for someone to play Toomai of the Elephants in his upcoming feature Elephant Boy (Robert J. Flaherty, Zoltán Korda, 1937), based on a story from The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling.

Filming began in the spring of 1935, but bad weather held up any real work until later that year. The film had a troubled two-year gestation, with Flaherty being replaced by producer Alexander Korda's brother, Zoltán Korda, mid-production and Sabu shipped over to England for six weeks of studio scenes. Alexander Korda was quite taken aback by Sabu's earnest looks, engaging naturalness and adaptability to wild animals and their natural habitat, and he placed the boy under an exclusive contract.

Sabu and his older brother (as a guardian) became subsequent wards of the British government. They were given schooling in the process and Sabu quickly learned the English language. Philip Leibfreid wrote in a 1989 article in Films in Review: "With a smile as broad as the Ganges and charm enough to lure the stripes off a tiger, the young Indian also added the authenticity needed in the lead role." The film was the official British entry at the Venice Film Festival that year where it won the award for best direction.

Elephant Boy was an unqualified hit and the young actor was promptly placed in The Drum (Zoltán Korda, 1938). He was surrounded by a cast that included Raymond Massey and Valerie Hobson. Philip Leibfried: "Filmed in the hills of South Wales, The Drum is the story of the friendship of an English drummer boy and an Indian prince whose father is assassinated by the boy's uncle, who plans a massacre of the British troops at a banquet. The prince discovers the plot and alerts the British by signalling his friend on a large drum. Shot in Technicolor and directed by Zoltán Korda, it holds up very well today."

Michael Brooke at BFIScreenonline adds: "Sabu's winning performance as heroic young Prince Azim showed that he had real range as an actor". Hollywood started taking a keen look at this refreshingly new talent when he first arrived in the US for a publicity tour. Again, his second film was given rave reviews, proving that Sabu would not be just a one-hit wonder. His third film for Alexander Korda, the Arabian fantasy-adventure The Thief of Baghdad (Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, 1940) with Sabu as Abu the Thief, is even a true classic."

Philip Leibfried: "The Thief of Bagdad is one of the most wonderfully realized fantasy films ever produced. It contains all the elements of which dreams are made: a beautiful princess (June Duprez), a malevolent vizier (played to the hilt by Conrad Veidt), a genie in a bottle (superbly portrayed by black actor Rex Ingram), a fabulous jewel, a hidden temple, a giant spider, and a flying carpet - all presented in vivid Technicolor by design experts William Cameron Menzies (who had worked on the original film) and Vincent Korda. (...) When finally released on Christmas Day, 1940, The Thief of Bagdad was deservedly a smash hit, as well as winning Oscars for color cinematography, color art direction, and visual and sound special effects."

Sabu's name began stirring international ears. His last pairing with Korda was the adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's classic tale Jungle Book (Zoltán Korda, 1942) playing Mowgli. Leibfried writes: "Sabu was a natural for Mowgli, the feral child raised by a wolf pack. Animal footage was cleverly integrated with that of the humans so that the beasts seemed directly involved with the humans; only the snakes were models." Following this triumph, Sabu officially became the commodity of Universal Pictures and he settled in Hollywood. In 1944, almost 20 years old, he became a citizen of the USA.

Sabu
Dutch postcard. Photo: Universal International.

Sabu
Belgian photo card by Fotoprim, Brussels, no. A 12, presented by De Beukelaer's factories for biscuits and chocolates, Antwerp. Photo: Universal Film.

Sabu
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. W 699. Photo: Universal-International.

Sabu
French postcard by Edition P.I., Paris, no. 291. Photo: Universal International.

Sabu
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 265. Photo: London Films.

Colourful, Mindless Entertainment


After becoming an American citizen, Sabu joined the US Army Air Force as a tail gunner. He flew several dozens of missions over the Pacific and was awarded the distinguished Flying Cross for his valour and bravery.

Unfortunately, Hollywood developed an assembly-line of empty-minded features for Sabu that hardly compared to his English quality pictures under Korda. He appeared in four films in support of 'The Queen of Technicolor', Maria Montez. At IMDb, Gary Brumburgh writes: "His vehicles Arabian Nights (John Rawlins, 1942), White Savage (Arthur Lubin, 1943), and Cobra Woman (Robert Siodmak, 1944) were, for the most part, drivel but fit the bill as colorful, mindless entertainment."

Sabu went back to England in 1946, starring in the crime drama The End of the River (Derek N. Twist, 1947) and appearing fourth-billed as the son of a native general in Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947). His role in the exotic Technicolor extravaganza was not major but still important. Gary Brumburgh: "Daring in subject matter, the film had Deborah Kerr heading up a group of Anglican nuns who battle crude traditions, unexpected passions and stark raving madness while setting up a Himalayan order." Sabu appears about midway, wearing the scent that gives the story its title. He becomes the object of desire of a young pupil (Jean Simmons) and runs off with her.

While filming Song of India (Albert S. Rogell, 1949) in Hollywood, Sabu met and married actress Marilyn Cooper who temporarily filled in for an ailing Gail Russell on the set. The couple went on to have two children. Around 1950 Sabu had begun a successful contracting and real estate business which occupied most of his time when he was not acting.

Through most of the 1950s Sabu played in largely unsuccessful European films. In 1952, he appeared with an elephant act in Harringay Circus. Sabu was sued by an infant girl (born in 1948), through her mother, an unnamed unmarried English actress, who claimed to have had an affair with Sabu and that he was the infant's father. The suit was tried by a jury which returned a nine to three verdict in favour of Sabu.

His last two pictures were supporting roles in Rampage (Phil Karlson, 1963), which starred Robert Mitchum, and A Tiger Walks (Norman Tokar, 1964), according to Gary Brumburgh"a routine Disney picture which was released posthumously".

In 1963 Sabu suddenly died of a heart attack in Chatsworth, California. He was only 39. Sabu was survived by his wife Marilyn, his son Paul Sabu, who established the rock band Sabu in the 1980s, an his daughter Jasmine Sabu, who was an animal trainer on various films. Yasmine died in 2001.

Sabu
Dutch photo card by DRC, no. 17. Photo: MPEA.

Sabu in Black Narcissus (1947)
Vintage postcard, no. 550. Photo: Universal International. Publicity still for Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947).

Sabu in Black Narcissus (1947)
Dutch postcard. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Publicity still for Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947).


Trailer for The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Source: Flame Flamable (YouTube).


Trailer for Jungle Book (1942). Source: Adlerangriffe (YouTube).


Trailer for Black Narcissus (1947). Source: ryy79 (YouTube).

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Philip Leibfried (Films in Review), Michael Brooke (BFI Screenonline), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Jutta Freybe

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German stage and film actress Jutta Freybe (1917–1971) was the attractive blond leading lady in ten films during the Nazi era.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1837/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Hammerer / Ufa.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3152/2, 1941-1944. Photo: Gnilka-Schröder.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Film-Foto-Verlag, no. A 3612/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Tobis / Star-Foto-Atelier.

Love Can Lie


Jutta Freybe was born in Berlin in 1917. She was the daughter of Major Paul Freybe and his wife, Paula Vick, the daughter of a merchant. Her older sisters were the writers Johanna Sibelius and Martha Albrand (a.k.a. Katrin Holland).

After a theatrical training by director Hans Schlenk, Jutta was engaged at the Landestheater (State Theatre) and performed in various small roles.

Her film career started with a part in the short film Die Wunderschießbude/The Miracle Shooter (Hans Fritz Köllner, 1934), produced by the Ufa. In 1937 she co-starred in the romance Liebe kann lügen/Love Can Lie (Heinz Helbig, 1937) with Karl Ludwig Diehl and Dorothea Wieck. It was her breakthrough and more leading film roles soon followed.

Willy Fritsch was her co-star in Gewitterflug zu Claudia/A Thunderstorm flight to Claudia (Erich Waschneck, 1937). She starred opposite Paul Hartmann in Pour le Mérite (Karl Ritter, 1938), produced by the Ufa. This Nazi propaganda film, which chronicles the rise of the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) from World War I until Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, was forbidden after the Second World War.

Other films were Was tun, Sybille?/What to do, Sybille? (Peter Paul Brauer, 1938), the drama Zwischen den Eltern/Between the Parents (Hans Hinrich, 1938) again opposite Willy Fritsch, and the crime drama Sensationsprozess Casilla/Sensation Process Casilla (Eduard von Borsody, 1939), starring Heinrich George.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2439/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2439/2, 1939-1940. Photo: Baumann / Ufa.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3349/1, 1941-1944. Photo: K.L. Haenchen.

The Golden Spider


In 1939, Jutta Freybe married star actor Albert Matterstock, but the marriage ended in a divorce because of his morphine addiction.

She appeared that year in two more films, Silvesternacht am Alexanderplatz/New Year's Eve at the Alexanderplatz (Richard Schneider-Edenkoben, 1939) with Hannes Stelzer, and the crime film Alarm auf Station III/Alarm at Station III (Philipp Lothar Mayring, 1939) as the bride of Gustav Fröhlich.

During wartime she only took part in one film. Her final role was a doctor in the spy thriller Die goldene Spinne/The Golden Spider (Erich Engels, 1943), at the side of Kirsten Heiberg and Harald Paulsen.

Lars Bellman at IMDb: “A pair of Soviet Spies use seduction and blackmail to discover the secrets of a new German tank. This is another war propaganda movie, with strong anti-Soviet tendencies. Scandinavian actress Kirsten Heiberg is a pleasure to look at in this otherwise below average movie.” After the war, this film was also forbidden by the allied forces.

After this film the then 26-years-old actress retired from the film business and little was heard from her since. Jutta Freybe died in Büsum, West Germany, in 1971. She was 53 and largely forgotten.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2062/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Haenchen / Tobis.

Jutta Freybe
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3152/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Haenchen.

Jutta Freybe
Big German card by Film-Foto-Verlag. Photo: Ufa.

Sources: Stephanie d’Heil (Steffi-line – German), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.

Teresa Ann Savoy (1955-2017)

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On 9 January 2017, British actress Teresa Ann Savoy passed away. She lived in Italy, where she made most of her films, including the Tinto Brass films Salon Kitty (1976) and Caligula (1979). She was 61.

Teresa Ann Savoy (1955-2017)
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

A SS spy that poses as a prostitute


Teresa Ann Savoy was born in 1955 in London, England. 'Terry' fled from home at 16. She lived in a hippie community in Sicily and soon came to the attention of the press.

Savoy was 18 years old when she appeared in the Italian adult magazine Playmen (October 1973). In 1974, her acting career began when film director Alberto Lattuada gave her her first role as a sexy teenager in Le farò da padre/I'll Take Her Like a Father (Alberto Lattuada, 1974).

Her next film was Vizi privati, pubbliche virtù/Private Vices, Public Pleasures (1975) directed by the Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó. The film told the story of the Crown Prince Rudolf, son of the Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph and his rebellion against his father. Teresa played the baroness Mary Vetsera, Rudolf's lover, but in Jancso's vision, she appears as a hermaphrodite.

In 1975 Savoy met Tinto Brass and they worked together in the successful but bizarre film Salon Kitty (1976) with Helmut Berger and Ingrid Thulin. In the film she played a young BDM girl (League of German Maidens, a female Nazi youth organization) who becomes a spy that poses as a prostitute for the SS Nazi paramilitary organization.

In 1976, Brass was involved in Caligola/Caligula, produced by Bob Guccione, the owner of Penthouse magazine. It tells about the rise and fall of the notorious Roman Emperor Caligula (Malcolm McDowell). Originally, Maria Schneider was cast as Drusilla, the beloved sister and lover of Caligula, but she walked out of the project and was replaced by Savoy.

Helmut Berger
Helmut Berger. Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

A terrorist in search of a traitor partner for killing


In 1981, Terese Ann Savoy made a return to cinema with La disubbidienza/The disobedience (Aldo Lado, 1981), where she played Edith, an attractive Jewish governess. The film, based on a novel by Alberto Moravia, covered events under the reign of the Republic of Salò.

In the same year, she worked again with director Miklós Jancsó in the historical film A zsarnok szíve, avagy Boccaccio Magyarországon/The Tyrant's Heart (1981) in which she acted alongside Ninetto Davoli.

In the 1980s, she mainly played secondary roles such as in the TV mini-series La Certosa di Parma/The Charterhouse of Parma (Mauro Bolognini, 1982), featuring Marthe Keller. In 1984, Savoy was a terrorist in search of a traitor partner for killing in Il Ragazzo di Ebalus/The Boy from Ebalus (Giuseppe Schito, 1984) alongside Saverio Marconi.

Her most important secondary role in this period was that of Maria di Gallese, the first wife of the writer and poet Gabriele D'Annunzio (played by Robert Powell), in the film D'Annunzio (Sergio Nasca, 1987). She played another memorable part in the episode Addio Maschio Crudele/Goodbye Cruel Male from the TV series Quando Arriva il Giudice/When the judge arrives (Giulio Questi, 1986).

In 2000, she made her last film appearance in La Fabbrica del Vapore/The Steam Factory
(Ettore Pasculli, 2000), the first Italian digital film. She received the title of Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1989.

Teresa Ann Savoy died of cancer on 9 January 2017 in Milan, where she lived with her husband and two children.


Trailer for Salon Kitty (Tinto Brass, 1976). Source: ShortFormCinema (YouTube).


Trailer for Caligola/Caligula (Tinto Brass, 1976). Source: British Secret Agent 007 (YouTube).

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Exported to the USA: Audrey Hepburn

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Till 26 March 2017, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (The Hague, The Netherlands) presents the exhibition Hubert de Givenchy - To Audrey with Love. The exhibition is not only a grand retrospective to the famous French couturier Hubert de Givenchy, but is also a homage to his muse, Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993). The Belgian-born, British-Dutch actress and humanitarian was elegant, talented and funny. After a start in the European cinema Hepburn became one of the most successful Hollywood stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 385. Photo: Paramount / P.P.C. Publicity still for Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954). Costume: Hubert de Givenchy.

Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (1954)
Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1530. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954). Costume: Hubert de Givenchy.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard. Publicity still for Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954). Costume: Hubert de Givenchy.

Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina *1954)
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris / PPC, 1955. Photo: Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954). Costume: Hubert de Givenchy.

Audrey Hepburn
German postcard by Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-5. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Paramount Film.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard. Unknown editor and photographer.

War Time in Arnhem


Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston in Ixelles/Elsene, a municipality in Brussels, Belgium, in 1929. She was the only child of Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, a Briton, and his second wife, the former Baroness Ella van Heemstra, a Dutch aristocrat, who was a daughter of a former governor of Dutch Guiana.

Her father later used the surname of his maternal grandmother, Kathleen Hepburn, to the family's and her surname became Hepburn-Ruston. Hepburn's father's job with a British insurance company meant the family travelled often between Brussels, England, and The Netherlands. In 1935, her parents divorced and her father, a Nazi sympathiser, left the family.

In 1939, her mother moved her and her two half-brothers to their grandfather's home in Arnhem in the Netherlands, believing the Netherlands would be safe from a German attack. Hepburn attended the Arnhem Conservatory from 1939 to 1945, where she trained in ballet along with the standard school curriculum. In 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. During the German occupation, Hepburn adopted the pseudonym Edda van Heemstra, modifying her mother's documents because an 'English sounding' name was considered dangerous.

By 1944, Audrey had become a proficient ballerina. She secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the Dutch resistance. During the Dutch famine that followed, over the winter of 1944, people starved and froze to death in the streets. Hepburn and many others resorted to making flour out of tulip bulbs to bake cakes and biscuits. Hepburn's wartime experiences later led her to become involved with UNICEF.

In 1945, after the war, Hepburn left the Arnhem Conservatory and moved to Amsterdam, where she took ballet lessons with Lithuanian-Dutch-Jewish dancer and choreographer Sonia Gaskell. Hepburn made her first film appearance in Nederlands in 7 lessen/Dutch in Seven Lessons (Charles Huguenot van der Linden, Heinz Josephson, 1948), a Dutch film made for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. It had a film-within-the-film scenario involving a cameraman who's given a week to photograph the aerial highlights of Holland for a travelogue. Hepburn played the stewardess.

She then travelled with her mother to London. Gaskell provided an introduction to Marie Rambert, and Hepburn studied ballet at the Ballet Rambert, supporting herself with part time work as a model. Rambert warned her that she could not become a prima ballerina, because she was relatively tall (1.7m). Audrey decided to pursue an acting career instead.

Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1952)
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 1031. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still for Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1952).

Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer
Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1598. With Mel Ferrer.

Audrey Hepburn in Arnhem
Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1599. Audrey Hepburn visiting Arnhem after the war.

Audrey Hepburn
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano (Milan).

Audrey Hepburn
Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1422. Photo: Paramount.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 740. Photo: Paramount, 1956.

Meeting Colette


In London, Audrey Hepburn played in musical theatre in productions such as High Button Shoes and Sauce Piquante. Her theatre work revealed that her voice was not strong and needed to be developed, and during this time she took elocution lessons with the actor Felix Aylmer.

Part time modelling work was not always available and Hepburn registered with the casting officers of Britain's film studios in the hope of getting work as an extra. Hepburn's first British film role was in the farce One Wild Oat (Charles Saunders, 1951) in which she played a hotel receptionist. She played several more small roles in Young Wives' Tale (Henry Cass, 1951), Laughter in Paradise (Mario Zampi, 1951), the classic crime comedy The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951), and the comedy Monte Carlo Baby (Jean Boyer, Lester Fuller, 1951).

Monte Carlo Baby was shot at the same time as the French-language version, Nous irons à Monte Carlo (Jean Boyer, 1952). During the filming Hepburn met the famous author Colette, who recommended her for the lead character of a stage version of her novel Gigi on Broadway.

Colette reportedly said when she first saw Hepburn "Voilà! There's our Gigi!" The play opened on 24 November, 1951, and ran for 219 performances. Audrey won a Theatre World Award for her performance. Hepburn's first significant film performance was in the British crime drama Secret People (Thorold Dickinson, 1952), starring Valentina Cortese. Audrey played a prodigious ballerina, and did all of her own dancing scenes.

Her first starring role was opposite Gregory Peck in the Italian-set Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1952). Producers initially wanted Elizabeth Taylor for the role of Princess Ann, but director William Wyler was so impressed by Hepburn's screen test (the camera was left on and candid footage of Hepburn relaxing and answering questions, unaware that she was still being filmed, displayed her talents), that he cast her in the lead. For her enchanting role in Roman Holiday she would win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. Paramount signed her to a seven-picture contract with twelve months in between films to allow her time for stage work.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 788. Photo: Paramount.

Audrey Hepburn in Green Mansions (1959)
Dutch postcard by Uitg. Takken, Utrecht, no. 4244. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Green Mansions (Mel Ferrer, 1959).

Audrey Hepburn in The Nun's Story (1959)
Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 4175. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for The Nun's Story. (Fred Zinnemann, 1959).

Audrey Hepburn, Jeremy Brett, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady (1964)
East-German postcard by VEB-Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2989. Retail price: 0,20 MDM. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) with Jeremy Brett and Rex Harrison. Costumes: Cecil Beaton.

Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964)
East-German postcard by VEB-Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2988. Retail price: 0,20 MDM. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964). Costume: Cecil Beaton.

Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964)
East-German postcard by VEB-Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3028. Retail price: 0,20 MDM. Photo: Warner Bros. Publicity still for My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964). Costume: Cecil Beaton.

Oscar and Tony


After Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn filmed Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954) with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden. Hepburn was sent to a then young and upcoming fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy to decide on her wardrobe. Their creative partnership endured for the remainder of Hepburn’s life. Audrey Hepburn wore De Givenchy creations in some of her most renowned films, such as How to steal a Million (William Wyler, 1966) and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards, 1961).

In 1954, she returned to the stage to play the water sprite in Ondine in a performance with Mel Ferrer, who she would marry later in the year. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Ondine (1954). Hepburn is one of only three actresses to receive a Best Actress Oscar and Best Actress Tony in the same year - the others were Shirley Booth and Ellen Burstyn.

Audrey Hepburn was now one of the most successful film actresses in the world, but also a major fashion influence. Her gamine and elfin appearance and widely recognised sense of chic were both admired and imitated. She costarred with such notable leading men as Henry Fonda in War and Peace (King Vidor, 1956), Fred Astaire in Funny Face (Stanley Donen, 1957), Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon (Billy Wilder, 1957), Anthony Perkinsin Green Mansions (Mel Ferrer, 1959), and Burt Lancasterin The Unforgiven (John Huston, 1960).

According to Denny Jackson at IMDb, "Audrey reached the pinnacle of her career when she played Holly Golightly in the delightful film Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). For this she received another Oscar nomination." Opposite Shirley MacLaine she starred in The Children's Hour (William Wyler, 1961). She scored another box office hit with the espionage caper Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963) with Cary Grant.

One of her most radiant roles was as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964), opposite Rex Harrison. She became only the third actor to receive $1,000,000 for a film role. She followed it with roles opposite Peter O'Toole in How to Steal a Million (William Wyler, 1966) and Albert Finney in Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, 1967).

She received Academy Award nominations for Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (Fred Zinnemann, 1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Wait Until Dark (Terence Young, 1967), and won BAFTA Awards for her performances in The Nun's Story (1959) and Charade (1963). After Wait Until Dark (Terence Young, 1967) and 15 years of continuous success, she took a break from film-making from 1968 to 1975, mostly to spend more time with her two sons.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 129.

Audrey Hepburn
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. F-179.

Audrey Hepburn
German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, Berlin-Tempelhof), no. CK-179. Photo: Terb Agency / Ufa. Retail price was 30 Pfg.

Audrey Hepburn
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 222.

Audrey Hepburn
Israelian postcard by Editions De Luxe, no. 130. Photo: publicity still for Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961).

Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964)
Spanish postcard by Oscarcolor. Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964).

Audrey Hepburn
American postcard.

Passion for Humanitarian Work


In 1976 Audrey Hepburn returned to the screen with Sean Connery in the period piece Robin and Marian (Richard Lester, 1976), which was moderately successful.

Three years later she took the leading role of in the international production Bloodline (Terence Young, 1979) based on a novel by Sidney Sheldon. The film, an international intrigue amid the jet-set, was a critical and box office failure. Another commercial failure was the mad cap private-eye caper They All Laughed (Peter Bogdanovich, 1981).

In 1989 she made her last film appearance as an angel in the romantic comedy Always (Steven Spielberg, 1989) starring Richard Dreyfuss.

Her war-time experiences inspired her passion for humanitarian work, and although she had worked for United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) since the 1950s, during her later life, she dedicated much of her time and energy to the organisation. From 1988 until 1992, she worked in some of the most profoundly disadvantaged communities of Africa, South America and Asia. In 1992, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

After her divorce from American actor Mel Ferrer, Hepburn married Italian psychiatrist Dr. Andrea Dotti. She had a son with each – Sean (1960) by Ferrer, and Luca (1970) by Dotti. From 1980 until her death, she lived with the Dutch actor Robert Wolders.

In 1993, Audrey Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland at the age of 63. She was posthumously awarded The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for her humanitarian work. She received a posthumous Grammy Award for her spoken word recording, Audrey Hepburn's Enchanted Tales in 1994, and in the same year, won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement for Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn, thereby becoming one of a few people to receive an Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award. In 1999, she was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.


Scenes from Nederlands in 7 lessen/Dutch in Seven Lessons (1948). Source: EverythingAudrey.com (YouTube).


Audrey Hepburn in Laughter in Paradise (1951). Source: myusernameisrobyn (YouTube).


Scenes from Secret People (1952). Source: EverythingAudrey.com (YouTube).


The screen test by William Wyler for Roman Holiday (1952). Source: Haphazard Studios (YouTube).


Audrey Hepburn and husband Mel Ferrer visit the Netherlands to attend a film premiere of El Greco starring Mel Ferrer. Source: FabAudrey (YouTube).


Trailer of Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). Source: FabAudrey (YouTube).


The Fashion Designer and His Muse - Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy. Source: Nanda (YouTube).

Sources: Denny Jackson and Volker Boehm (IMDb), Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Jarmila Novotná

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Czech soprano Jarmila Novotná (1907-1994) was one of the world-renowned opera luminaries of the 20th Century. Her film appearances were unfortunately few and far between.

Jarmila Novotna
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6837/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Walter Firner, Berlin.

The Bartered Bride


Jarmila Novotná was born in Prague, Czech Republic in 1907. She studied singing with Emmy Destinn.

In 1925, the 17-years-old Novotná made her operatic debut at the Prague Opera House as Marenka in Bedřich Smetana's Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride). Six days later, the lyric soprano sang there as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata.

The following year, she made her film debut in the silent film Vyznavaci slunce/The Sun Disciples (Václav Binovec, 1926), starring Luigi Serventi.

In 1928 she starred in Verona as Gilda opposite Giacomo Lauri-Volpi in Verdi's Rigoletto and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples as Adina opposite Tito Schipa in Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. In 1929 she joined the Kroll Opera in Berlin, where she sang Violetta as well as the title roles of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Madama Butterfly.

When talking pictures arrived, she headlined in German films like Brand in Der Oper/Fire in the Opera House (Carl Froelich, 1930), with Gustaf Gründgens, Der Bettelstudent/The Beggar Student (Victor Janson, 1931), and the film version of The Bartered Bride, Die Verkaufte Braut (Max Ophüls, 1932).

Hal Erickson at AllMovie on Die Verkaufte Braut (1930): “The original libretto, involving the comic misadventures of two mismatched couples, is given a respectable amount of attention, but the film's biggest selling card is the photographic dexterity of Max Ophuls, who never met a camera crane he didn't like. Since filmed opera was seldom big box-office in 1932, Ophuls concentrates on the farcical elements of the story; especially worth noting are comic contributions by Paul Kemp and Otto Wernicke, who seldom let their German film fans down. Curiously, star Jarmila Novotna, whose ‘live’ appearances in The Bartered Bride were much prized by contemporary critics, doesn't come off all that well in this film version.”

Other films followed such as Nacht Der Grossen Liebe/Night of the Great Love (Geza von Bolvary, 1933) with Gustav Fröhlich. In January 1933 she created the female lead in Jaromir Weinberger's new operetta Frühlingsstürme (Spring Storms), opposite Richard Tauber at the Theater im Admiralspalast, Berlin. This was the last new operetta produced in the Weimar Republic, and she and Tauber were both soon forced to leave Germany by the new Nazi regime.

Jarmila Novotna, Paul Westermeier and Hans Heinz Bollmann in Der Bettelstudent (1931)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 128/4. Photo: Aafa Film. Publicity still for Der Bettelstudent/The Beggar Student (Victor Janson, 1931) with Jarmila Novotna, Paul Westermeier and Hans Heinz Bollmann.

Jarmila Novotná
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8811/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Atlantis-Film. Collection: Didier Hanson.

The Last Waltz


Jarmila Novotnà returned to Czechoslovakia to star in the film Skrivanci pisen/Lark's Songs (Svatopluk Innemann, 1933).

In 1934, she left for Vienna, where she created the title role in Franz Lehár's operetta Giuditta opposite Richard Tauber. Her immense success in that role led to a contract with the Vienna State Opera, where she was named Kammersängerin. She also appeared there with Tauber in The Bartered Bride and Madama Butterfly.

In the cinema, she starred in the Austrian operetta film Frasquita (Karel Lamac, 1934) with Heinz Ruhmann, the Austrian romantic thriller Der Kosak und die Nachtigall/The Cossack and the Nightingale (Phil Jutzi, 1935) with Iván Petrovich, and in the French-British operetta film La dernière valse/The Last Waltz (Leo Mittler, 1935), which was made in two language versions.

She then left the film industry to concentrate on her stage work with the Viennese State Opera. After the Anschluss of Austria, she had to leave Vienna.

In January 1940 she made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as Mimí in Puccini's La bohème. From 1940 to 1956, Novotná performed regularly at the Met.

In 1946 she returned before the cameras in a straight dramatic role in the Hollywood production The Search (Fred Zinnemann, 1946), starring Montgomery Clift. The Search is a semi-documentary film on the plight of WWII orphans. Novotná played a Czech mother who has lost contact with her young son when they were in Auschwitz and she now travels from one refugee camp to another in search of him.

Novotna's then played turn of the century diva Maria Selka in the biopic The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951), featuring Mario Lanza. The film traces legendary tenor Enrico Caruso's ascension from adolescent choir singer in Naples to the uppermost ranks of the opera world. Mario Lanza's tenor voice made this film one of the top box-office draws of 1951, and this helped to popularise opera among the general public.

On TV she appeared in The Great Waltz (Max Liebman, 1955), which charts the life and times of composer Johann Strauss, Jr. She also played Hans’ mother in the TV musical Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (Sidney Lumet, 1958), starring Tab Hunter. Her last screen appearance was as an interviewee in the documentary Toscanini: The Maestro (Peter Rosen, 1985).

At 85, Jarmila Novotná passed away in New York in 1994.


Jarmila Novotna in Skrivanci pisen/Lark's Songs (1933). Source: Radio Santos (YouTube).


Jarmila Novotna and Keith Andes in The Great Waltz (1955). Source: Vai Music (YouTube).

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

Sophie Marceau

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French actress Sophie Marceau (1966) became a European film star with a string of successful films, including La boum/The Party (1980), L'Étudiante/The Student (1988), Fanfan (1993), and La fille de d'Artagnan/Revenge of the Musketeers (1994). Internationally she became known with her performances in Braveheart (1995), and the 19th James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999). She received a Cesar for La Boum 2 (1983) and she won a Moliere award for a stage production of Eurydice in 1991.

Sophie Marceau
French postcard, no. 956. Photo: Patrick Davy.

La Boum


Sophie Marceau was born Sophie Danièle Sylvie Maupu in 1966 in Paris, France. She has a three-years-older brother, Sylvain. Her parents, Simone (Morisset), a shop assistant, and Benoît Maupu, a truck driver, divorced when she was nine years old.

She grew up far from the studio spotlights in the Paris suburb of Gentilly. When she was 14, she auditioned for a role in a film about teenagers called La Boum/The Party (1980) and director Claude Pinoteau gave her the leading role. After viewing the rushes, Alain Poiré, director of the Gaumont Film Company, signed Marceau to a long-term contract.

The comedy La Boum was a hit, not only in France, where 4,378,500 tickets were sold, but also in several other European countries. She also played in La Boum 2/The Party 2 (Claude Pinoteau, 1982), another hit, for which she received the Cesar for Most Promising Actress in 1983.

Then the 16-years-old actress bought back her contract with Gaumont for one million French francs, for which she had to borrow a lot of money. She went to study at the Ecole Florent in Paris, and focused on more dramatic roles. She played roles in the historical war drama Fort Saganne (Alain Corneau, 1984) with Gérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve, the romantic drama L'amour braque/Mad Love (Andrzej Zulawski, 1985) with Francis Huster, the crime drama Police(Maurice Pialat, 1985), and the psychological thriller Descente aux enfers/Descent Into Hell (Francis Girod, 1986).

In 1988, she starred in the romantic comedy L'Étudiante/The Student (Claude Pinoteau, 1988) and the historical adventure film Chouans! (Philippe de Broca, 1988), based on the novel by Honoré de Balzac. That year, Marceau was named Best Romantic Actress at the Festival International du Film Romantique (International Festival of Romantic Film) in Cabourg for her role in Chouans!

Marceau next starred withJacques Dutronc in Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours/My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days (1989), which was directed by her long-time companion Andrzej Zulawski. The following year, she starred in her American debut Pacific Palisades (Bernard Schmitt, 1990) and in La note bleue/The Blue Note (Andrzej Zulawski, 1990), her third film directed by Zulawski.

Sophie Marceau
French collectors card in the series 'Portrait de Stars; L'encyclopédie du Cinéma' by Edito Service, 1991. Photo: Gamma Caption: Sophie Marceau, 1985, France.

The World Is Not Enough


In 1991, Sophie Marcerau made her stage debut in Jean Anouilh's Eurydice. She was awarded the Moliere Award for Best Newcomer.

Marceau began to make less dramatic films. She starred with Vincent Perez in the comedy Fanfan (Alexandre Jardin, 1993) and the Swashbuckler adventure La fille de d'Artagnan/Revenge of the Musketeers (Bertrand Tavernier, 1994). Both were popular in France, but received mixed reviews.

In 1994, she returned to the theatre as Eliza Doolittle in G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion. Marceau had her international breakthrough in 1995 when she played Isabelle, Princess of Wales in the historical epic Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995). The film was nominated for ten Academy awards and won five, including Best Picture and Best Director.

That year, she was also part of an ensemble of international actors in Al di là delle nuvole/Beyond the Clouds (1995), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders. In 1997 followed the title role in Anna Karenina (Bernard Rose 1997), filmed in Russia. She played Hippolyta in the Shakespeare adaptation A Midsummer Night's Dream (Michael Hoffman, 1999).

Arguably her best known role is the villainess Bond girl Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999), the third film with Pierce Brosnan as MI6 agent 007. Despite mixed critical reception, The World Is Not Enough earned $361,832,400 worldwide.

Marceau teamed up again with Zulawski to film La fidélité/Fidelity (Andrzej Zulawski, 2000), playing the role of a talented photographer who takes a job at a scandal-mongering tabloid and becomes romantically involved with an eccentric children's book publisher.

Sophie Marceau in The World Is Not Enough (1999)
British postcard by EON Productions. Photo: Danjaq / LLC / United Artists Corporation. Publicity still for The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999) with Sophie Marceau as Elektra King.

Speak to Me of Love


From 2000 on, Sophie Marceau worked mainly in France. In 2002, she made her directorial debut in the feature film Speak to Me of Love, for which she was named Best Director at the Montreal World Film Festival. The film starred Judith Godrèche. It was her second directorial effort, following her nine-minute short film L'aube à l'envers (1995), which had opened the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

Marceau played a widowed nurse in À ce soir/Nelly (Laure Duthilleul, 2004), an undercover police agent in the romantic thriller Anthony Zimmer (Jérôme Salle, 2005), and the troubled daughter of a murdered film star in La disparue de Deauville/Trivial (2007), her second feature as a director.

Marceau played a member of the French Resistance in Les Femmes de l'ombre/Female Agents (Jean-Paul Salomé, 2008), and she teamed up with Monica Bellucci in the thriller Ne te retourne pas/Don't Look Back (Marina de Van, 2009) about the mysterious connection between two women who have never met.

She played a successful business executive forced to confront her unhappy childhood in the romantic comedy L'âge de raison/With Love... from the Age of Reason (Yann Samuell, 2010). Recent films include the thriller Arrêtez-moi/Arrest Me (Jean-Paul Lilienfeld, 2013) and the French-Belgian drama La Taularde/Jailbirds (Audrey Estrougo, 2015). In 2015, she was a member of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival.

From 1984 to 2001, Sophie Marceau was in a relationship with Polish/French director Andrzej Zulawski. They have a son, Vincent Zulawkski (1985). Later she was in long-time relationships with producer Jim Lemley, and with actor Christophe Lambert. With Lemley she has a daughter, Juliette Lemley (2002).

Sophie Marceau in L'étudiante (1988)
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for L'étudiante/The Student (Claude Pinoteau, 1988).

Sources: Yuri German (AllMovie), Marceau.co.uk, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Der brennende Acker (1922)

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This week's film special is about the German silent film Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Murnau shot this drama right before his vampire classic Nosferatu (1922). Der brennende Acker is remarkable for its beautiful exterior shots and its all-star cast, including Vladimir Gajdarov and Lya de Putti. For many decades the film was considered lost, but in 1978 an almost complete print was found in the estate of an Italian priest. There also remains this beautiful series of postcards by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, published for the French release of the film, in France titled La terre qui flambe.

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Maria (Grete Diercks) works in the household of Peter Rog and his father. Peter is in love with her and wants to marry her, but she instead loves his younger brother Johannes.

Eugen Klöpfer in Der brennende Acker (1922 )
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922) with Eugen Klöpfer as Peter Rog.

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Peter Rog (Eugen Klöpfer) takes care of his dying father (Werner Krauss).

The Devil's Field


Der brennende Acker presents two households: that of the wealthy Count Josef Emmanuel of Rudenbergand the Rogs, a fairly prosperous farm family who live nearby.

When the old farmer Rog (Werner Krauss) dies, his hard-working son Peter (Eugen Klöpfer) attends him and stays at the farm after his father's death.

The other, younger son is the more worldly Johannes (Vladimir Gajdarov). He has great ambitions and he refuses the love of the servant Maria (Grete Diercks).

His ambition leads the handsome Johannes to charm Gerda (Lya de Putti), the daughter of the old Count Rudenberg (Eduard von Winterstein), who is also dying. Gerda helps Johannes to a job as the secretary of the Count.

Johannes discovers that the Count's second wife Helga (Stella Arbenina) will inherit the Devil's Field. Only he knows that the land sits on an untapped oil field worth a fortune.

Joahnnes turns his attention from Gerda to Helga. When she is widowed, he marries her. His greed leads to death and burning soil.

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). At the farm of the Rog family. The housemaid Maria (Grete Diercks) eyes Johannes Rog (Vladimir Gajdarov), but he is only interested in money.

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922) with Grete Diercks as the housemaid Marie.

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau


In the 1920s Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1888-1931) was with Fritz Lang and G. W. Pabst one of the three great German film directors and Sandra Brennan at AllMovie writes that "To this day German filmmaker F.W.Murnau remains one of the most influential directors of cinema."

He made his directorial debut in 1919, the fantasy film Der Knabe in Blau/Emerald of Death (1919). His next films were also fantasy films: The three-part Satanas/Satan (1919), Murnau's first film with cinematographer Karl Freund and leading actor Conrad Veidt, and Der Bucklige und die Tänzerin/The Hunchback and the Dancer (1920), that marked the start of Murnau's collaboration with screenplay writer Carl Mayer.

With Schloss Vogelöd/The Haunted Castle (1921), filmed in only 16 days, Murnau already proved his ability to create an atmosphere of fear and horror, an ability that he masterly refined in Der Brennende Acker (1922) and his famous vampire film Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens/Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (1922).

His next film, Der letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (1924), utilized unique camera techniques that later became the basis for mise-en-scene. For this film, Karl Freund masterly operated the 'moving camera'.

Besides Der letzte Mann, Murnau's literary adaptations Tartüff/Tartuffe (1925) and Faust(1925/26) also rank among the classic films of Weimar cinema produced by Erich Pommer.

In 1926, Murnau moved to Hollywood to work for Fox studios. His first American film, Sunrise: A Story of Two Humans (1927), is considered to be the apex of German silent cinema, and won an Academy award for its artistic quality.

His next film Four Devils (1928) was turned into a happy ending and was equipped with a sound track. The same happened to Our Daily Bread/City Girl (1929/30).

Murnau returned to Berlin but his negotiations with Ufa did not lead to a result. In 1929, he travelled to Tahiti where he made the naïve love story Tabu (1931) at his own expense. Deep in debt, he returned to Hollywood, where Paramount offered him a ten-year contract.

Tabu became a box-office hit, but the week before it opened, F.W. Murnau was killed in an auto accident. He was only 42.

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Gerda (Lya de Putti) and her maid (Leonie Taliansky).

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Count Rudenburg (Eduard von Winterstein), flanked by, left, his daughter Gerda (Lya de Putti), and right, his second wife Helga (Stella Arbenina).

Der brennende Acker


Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil or in French La terre qui flambe was considered lost for a long time. In 1978 an almost complete print was found in the estate of an Italian priest, who had organised screenings with his film collection in mental hospitals

Since then, Der brennende Acker is acclaimed for its visual quality, the contrast between the simple rustic farm and the airy and elegant castle. Thorkell A. Ottarsson at IMDb: "The film is quite dramatic and dark, even surprisingly dark at times. A superb film from one of the best directors of all time."

To achieve his visual effects, innovative camera angles, and bold lighting, Murnau had two of the most renowned cameramen photographing the film. Fritz Arno Wagner filmed the first part and Karl Freund the second part, and the sets were built by the equally renowned Rochus Gliese.

Karl Freund, who began as a projectionist in Berlin and newsreel cameraman, worked for Ufa in the 1920s and gained the international reputation of being a master cameraman. His later credits include such classics as Metropolis, Der Lezte Mann/The Last Laugh, Der Golem/The Golem and Variété/Variety.

W. Morrow at IMDb describes beautifully his fascination for Der brennende Acker: "a sustained mood of wintry melancholy, perked by a number of understated but impressive directorial touches. There's business involving a document torn into little pieces that is poetic. When Murnau was at his peak, in such films as Faust and Sunrise, he would stage his effects on a much grander scale, but here he manages to create a beautiful moment with a few torn pieces of paper."

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). The old maid talks to the young servants about the Devil's Field.

Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Helga, Count Rudenburg's second wife (Stella Arbenina), and Gerda, the Count's daughter (Lya de Putti), in a fierce get together.


Der brennende Acker (1922)
French postcard by Edition de la Cinématographie Française, Paris. Photo: G.P.C. Publicity still for Der brennende Acker/Burning Soil/La terre qui flambe (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1922). Johannes Rog (Vladimir Gajdarov) arrives too late at the deathbed of his father (Werner Krauss), while, left, his brother Peter (Eugen Klöpfer), and right, the maid Maria (Grete Diercks), look on.

Sources: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), John DeBartolo (Silents are Golden), W. Morrow (IMDb), Thorkell A. Ottarsson (IMDb), Yepok (IMDb), Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Albert Rueprecht

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Austrian actor Albert Rueprecht (1929) was a member of the Burgtheater and Theater in der Josefstadt in Vienna. The blond actor made over 40 feature films, including many Heimatfilms in which he often played the handsome jeune premier.

Renate Mannheim, Thomas Reyer, Albert Rueprecht and Hanna Hutten in Das Sündige Dorf (1954)
West-German postcard by DLF. Photo: Dörfler-Filmproduktion. Publicity still for Das sündige Dorf/The Village of Sin (Ferdinand Dörfler, 1954) with Renate Mannheim, Thomas Reyer, Albert Rueprecht and Hanna Hutten.

Romeo


Albert Rueprecht was born in 1929 in Vienna, the capital of Austria. He had his first stage experiences at the Akademischen Gymnasium when he played in Ferdinand Raimund’s Alpenkönig und Menschenfeind (King of the Alps and Enemy of the People).

From 1949 to 1951, he took acting classes with Zdenko Kestranek, Helmuth Krauss and Edward Wolters, teachers of the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He had his first engagements as an actor at the Theater der Courage and the Theater am Parkring.

At the Wiener Volkstheater he played in 1953 Ferdinand in Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) by Friedrich Schiller. After appearances at Theater in der Josefstadt, he came in 1954 to the prestigious Burgtheater.

There he played among others Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Don Juan in Dame Kobold by Calderón de la Barca and Gottfried in Das Käthchen von Heilbronn (Cathy of Heilbronn) by Heinrich von Kleist.

In 1955 he was in the cast of the historic production with which the Burgtheater re-opened: König Ottokars Glück und Ende (King Ottokar's Fortune and End) on the stage. For almost ten years he remained at the Burgtheater. From 1958 to 2004 he was an ensemble member at the Theater in der Josefstadt. There he played a total of over 80 roles.

Albert Rueprecht
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2102. Photo: H.P. / Deutsche London / Schwennecke. Publicity still for Wo der Wildbach rauscht/Where the Wildbach rushes (Heinz Paul, 1956).

Albert Rueprecht
German postcard by Ufa, no. 6309/2. Photo: Wessely / Union-Film.

A Classic of the Heimatfilm


In 1954, Albert Rueprecht had a part in Echo der Berge/Echo of the mountains (Alfons Stummer, 1954), an Austrian classic of the Heimatfilm genre and one the most popular German language films ever.

He would play in many Heimatfilms of the 1950s, including Die Wirtin zur Goldenen Krone/The Innkeeper of the Golden Crown (Theo Lingen, 1955), Dort wo die Alpen glühen/Where the Alpine glow (Otto Meyer, 1956), and Im Prater blüh’n wieder die Bäume/Trees Are Blooming in Vienna (Hans Wolff, 1958) with Johanna Matz.

Often he was the good-looking jeune premier, which made him quite popular. His roles ranged from a young officer to a peasant in love, from the ‘elegant man of the world’ to the emperor.

In the last part of the Sissi trilogy, Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin/Sissi - Fateful Years of an Empress (Ernst Marischka, 1957), he played the Archduke Ferdinand Max opposite Romy Schneider.

In total, Rueprecht made over 50 feature films, including the melodrama Das Licht der Liebe/The light of love (Robert Adolf Stemmle, 1954) with Paula Wessely as his mother, and Der Vogelhändler/The Bird Seller (Géza von Cziffra, 1962) with Conny Froboess.

After the end of the Heimatfilm wave, Rueprecht only got small roles including a few parts in international productions, such as Song Without End (Charles Walters, 1960) starring Dirk Bogarde. He participated in TV series and intensified his theatrical work, especially at the Theater in der Josefstadt.

In 2008 he played at the Mörbischer Seefestspiele the Emperor Franz Joseph in the operetta Im weißen Rößl (The White Horse Inn). His later films include Duett zu dritt/Tea for Three (Gerhard Janda, 1976) with Iris Berben, The Fifth Musketeer (Ken Annakin, 1979) and Ein Herz wird wieder jung/A heart becomes young again (Heide Pils, 1999).

Albert Rueprecht was married with the actresses Ellen Umlauf and Ann Millar (Elisabeth Rueprecht, born Millar) who died in 2010. His son is Alexander Rueprecht, from his marriage with Ellen Umlauf.

Albert Rueprecht in Dort oben, wo die Alpen glühen (1956)
German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 144. Photo: Rex / Union / Gruber. Publicity still for Dort oben, wo die Alpen glühen/Up there where the Alps glow (Otto Meyer, 1956).

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 Karin Baal.

Albert Rueprecht
Vintage autograph card.

Sources: Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Sascha Gura

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Around 1920, Sascha Gura (1896-?) was highly popular and active in the silent cinema of the Weimar Republic. She is particularly memorable in a few expressionist horror films by Otto Rippert and F.W. Murnau. After the rise of the Nazis, the Jewish actress disappeared in oblivion.

Sascha Gura
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 294/1. Photo: Alex Binder / Decla.

Seducing By Dance


Sascha Gura was born in Munich, Germany in 1896 as Eugenia Theresia Gura. She was the daughter of the singer and actor Hermann Gura and granddaughter of singer and actor Eugen Gura.

Sascha had her professional training at the Königliche Hochschule für Musik (Now Universität der Künste Berlin). Her career started as operetta singer during the First World War and from 1921 on she became successful at the Komische Oper in Berlin.

Gura became a film actress in 1919, debuting in the expressionist silent film Der Totentanz/Dance of Death (Otto Rippert, 1919), a Helios Film production, scripted by Fritz Lang. Gura played the lead of a dancer who kills men after seducing them by her dance. She is forced to do so by a disfigured doctor (Werner Krauss) who thus takes revenge on the world, until she meets a man (Karl Bernhard) she falls in love with.

It was followed by such films as Phantome des Lebens/Phantom of Life (Josef Coenen, 1919) with Lil Dagover, and Das Haupt des Juarez/The Head of Juarez (Johannes Guter, Rudolf Meinert, 1920) starring Eduard von Winterstein. For six years she would perform in more of such dark dramas and adventure stories.

Sascha Gura
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 294/6. Photo: Alex Binder / Helios Film.

Poison Ivy


In 1920 Sascha Gura went to Vienna to perform in two films by Heinz Hanus at Astoria-Film, the adaptation Wie Satan starb/How Satan Died (Heinz Hanus, 1920) with Nora Gregor, and Unter der Knute des Schicksals/Under the Knout of Destiny (Heinz Hanus, 1921).

Memorable was Gura’s part in F.W. Murnau’s horror film Die Bücklige und die Tanzerin/The Hunchback and the Dancer (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1920), in which she played the female lead Gina, opposite John Gottowt.

Carl Mayer’s script is similar to Der Totentanz: a disfigured man takes vengeance on the world. The story also reminds Batman’s Poison Ivy. A hunchback, who has become a millionaire by finding diamonds in Java, but also learned there about mortal venoms. When Berlin dancer Gina first falls for him and then goes back to the baron she already loved before, he makes her skin mortal to anyone who kisses her. Sadly, the film is considered lost.

Then followed Die Liebschaften des Hektor Dalmore/The love affairs of Hektor Dalmore (Richard Oswald, 1921) featuring Conrad Veidt. In the next years followed more than a dozen film parts in silent films such as the female lead in Die Handschrift des Inka/The manuscript of the Inca (1925) by Gernot Bock-Stieber, with whom she had done various films before as well.

In 1927 Gura quitted acting in silent cinema, after making the action film Bezwinger der 1000 Gefahren/Conqueror of 1000 dangers (1927) directed by its star, Harry Piel. She played two small parts in sound films, in Trenck - Der Roman einer großen Liebe/Trenck (Ernst Neubach, Heinz Paul, 1932) starring Hans Stüwe, and Grüss mir die Lore noch einmal/Greet Lore for Me one more time (Carl Heinz Wolff, 1934).

Then the Jewish actress got into trouble with the Nazi regime and her career ended. We couldn't find more information on the web about her further whereabouts.

Sascha Gura
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K 3072. Photo: Ernst Schneider.

Sources: Stephanie d'Heil (Steffi-line.de - German), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Elsa Martinelli

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Glamorous Elsa Martinelli (1935) is an Italian actress and former fashion model. She showed her beautiful curves in many European and Hollywood productions of the 1950s and 1960s, but somehow she never became the star she was destined to become in the mid-1950s.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/255.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by ISV, no. D 22. Photo: Pierluigi.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by ISV, no. D 27. Photo: Pierluigi.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (Ufa), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 39. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Ufa.

Elsa Martinelli
Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 407.

The World of Fashion


Elsa Martinelli was born Elsa Tia in Grosseto, Tuscany, in 1932 (according to AllMovie) or 1935 (according to IMDb). With her large and very poor family she moved to Rome.

In 1953, while working as a barmaid, she was discovered by designer Roberto Capucci who introduced her to the fashion world. She became a model and began playing small roles in films.

She appeared uncredited in Le Rouge et le noir/Scarlet and Black (Claude Autant-Lara, 1954) starring Gérard Philipe.

Her first important film role came the following year with the American Western The Indian Fighter (André De Toth, 1955), in which she played the Native American heroine opposite Kirk Douglas. Douglas claims to have spotted her on a magazine cover and hired her for his production company, Bryna Productions.

Elsa Martinelli in La Risaia (1956)
Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano / G.B. & F., V, no. 2072. Photo: Carlo Ponti. Publicity still for La risaia/Rice Girl (Raffaello Matarazzo, 1956). Caption: Saluti dalla Risaia (Greetings from the rice girl).

Elsa Martinelli
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. 917. Photo: Paramount, 1957.

Elsa Martinelli
Italian postcard by Casa Editr. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze (B.F.F. Edit.), no. 3387. Photo: Universal.

Elsa Martinelli
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, no. 1064, 1959. Retail price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Maxima-Lux Rome; Aspa, Madrid. Publicity still for La mina/The Mine (Giuseppe Bennati, 1957).

Elsa Martinelli
Italian postcard by 3K, no. 3841.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin-Charlottenburg, no. S 737. Photo: Unitalia-Film / Dial.

Modern Cinderella


In 1956 Elsa Martinelli won the Silver Berlin Bear Awardfor Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival. She won this prestigious award for playing a modern Cinderella in the comedy Donatella (Mario Monicelli, 1956) with Gabriele Ferzetti.

From then on, she divided her time between Europe and the US and appeared in such films as Four Girls in Town (Jack Sher, 1956) with George Nader, Manuela/The Stowaway Girl (Guy Hamilton, 1957) with Trevor Howard, the historical drama I Battellieri del Volga/Prisoner of the Volga (Victor Tourjansky, 1959) with John Derek and the romance Un amore a Roma/Love in Rome (Dino Risi, 1960).

Highlights were the excellent drama La notte brava (Mauro Bolognini, 1959), based on a novel by Pier Paolo Pasolini and the haunting and surreal horror film Et mourir de plaisir/Blood and Roses (Roger Vadim, 1960).

The latter was an attempt to retell the classic Sheridan Le Fanu vampire tale Carmilla, co-starring the director's wife Annette Vadim (or Annette Stroyberg).

In 1957 Elsa married wealthy Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito. Her mother-in-law, Countess Margherita Manicineli Scotti di San Vito, reportedly expelled her son from their Rome palace because the marriage was against her wishes. Finally she fired her son from his job as manager of the family estate.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. 233. Photo: Georg Michalke.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by WS-Druck, Wanne-Eickel, no. 284. Photo: Georg Michalke / Archiv Filmpress Zürich.

Elsa Martinelli
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1.974, 1963. Photo: publicity still for Le capitan/Captain Blood (André Hunebelle, 1960).

Elsa Martinelli
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 103. Photo: publicity still for Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962).

Elsa Martinelli and Anthony Perkins in Le procès (1962)
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 470. Sent by mail in 1972. Photo: publicity still for Le procès/The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962) with Anthony Perkins.

Tried and True Howard Hawks Fashion


One of Elsa Martinelli’s most interesting films is Orson Welles’ adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Trial, Le Procès (Orson Welles, 1962). Anthony Perkinsplayed Joseph K, a man condemned for an unnamed crime in an unnamed country. Seeking justice, he is sucked into a labyrinth of bureaucracy. Along the way, he becomes involved with three women - Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and Martinelli - who in their own individual ways are functions of the System that persecutes him.

In the action and adventure comedy Hatari! (Howard Hawks, 1962) Martinelli was the eye candy in a star cast with John Wayne, Gérard Blain,Red Buttons and Hardy Krüger. Wayne's men-only contingent is reduced to jello when Elsa enters the scene, but in tried and true Howard Hawks fashion, she quickly becomes ‘one of the guys’.

In the comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (Melville Shavelson, 1962) she starred opposite Charlton Heston, and in The V.I.P.’s (Anthony Asquith, 1963) she was the protegee of Orson Welles.

In the South Seas adventure Rampage (Phil Karlson, 1963) she co-starred with Robert Mitchum, and in the episodic sex comedy Sette Volte Donna/Woman Times Seven (Vittorio De Sica, 1967) with Lex Barker.

In the big-budget adaptation of Terry Southern's satiric sex farce Candy (Christian Marquand, 1968), she played Candy’s mother in a cast with Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, and Richard Burton.

In Italy she made the near surrealist western Il mio corpo per un poker/Belle Starr (Piero Cristofani, Lina Wertmuller, 1968), and a stylish erotic thriller, Una sull'altra/One on Top of the Other (Lucio Fulci, 1969), with Marisa Mell and Jean Sorel.

Elsa Martinelli
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 199. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Elsa Martinelli
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 124. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Elsa Martinelli
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane', no. FK 32. Photo: Fried Agency / Ufa.

Elsa Martinelli
German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, no. FK 3172. Photo: Unitalia Film, Roma.

Elsa Martinelli
Italian photocard, editor and photographer unknown.

Interior Designer


In the 1970s the film career of Elsa Martinelli somehow halted. She only appeared incidentally in European films. She starred opposite Robert Hossein in the French caper film La Part des Lions/The Lions' Share (Jean Larriaga, 1971), and she played a supporting part in the political drama Garofano Rosso/The Red Carnation (Luigi Faccini, 1976) with Marina Berti.

On TV she appeared as a guest star in The Return of the Saint (1979) with Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar. Meanwhile she had started a new, successful career as an interior designer, but she continued to accept incidental parts in films and TV-series.

After Sono Un Fenomeno Paranormale/I'm a Paranormal Phenomenon (Sergio Corbucci, 1985) with Alberto Sordi, she made unheralded return appearances in the international productions Arrivederci Roma (Clive Donner, 1990) and the inconsequential all-star comedy Once Upon a Crime (Eugene Levy, 1992).

Most recently she was seen in the short film Cabiria, Priscilla e le altre/Cabiria, Priscilla and the Others (Fabrizio Celestini, 1999) and the TV-series Orgoglio (2005).

Elsa Martinelli was married from 1957 till 1964 to Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito, by whom she has a daughter, actress Cristiana Mancinelli (1958). In 1968 she married Paris Matchphotographer and 1970s furniture designer Willy Rizzo, with whom she has a son.


Trailer The Indian Fighter (1955). Source: Project1950s Tony (YouTube).


Italian trailer Donatella (1956). Source: CG Entertainment (YouTube). No subtitles, sorry.


German DVD trailer for La risaia/Rice Girl 1956).Source: Arild Rafalzik (YouTube). No subtitles, sorry.


Trailer Hatari! (1962). Source: Paramountmovies Digital (YouTube).


Trailer Le Procès/The Trial (1962). Source: Danios 12345 (YouTube).


Elsa Martinelli and Robert Hoffman in Come Imparai ad Amare le Donne (1967). Source: stranevisioni (YouTube). No subtitles, sorry.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Kimberly Lindbergs (Cinebeats), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Imported from the USA: Robert De Niro

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Legendary American actor Robert De Niro (1943) has starred in such classic films as Taxi Driver (1976), Novecento/1900 (1978), The Deer Hunter (1978), Awakenings (1990) and GoodFellas (1990). His role in The Godfather: Part II (1974) brought him his first Academy Award, and he scored his second Oscar for his portrayal of Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980). De Niro worked with many acclaimed film directors, including Brian DePalma, Francis Coppola, Elia Kazan, Bernardo Bertolucci and, most importantly, Martin Scorsese. He also appeared in French, British and Italian films.

Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
French postcard in the Collection Cinema Couleur by Edition La Malibran, Paris, no. MC 33, 1990. Photo: publicity still for Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976)
Belgian promotion card by Tasschen Gallery for the exhibition 'Taxi Driver - unseen photographs from Scorsese's Masterpiece'. Photo: Steve Schapiro. Publicity still for Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976).


The most chilling performance of his career


Robert Anthony De Niro was born in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, New York City in 1943. His mother, Virginia Admiral, was a cerebral and gifted painter, and his father, Robert De Niro Sr., was a painter, sculptor and poet whose work received high critical acclaim. They split ways in 1945, when young Robert was only 2 years old, after his father announced that he was gay.

De Niro was raised primarily by his mother, who took on work as a typesetter and printer in order to support her son. A bright and energetic child, Robert De Niro was incredibly fond of attending films with his father when they spent time together. De Niro's mother worked part-time as a typist and copy editor for Maria Picator's Dramatic Workshop, and as part of her compensation, De Niro was allowed to take children's acting classes for free. At the age of 10, De Niro made his stage debut as the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz.

De Niro proved to be uninterested in school altogether and, as a teenager, joined a rather tame street gang in Little Italy that gave him the nickname Bobby Milk, in reference to his pale complexion. While De Niro was by all accounts only a very modest troublemaker, the gang provided him with experience to skilfully portray Italian mobsters as an actor.

He left school at age 16 to study acting Stella Adler Conservatory. Adler, who had taught Marlon Brandoand Rod Steiger, was a strong proponent of the Stanislavski method of acting, involving deep psychological character investigation. He studied briefly with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio in New York City, and then began auditioning.

After a momentary cameo in the French film Trois chambres à Manhattan/Three Rooms in Manhattan (Marcel Carné, 1965), De Niro's real film debut came in Greetings (Brian De Palma, 1968). However, De Niro's first film role already came at the age of 20, when he appeared credited as Robert Denero in De Palma’s The Wedding Party (Brian De Palma, Wilford Leach, 1963), but the film was not released until 1969.

He then appeared in Roger Corman's film Bloody Mama (1970), featuring Shelley Winters. His breakthrough performances came a few years later in two highly acclaimed films: the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly (John D. Hancock, 1973), in which he played a terminally ill catcher on a baseball team, and the crime film Mean Streets (1973), his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese, in which he played street thug Johnny Boy opposite Harvey Keitel.

De Niro and Martin Scorsese worked successfully together on eight films: Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and Casino (1995).

In 1974, De Niro established himself as one America’s finest actors with his Academy Award-winning portrayal of the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), a role for which he learned to speak Sicilian.

Two years later, De Niro delivered perhaps the most chilling performance of his career, playing vengeful cabbie Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) alongside Jodie Foster. His iconic performance as Travis Bickle catapulted him to stardom and forever linked his name with Bickle's famous 'You talkin' to me?' monologue, which De Niro largely improvised.

In Italy, De Niro appeared opposite Gérard Dépardieu in the epic historical drama Novecento/1900 (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1976). The film is an exploration of life in Italy in the first half of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of two Italian childhood friends at the opposite sides of society's hierarchy.

He also starred in The Last Tycoon (1976), the last film directed by Elia Kazan. The Hollywood drama is based upon Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon, De Niro continued to show his tremendous skill as a dramatic actor in the Vietnam war drama The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978). The film follows a group of friends haunted by their Vietnam experiences.

De Niro later portrayed middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta in the commercially unsuccessful but critically adored film Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). The previously skinny De Niro had put on 60 pounds of muscle for his riveting turn as LaMotta and was rewarded for his dedication with the 1981 Academy Award for best actor.

Robert de Niro
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, no. STAR 66. Photo: J. Ritchie / Classico, San Francisco.

Robert de Niro in Raging Bull (1980)
British postcard by Classic. Photo: publicity still for Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980).

Reunited in a terrifying way


In the 1980s, Robert De Niro first roles were a worldly ambitious Catholic priest in True Confessions (Ulu Grosbard, 1981), an aspiring stand-up comedian in Scorsese's The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1983) and as a Jewish mobster in the sprawling historical epic Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984).

Other notable projects included Sci-fi art film Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985) and the British drama The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986), about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in 18th century South America, which won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. It was followed by fare like the crime drama The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987), in which De Niro portrayed gangster Al Capone opposite Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, the mysterious thriller Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987) and the action comedy Midnight Run (Martin Brest, 1988).

De Niro opened the 1990s with Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990), yet another acclaimed gangster film from Scorsese that saw the actor teaming up with Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci. De Niro next starred in a project that earned him another Oscar nomination, portraying a catatonic patient brought back to awareness in Awakenings (Penny Marshall, 1990), co-starring Robin Williams as a character based on physician Oliver Sacks.

Dramas continued to be the genre of choice for De Niro, as he played a blacklisted director in Guilty by Suspicion (Irwin Winkler, 1991) and a fire chief in Backdraft (Ron Howard, 1991).

Soon afterwards, the actor was once again front and centre and reunited with Scorsese in a terrifying way, bulking up to become a tattooed rapist who stalks a family in Cape Fear (Martin Scorsese, 1991). The film was a remake of the 1962 thriller starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. Peck and Mitchum made appearances in the remake as well. De Niro received his sixth Academy Award nomination for Cape Fear, with the film becoming the highest grossing collaboration between the actor and Scorsese, earning more than $182 million worldwide.

After somewhat edgy, comedic outings like Night and the City (Irwin Winkler, 1992) and Mad Dog and Glory (John McNaughton, 1993), another drama followed in the form of This Boy's Life (Michael Caton-Jones, 1993), in which De Niro portrayed the abusive stepfather of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

That same year, De Niro made his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale (Robert De Niro, 1993), a film adaptation of a one-man play written and performed by Chazz Palminteri. In 1994, De Niro was practically unrecognisable as the monster in actor-director Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh, 1994).

It was followed by another Scorsese telling of mob life, this time in Las Vegas. De Niro portrayed a character based on real-life figure Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal in Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995), co-starring Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci. In Heat (Michael Mann, 1995), De Niro re-teamed with fellow Godfather star Al Pacino in a well-received outing about a bank robber contemplating getting out of the business and the police detective aiming to bring him down.

Robert De Niro in Midnight Run (1988)
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Midnight Run (Martin Brest, 1988).

Robert De Niro in Jackie Brown (1997)
French postcard, no. 654. Photo: publicity still for Jackie Brown. (Quentin Tarantino, 1997) with Robert De Niro as Louis Gara.

Robert de Niro in Machete (2010)
German postcard by CTMG, 2010. Photo: publicity still for Machete (Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez, 2010) with Robert De Niro as Senator McLaughlin.

Striking out into decidedly different territory


For the rest of the 1990s and into the new millennium, Robert De Niro featured yearly in a big screen project as either a lead or supporting figure. His films include the legal crime drama Sleepers (Barry Levinson, 1996), the black comedy Wag the Dog (Barry Levinson, 1997), the crime drama Cop Land (James Mangold, 1997), the crime thriller Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997), the spy action-thriller Ronin (John Frankenheimer, 1998) and the crime comedy-drama Flawless (Joel Schumacher, 1999).

At the turn of the century, De Niro struck out into decidedly different territory with Analyze This (Harold Ramis, 1999), a hilarious and highly popular spoof of the mob movies that had garnered him fame. Analyze This earned more than a $100 million domestically, with De Niro playing a Mafioso who seeks help from a psychiatrist (Billy Crystal).

De Niro took on another comedy, Meet the Parents (Jay Roach, 2000), as Ben Stiller's future father-in-law. The smash hit spawned two sequels: Meet the Fockers (Jay Roach, 2004) and Little Fockers (Paul Weitz, 2011), both of which were also box-office successes.

De Niro continued to switch between comedic and serious roles over the next few years, reuniting with Billy Crystal for Analyze That (Harold Ramis, 2002), and starring in the spy thriller The Good Shepherd (Robert De Niro, 2006) with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie.

The following year De Niro was featured as a secretive cross-dressing pirate with a heart of gold in the fantasy flick Stardust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007), while 2009 saw a return to dramatic fare with Everybody's Fine (Kirk Jones, 2009). In Italy, De Niro starred in the romantic comedy Manuale d'amore 3/The Ages of Love (Giovanni Veronesi, 2011).

De Niro earned yet another Academy Award nomination for his turn in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (2012), playing the father of a mentally troubled son (Bradley Cooper). De Niro teamed up again with Silver Linings Playbook director Russell and stars Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence for the biopic Joy (David O. Russell, 2015), based on the life of Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano.

Later that year, De Niro starred as a widower who returns to the workforce in The Intern (Nancy Meyers, 2015), with Anne Hathaway. In 2016, he starred in another biopic, Hands of Stone (Jonathan Jakubowicz, 2016), playing Ray Arcel, the trainer of Panamanian boxer Roberto Durán. That same year De Niro received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama for his contribution to the arts.

De Niro, who has long resided in New York City, has been investing in Manhattan's Tribeca neighbourhood since 1989. His capital ventures there included co-founding the film studio TriBeCa Productions in 1998 and the Tribeca Film Festival (since 2002). De Niro married actress Diahnne Abbott in 1976. The couple had one son, Raphael, before divorcing 12 years later, in 1988. De Niro then had a long relationship with model Toukie Smith that produced twin sons, Aaron Kendrick and Julian Henry, in 1995. Then in 1997, De Niro married Grace Hightower, with whom he has also two children.


Trailer Novecento/1900 (1976). Source: Eurekaentertainment (YouTube).


Trailer Raging Bull (1980). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).


Trailer The Mission (1986). Source: Warner Bros. (YouTube).


Trailer for Analyze This (1999). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).

Sources: Biography.com, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Michael York

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English actor Michael York (1942) is the athletic star of several Shakespeare adaptations and three popular Musketeer films. His blond, blue-eyed boyish looks and plummy accent incarnated a traditionally English public-school manliness in such classic films as Joseph Losey's Accident (1967) and Cabaret (1972).

Michael York in Logan's Run (1976)
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: publicity still for Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976).

Michael York
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. C.P.C.S. 43033.

Something for Everyone


Michael York, OBE was born Michael Hugh Johnson in 1942, in Fulmer, Buckinghamshire. He is the son of Florence Edith May (née Chown), a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, an executive with Marks & Spencer department stores.

At age three, Michael broke his nose when he jumped off the roof of a coal house while trying to fly. During his teenage years, York was educated at Bromley Grammar School for Boys, Hurstpierpoint College and University College, Oxford.

He began his career in a 1956 production of The Yellow Jacket. In 1959 he made his West End debut with a small part in a production of Hamlet. York was a member of National Youth Theatre in London's East End and on international tour. He also performed with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and the University College Players. In 1964, he graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in English.

After some time with the Dundee Repertory Theatre, where he played in Brendan Behan's The Hostage, York joined the National Theatre under Laurence Olivier where he worked with Franco Zeffirelli during the 1965 staging of Much Ado About Nothing.

Following his role on British TV as Jolyon (Jolly) in The Forsyte Saga (1967), York made his film debut as Lucentio in William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (Franco Zeffirelli, 1967), starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He also appeared in Accident (Joseph Losey, 1967), Harold Pinter's dramatic film adaptation of the 1965 novel by Nicholas Mosley. At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival the film won the award for Grand Prix Spécial du Jury.

Then York was cast as Tybalt Capulet in Zeffirelli’s innovative Romeo and Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli, 1968). He starred in The Guru (James Ivory, 1969) as a rock star who wants to learn to play the sitar, and he played an amoral bisexual drifter in the black comedy Something for Everyone (Harold Prince, 1970) with Angela Lansbury.

Michael York in The Three Musketeers (1973)
East-German postcard by Progress Film-Verleih, Berlin, no. 115/76. Photo: publicity still for The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973).

Cabaret


Michael York starred in the British World War I action-drama Zeppelin (Étienne Périer, 1971), which depicts a fictitious German attempt to raid on Great Britain in a giant Zeppelin to steal the Magna Carta from its hiding place in one of Scotland's castles.

He then portrayed the bisexual Brian Roberts in Bob Fosse's film version of Cabaret (1972) opposite Liza Minelli. Cabaret opened to glowing reviews and strong box office, eventually taking in more than $20 million. The film won eight Oscars and seven British Academy Film Awards.

York then starred as D'Artagnan in Alexandre DumasThe Three Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973), and he made his Broadway debut in the original production of Tennessee Williams's Out Cry. One year later the sequel to The Three Musketeers was released (roughly covering events in the second half of the book) titled The Four Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1974). Fifteen years later, most of the cast and crew joined together in a third film titled The Return of the Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1989), based on the Alexandre Dumas novel Twenty Years After.

York was among the ensemble cast of the British mystery film Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet, 1974), based on the 1934 novel by Agatha Christie. It was another box-office hit. He played a young officer in India in the British drama Conduct Unbecoming (Michael Anderson, 1975), and the title character in the American science fiction film Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976).

The following year, he starred opposite Burt Lancaster in The Island of Dr. Moreau (Don Taylor, 1977), based on H.G. Wells novel of the same name. He also reunited with Zeffirelli as John the Baptist in the TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth (Franco Zeffirelli, 1977), starring Robert Powell as Jesus, and he played Marty Feldman’s twin brother in the American historical comedy The Last Remake of Beau Geste (Marty Feldman, 1977).

His next films, Fedora (Billy Wilder, 1978), the English spy thriller The Riddle of the Sands (Tony Maylam, 1979) and the Canadian spy caper Final Assignment (Paul Almond, 1980) were all box office flops, and York started to work more and more for television.

Michael York
American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. Cl/Personality #48-1979. Photo: Douglas Kirkland / Contact.

International Man of Mystery


In the following decades, Michael York enjoyed a busy and varied career in television and on the stage. On television he starred in such TV films as The Master of Ballantrae (Douglas Hickox, 1984), Sword of Gideon (Michael Anderson, 1986), and The Lady and the Highwayman (John Hough, 1989), and he appeared in two episodes of the series Road to Avonlea (1991).

His Broadway theatre credits include Bent (1980), The Crucible (1992), Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (1993) and the ill-fated musical The Little Prince and the Aviator (1982), which closed during previews. He also has made many sound recordings as a reader, including Harper Audio's production of C. S. Lewis'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

He kept returning to the cinema. Remarkable was the French-British drama Success Is the Best Revenge (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1984), which was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. He appeared in the Dutch costume drama Eline Vere (Harry Kümel, 1991). He played Basil Exposition in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach, 1997) and its two sequels. He was also in the action-adventure The Omega Code (Robert Marcarelli, 1999) with Casper Van Dien.

On TV, he appeared as Mason Fairbanks, Homer Simpson's possible father in an 2006 episode of The Simpsons, and played the character Bernard Fremont (inspired by real life serial killer Charles Sobhraj) in the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode Slither (2006). In 2009, he lent his voice to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and in 2016, he returned to The Simpsons as Dr. Budgie.

In the cinema, he was seen in the remarkable Polish film Młyn i krzyż/The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, 2011), starring Rutger Hauer. His autobiography (1993) was issued as Accidentally on Purpose in the U.S. and Travelling Player in Britain. He also co-wrote a book with Adrian Brine called A Shakespearean actor prepares.

York was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama. Michael York is married to photographer Patricia McCallum. They met in 1967 when she was assigned to photograph him, and they married in 1968. His stepson is Star Wars producer Rick McCallum. In 2013, York announced he was suffering from the rare disease amyloidosis (a blood disorder). Doctors initially thought he had bone cancer, and in 2012, he had undergone a stem cell transplant, which can alleviate symptoms.


Trailer Cabaret (1972). Source: Warner Movies On Demand (YouTube).


Trailer The Three Musketeers (Richard Lester, 1973). Source: TheTrailerGal (YouTube).


Trailer for Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976). Source: Movieclips Trailer Vault (YouTube).

Sources: Andrew Spicer (Encyclopedia of British Film), Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Mylène Demongeot

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Beautiful Mylène Demongeot (1935) became one of the blond sex symbols of the French cinema when she seduced Yves Montand in Les sorcières de Salem (1957). The coquettish French actress would go on to co-star in the three Fantômas adventures and many other European films of the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1980s she also became a producer.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Kruger, no. 902/162.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1066. Photo: Dimitri/Dalmas.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Kruger, no. 902/76.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1014. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 143. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 501. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Seduction Scene


Marie-Helene Demongeot was born in Nice, France in 1935 into a family of actors. Her parents met in Shanghai, China, and moved to Nice, France.

Her mother, Klaudia Trubnikova, was a Russian-Ukrainean emigre from Kharkiv who escaped from the horrors of the Russian Civil War. Her father, Alfred Demongeot, was of French-Italian heritage. The family was bilingual and young Demongeot was able to use Russian and French, but eventually switched to French. She grew up in Nice.

After the war, at the age of 13 she went to Paris and continued her education there. She studied piano under the tutelage of Marguerite Long and Yves Nat. At the age of 15 she became a model in the atelier of Pierre Cardin, and studied dramatic art with Marie Ventura at Le Cours Simon in Paris.

Two years later she made her film debut with a supporting role in Les enfants de l'amour/Children of Love (Léonide Moguy, 1953) starring Etchika Choureau.

More small roles followed in Futures Vedettes/Joy of Living (Marc Allégret, 1955) with Brigitte Bardot, and the British musical comedy It's a Wonderful World (Val Guest, 1956).

Then she had her breakthrough at the side of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret with a memorable seduction scene in Les sorcières de Salem/The Crucible (Raymond Rouleau, 1957), based on the play by Arthur Miller.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard. Photo: DEFA. Publicity still for Les sorcières de Salem (1957).

Mylène Demongeot
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 1852, 1963. Retail Price: 0,20 DM. Photo: Progress.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1039, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane. Photo: H. Coste.

Mylène Demongeot
Dutch postcard by IFP, Amsterdam, no. 3014.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag G.m.b.H, Minden/Westf. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1964.

Mylène Demongeot
Dutch postcard by Uitg. N.V. v.h. Weenenk & Snel, Baarn, no. 133.

Manipulative but Humorous


With appearances in three or four feature films every year, Mylène Demongeot would rise to international fame in the late 1950s.

Demongeot's first notable leading role was in Sois belle et tais-toi/Be Beautiful But Shut Up (Marc Allégret, 1958) opposite Henri Vidal, where she played a 17-year-old jewel smuggler.

She further developed her screen image of a manipulative but humorous blond mistress opposite David Niven in Bonjour tristesse (Otto Preminger, 1958, and opposite Alain Delon in the comedy Faibles femmes/Three Murderesses (Michel Boisrond, 1959).

Many of her screen assignments were along the ooh-la-la lines of her Swedish maid in the British Upstairs, Downstairs (Ralph Thomas, 1959).

In Italy she played opposite Steve Reevesin the Peplum (sword and sandal epic) La battaglia di Maratona/Giant of Marathon (Jacques Tourneur, 1959), withRosanna Schiaffino and Elsa Martinelli in La notte brava/Bad Girls Don't Cry (Mauro Bolognini, 1959) based on a script by Pier Paolo Pasolini, again with Elsa Martinelliin the comedy Un amore a Roma/Love in Rome (Dino Risi, 1960) and with Roger Moore in Il ratto delle sabine/Romulus and the Sabines (Richard Pottier, 1961).

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1022. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mylène Demongeot
Spanish postcard by Oscarcolor, no. 268.

Mylène Demongeot
Spanish postcard by Oscarcolor, no. 266.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by St. Anne, Marseille. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/41. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions Borde, Paris, no. 130. Photo: Morel.

Milady de Winter


Among Mylène Demongeot's best known film-works are the role of manipulative Milady de Winter in the two-part adventure film Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Bernard Borderie, 1961) and the role of Helen in the Fantômas trilogy (André Hunebelle, 1964-1967), co-starring with Jean Maraisand Louis de Funès.

Other incidental interesting films were À cause, à cause d'une femme (Michel Deville, 1963) with Jacques Charrier, the comedy 12 + 1 (Nicolas Gessner, 1969) with Sharon Tate, and the Canadian drama Quelques arpents de neige/A Few Acres of Snow (Denis Héroux, 1972).

Although she gradually fazed out of her stereotypical image of a beautiful French coquette, she still looked pretty convincing in the image of a mid-aged Madame, which she developed in the 1980s in films like Tenue de soirée/Evening Dress (1986, Bertrand Blier) starring Gérard Depardieu.

On TV she appeared in the detective series Il professore/Big Man (Steno, 1988-1989) starring Bud Spencer, and in The Man Who Lived at the Ritz (Desmond Davis, 1988).

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK 150. Retail price: 30 Pfg. Photo: Klaus Collignon / UFA.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/66. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/326. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/327. Photo: Gérard Decaux.

Mylène Demongeot
Big Dutch postcard, no. 608.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by E.D.U.G., offered by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 29. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Comeback


Mylène Demongeot was the co-owner of Kangarou Films, a production company she had founded with her late husband, director Marc Simenon, the son of Georges Simenon.

During the 1970s and 1980s they produced a number of unsuccessful films like Par le sang des autres/By the Blood of Others (Marc Simenon, 1974) and Signé Furax/Signed Furax (Marc Simenon, 1981). Marc Simenon died in 1999.

Demongeot made a comeback in the crime drama 36 Quai des Orfevres/Department 36 (Olivier Marchal, 2004) starring Daniel Auteuil, and Victoire (Stephanie Murat, 2004) as the mother of Sylvie Testud.

Later films were La Californie/French California (Jacques Fieschi, 2006) based on a short story by Georges Simenon, the hit comedy Camping (Fabien Onteniente, 2006), and the sequel Camping 2 (Fabien Onteniente, 2010). With director Hiner Saleem, she made Sous les toits de Paris/Beneath the Rooftops of Paris (Hiner Saleem, 2007) and Si tu meurs, je te tue/If You Die, I'll Kill You (Hiner Saleem, 2011).

Demongeot also wrote several books, the best known are Tiroirs Secrets (Secret drawers, 2001) and Animalement vôtre (Animally Yours.2005). In the 2000s Demongeot made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of her mother in Kharkiv, Ukraine. There she planted a commemorative tree and presented her autobiographical book, Les Lilas de Kharkov (The Lilacs of Kharkiv, 1990).

In 2006 she was named Commander in the Order of Arts and Letters for her achievements in acting. Mylène Demongeot is currently residing in Nice in the south of France.

Her latest films include the comedy-drama Elle s'en va/On My Way (Emmanuelle Bercot, 2013), starring Catherine Deneuve, and Camping 3 (Fabien Onteniente, 2016), which became the second highest-grossing domestic film in France in 2016, with 3,228,313 tickets sold.

Mylène Demongeot
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin, no. 558.

Mylène Demongeot
Belgian postcard by Cox, no. 42.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 955. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Mylène Demongeot
Yugoslavian postcard by Studio Sombor, no. 294.

Mylène Demongeot
German postcard by UFA (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Tempelhof, no. CK-268. Retail price: 300 Pfg. Photo: UFA.

Mylène Demongeot
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 1035. Photo: D. Roger.

Sources: Steve Shelokhonov (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Personal website (French), Allociné (French), Wikipedia, and IMDb

Herr Arnes pengar (1919)

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The Swedish silent masterpiece Herr Arnes pengar/Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller, 1919) is a crime-drama based on Selma Lagerlöf’s novel The Treasure. Set on the Swedish coast in the 16th century, the film stars Richard Lund as Sir Archie, a Scottish mercenary who has escaped from a Scottish prison and fled to Sweden.

Richard Lund in Sir Arne's Treasure (1919)
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1078/1. Photo: Richard Lund in Herr Arnes pengar/Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller 1919).

Richard Lund in Sir Arne's Treasure
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1078/2. Photo: Richard Lund, Bror Berger and Erik Stocklassa in Herr Arnes pengar/Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller, 1919). Caption: In Prison.

Forces of nature can't be conquered


Swedish film and theatre actor Richard Lund (1885–1960) was a prolific star of the early Scandinavian cinema. He worked for the two most important Swedish directors of the silent era, Victor Sjöströmand Mauritz Stiller. The crime drama Herr Arnes pengar (1919) was directed by the latter.

Lund plays a Scottish mercenary who, together with his cronies Sir Donald (Bror Berger) and Sir Filip (Erik Stocklassa), has escaped from a Scottish prison and fled to Sweden.

There he murders the family of Sir Arne to obtain a treasure, after which he unknowingly starts an affair with the daughter of the murdered family, Elsalill (Mary Johnson).

Sir Arne’s Treasure still goes as one of if not the masterpiece of the Swedish silent cinema. Jerzy Toeplitz wrote in his Geschichte des Films (1972): “As with Sjöström, Nature plays a leading role in Stiller. Already in the first images the snow creates the atmosphere of the action. In the tragic finale, the sea becomes a contributor. In the small port of Marstrand lies the ship that should return the Scots to their home. But it is wedged by ice floes. [...]

When the situation is strained to the utmost, because the forces of nature can't be conquered, in the city the news spreads that the criminals want to flee. In the battle with the town guards, Elsalill dies and Sir John Archie is captured. A long train of grey-clad women arrives at the ship to take off the corpse of Elsalill, after which the ice bursts, and the occupied ship begins to move. Too late the silent, dangerous sea shows up.”

Richard Lund in Sir Arne's Treasure
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1078/4. Photo: Richard Lund, Bror Berger and Erik Stocklassa in Herr Arnes pengar/Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller, 1919). Caption: The Robbers' Escape.

Richard Lund in Sir Arne's Treasure
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1078/8. Photo: Richard Lund, Bror Berger and Erik Stocklassa in Herr Arnes pengar/Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller, 1919). Caption: On the Lookout.

Richard Lund in Sir Arne's Treasure
Swedish postcard by Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 1078/12. Photo: Richard Lund and Mary Johnson in Herr Arnes pengar/Sir Arne's Treasure (Mauritz Stiller, 1919). Caption: They have come now to arrest you, escape!

Sources: Jerzy Toeplitz (Geschichte des Films - German), Wikipedia and IMDb.

David Anderson's 12 Favourite European Films

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One of the finest inline places to read original, well-written and always fascinating film reviews is Bunched Undies. We invited the film connaisseur behind it, David Anderson, for a guest blog. And... he said yes! David selected twelve of his favourite European films for us with a link to his review. And we added twelve postcards from our collection.

The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom (1924)

The Cigarette Girl of Mosselprom is about a group of men who are passionately, and
somewhat perplexingly, attracted the same woman. Whether it’s her beguiling
personality, her trim figure or her budding mustache, cigarette vendor Zina (Yuliya
Solntseva) finds herself hip deep in would-be suitors.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-cigarette-girl-of-mosselprom-1924.html


Metropolis (1927)

The film is a triumph of art direction and set design. The various technical marvels
of this futuristic society are rendered in a geometric Art Deco style that is as
beautiful today as it was 90 years ago. It is no stretch to say that this film has,
at one time or another, been ripped off by every director and set designer in the
profession.


http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2013/03/metropolis-1927-12.html


People on Sunday (1930)

Produced during a rare period of calm in Germany’s early 20th Century history,
People on Sunday was created by a dream team of gifted young filmmakers – Curt and
Robert Siodmak (directors), Edgar Ulmer (producer), Billy Wilder (screenplay),
Eugene Shufftan (DP) and Fred Zinnemann (Assistant Director) – all of whom would
eventually immigrate to America and find varying degrees of success in Hollywood.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2013/09/make-love-not-war-people-on-sunday-1930.html



The Four Feathers (1939)

John Clements, often derided as a wooden performer, is convincing here as a
sensitive man struggling in a privileged world devoid of nuance, while Ralph
Richardson is excellent as the jilted lover who cunningly decides to wait it out.


http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2015/01/gone-with-fuzzy-wuzzys-four-feathers.html

[https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9sffkOQr2NU/VMLMPQuzhqI/AAAAAAAAKc4/vCNMLjWG7SI/w1200-h630-p-k-nu/the%2Bfour%2Bfeathers%2B1939.jpg]

Gone With the Fuzzy-Wuzzys: The Four Feathers (1939)

bunchedundies.blogspot.com
The Four Feathers, produced in that seminal cinematic year of 1939, is a rousing
adventure epic that, for better or worse, reflects the...





Beauty and the Beast (1946)

The Beast’s complex make-up, by Hagop Arakelian, is the film’s star special
effect, and it compares favorably to today’s state of the art prosthetics. The
Beast, played by Cocteau’s muse, protégé and long time lover Jean Marais, is
still allowed a reasonable range of expressions despite Arakelian’s thick
appliances.


http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2013/09/some-enchanted-evening-beauty-and-beast.html

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8vMyowqCbds/UkLpTYQipmI/AAAAAAAAIUI/o-SJI9eeKmc/w1200-h630-p-k-nu/beauty-and-the-beast-blu-ray-criterion-cover.jpg]

Some Enchanted Evening: Beauty and the Beast (1946)
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bunchedundies.blogspot.com
Jean Cocteau’s retelling of the classic, familiar fable Beauty and the Beast is
a perfect match of material and réalisateur. Posse...





The Cranes are Flying (1951)

A passionate love affair is torn apart by Hitler’s invasion of Russia in this
Palme d’Or winner from director Mikhail Kalatozov. Veronica (Tatyana Samojlova)
and Boris (Alesky Batalov) are young Muscovites fully enthralled with each other,
and in the opening scenes we see them happily skip and frolic along the Volga and
through a surreally deserted Red Square.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2010/09/cranes-are-flying-1957.html



The Wages of Fear (1953)

The Wages of Fear starts as a flabby, dawdling tale of class struggle in a squalid
South American village, then morphs into a primeval drama of survival; as lean and
mean as Yves Montand's sweaty undershirt.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2009/12/wages-of-fear-1953.html

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FY2687dO59c/SxkkmmJ5WOI/AAAAAAAAAqM/4JMUgZphJ0k/w1200-h630-p-k-nu/wafposter2.jpg]

The Wages of Fear (1953)
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bunchedundies.blogspot.com
"Wages of Fear" starts as a flabby, dawdling tale of class struggle in a squalid
South American village, then morphs into a primeval drama ...




French Cancan (1954)

In 1954, director Jean Renoir crafted French Cancan, a loving Technicolor tribute to
a notorious nightclub. In this fictionalized account, we follow the twisting path of
a down-on-his-luck impresario named Danglard (Jean Gabin) and his dream of creating
a truly democratic dancehall; a place where rich and poor, banker and baker, could
mingle and enjoy a night of bawdy entertainment.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2014/12/french-cancan-at-60.html


La Strada (1954)

Giulietta Masina is often described as Fellini’s muse, yet somehow the term
doesn’t seem sufficient. Under Fellini’s direction, Masina’s pixie-ish
characters remained cheery and upbeat, drawing on deep wells of strength despite
their dreadful circumstances. La Strada is a film open to several roads of
interpretation, including a thinly disguised retelling of Italy’s rise and fall
from fascism.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2014/09/la-strada-at-60.html

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Wild Strawberries’ intoxicating blend of the gleefully pastoral with the grimly
Kafkaesque continues to confound, compel and enthrall. It is a journey that melds
fantasy and reality, past and present with handcrafted directness. As Dr. Borg
(Victor Sjöström) confronts his deepest flaws and innermost demons amid the
glorious natural bounty of summer, viewers are treated to supernatural insights and
spectral visions on the mysteries of existence.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2013/06/wild-strawberries-1957-on-blu-ray.html


Zazie dans le metro (1960)

12 year old Zazie (Catherine Demongeot) has come to Paris for the weekend with her
free spirited, widowed mother (Odette Piquet). She is dropped off with her uncle
Gabriel (Philippe Noiret) for safekeeping, while Mom visits with the most recent of
her string of ne’er-do-well boyfriends. Young Zazie is a child prodigy in at least
two skill sets: seeing through adult deceptions and the blatant use of foul
language, and she plies both of these talents with the effortless flair of a true
master.


http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2011/06/zazie-dans-le-metro-196012.html







Breathless (1960)

Weened on the imagery of American gangster movies, Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo)
spends his aimless days pursuing the twin pleasures of petty theft and venery; a fat
Gauloise perpetually dangling from his lips. Michel seems unable to think more than
two hours ahead - the typical length of a movie in other words - but one day his
short sighted hedonism results in more than existential ennui.

http://bunchedundies.blogspot.com/2014/02/breathless-1960-on-blu-ray.html

Mirror, mirror

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Goodbye 2016, Hello 2017! EFSP starts the New Year with a guest post. Film historian Ivo Blom chose for this New Year's post 12 postcards from his collection which feature mirrors. Ivo: "Mirror, mirror on the wall... Already in Antiquity mirrors had a connotation of magic, a tradition which has maintained – just think of Snow White or Harry Potter’s Mirror of Erised. The use of real mirrors in film has also become an established feature of film language. It developed in the 1910s as a typical European phenomenon in silent cinema, which set cinema apart from theatre."

Fern Andra
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 289/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

Fern Andra
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 289/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier.

'Modern' American actress Fern Andra (1893-1974) became one of the most popular film stars of the German cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s. In her films she mastered tightroping, riding horse without a saddle, driving cars and motorcycles, bobsleighing, and even boxing.

Eva May in Staatsanwalt Jordan (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 589, 1919-1924. Photo: Ring-Film. Eva May in Staatsanwalt Jordan (Erik Lund, 1919). The man on the left is Hermann Picha, May is the lady watching herself in the mirror.

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

Grete Lundt
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, no. 842. Photo: Imperial-Film.

Grete Lundt aka Grete Lund (1892-1926) was as an Austrian stage and screen actress, who played in Austrian and German silent films. Lundt was befriended with Julius Barmat, the Jewish merchant who would be the centre of the Barmat Scandal, which discredited the SDP because of the exposure of wide-spread corruption. It also raised anti-Semitism, and helped the right wing to win the 1925 elections. Lundt’s career went down by lack of work and money, aggravated by a morphine addiction. In order to pay for the costs of a morphine addicts clinic, she had to sell her house and all her belongings. On New Year’s Eve 1926, a desperate Lundt committed suicide in the Vienna-Berlin D-train, using an overdose of morphine. Grete Lundt died 60 years ago. 

To create suspense and voyeurism


Mirrors were used for visual dialogues between off-screen and onscreen characters and for the creation of suspense and voyeurism. It then developed both in mainstream and avant-garde cinema, in particular in German cinema of the 1920s and early 1930s, and subsequently in classical Hollywood cinema.

It is part of a wish to prefer a more synthetic approach in cinema, by use of deep staging and lengthy shots over analytical editing in which acting is cut up over several shots. It is also part of a wish to suggest that the world of cinema does not stop at the borders of its frame, involving the off-screen space and off-screen characters.

Of course mirrors may be explained in film sets as natural ingredients, even if in constructed interiors. People will dress themselves in front of mirrors, check their face and clothes, comb their hair, shave, use make up or remove it again. Mirrors also add a dimension to the filmic space, showing parts that otherwise would remain hidden: the fourth wall.

But mirrors can also be used in a narrative and metaphorical way, such as the introspection, the showing of guilt and desire, passages to other worlds, the calling of the future or ghosts from the past.

Francesca Bertini in Odette (1916)
American postcard, monogram K Ltd. Francesca Bertini in Odette (Giuseppe De Liguoro, 1916).

Majestic diva of the Italian silent cinema Francesca Bertini (1892-1985) was one of the first European film stars. During the first quarter of the twentieth century she often played the 'femme fatale', with men devouring eyes, glamorous attire, clenched fists, and in opulent settings, or the suffering 'femme fragile, who is devastated by the adultery of her man.

Leda Gys in Fernanda (1917)
Spanish postcard by Chocolate Salas Sabadell. Leda Gys in Fernanda (Gustavo Serena, 1917), based on Victorien Sardou's play.

Italian film diva Leda Gys (1892-1957) starred in ca. 60 dramas, comedies, action thrillers and even westerns of the Italian and Spanish silent cinema. Her claim to fame came with the film Christus (1916), shot in Egypt and Palestine, where Gys performed the Madonna.

Alda Borelli
Italian postcard by Ed. G. Vettori, Bologna. Photo: Zambini, Parma.

Alda Borelli (1879-1964) was an Italian stage and screen actress, who peaked on stage in the 1920s, and also acted in a handful of silent films in the 1910s. She was the sister of Italian film diva Lyda Borelli.

Georges Biscot
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1174/1, 1927-1928. Georges Biscot aka Biscot Meyer.

Georges Biscot (1886-1945) was a popular French music-hall and revue singer and actor, who also knew a career in French silent and sound film.

The Venus Effect


In postcards with stars of the silent cinema we mostly encounter the joy of mirroring oneself, as in the postcards with the Italian divas like Francesca Bertini and Leda Gys enjoying their own beauty.

It happens though often with a twist, the so-called Venus-effect, after Diego Velazquez’ portrait called Rokeby Venus. In order to get a perfect reflection of the portrayed person, the mirror is placed obliquely, showing us the reflection of the person at its best. Instead, the person is likely not to see himself or herself but rather the camera, so the onlooker. Also the mirror is often tilted, to avoid the reflection of the camera.

In the 1920s the French magazine Comoedia released a series of hundreds of postcards of French actors of the stage, called Nos artistes dans leur loges (Our artists in their dressing-rooms). We notice the actors and often also their reflections in the set-up of their dressing-rooms.

The artists are dressed in theatre costumes that often refer to famous plays they were in, and photos attached to the mirrors confirm this. Still, many of these actors had also rich careers in French cinema as well, such as here Maxime Desjardins and Jane Rollette.

One of my favourites is the young Renée Simonot, who did not act in film but was a famous voice actor in France and at the age of 105 is still alive. You may not recall her right away but she is the mother of Catherine Deneuve.

Maxime Desjardins
French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 133. Photo: Comoedia.

Maxime Desjardins (18961-1936) was a French stage and screen actor, who peaked in the French silent cinema of the 1920s. From 1912 Desjardins acted in cinema, first in short films at Pathé Frères and at Eclair, later in films by acclaimed directors as Abel Gance, Julien Duvivier and Henri Diamant-Berger.

Jane Rollette Biscot...ine
French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 258. Photo: Comoedia.

Jane Rollette aka Jeanne Rollette (1891-1994) was a French film actress who peaked in Louis Feuillade's serial films of the late 1910s and early 1920s. In Barrabas (Louis Feuillade, 1919) Georges Biscot played Biscotin, while Rollette played Biscotine.

Firmin Gémier
French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 118. Photo: Comoedia.

Firmin Gémier (1869-1933) was actor, director and theatre manager at the French stage, promotor of the Théâtre populaire and founder of the first Théâtre national populaire in Paris in 1920. He also acted in French silent and sound cinema of the 1910s to the 1930s.

Renée Simonot
French postcard in the Nos artistes dans leur loge series, no. 25. Photo: Comoedia.

Renée-Jeanne Simonot (born 1911) is a French stage actress. Simonot was one of the first French actresses to begin the dubbing of American films in France from the beginning of the talkies in 1929 through the 1930s. She was married to actor Maurice Dorléac, and is the mother of actresses Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac, and grandmother of actors Christian Vadim and Chiara Mastroianni.

Ivo, thank you very much!

Terence Morgan

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Tall, dark and charming English actor Terence Morgan (1921-2005) played many attractive villains and criminals in British films. But he is probably best remembered for his starring role in the TV historical adventure series Sir Francis Drake (1961-1962), about the first Englishman to sail round the world. After this success, parts started to dry up as Morgan was no longer seen as ‘the bad guy’.

Terence Morgan
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. D 172. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD.

Terence Morgan
British Greetings card. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

Daring, dashing and tempestuous


Terence Ivor Grant Morgan was born in Lewisham, London, in 1921. He was the nephew of British character actor Verne Morgan. He started work as a shipping clerk at Lloyd's of London before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).

After training at RADA, Morgan began as a repertory theatre actor. His career was interrupted by two years in the army in World War II before he was invalided out with claustrophobia and returned to the stage. He played in Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning play There Shall Be No Night in London's West End.

Laurence Olivier spotted the handsome Morgan and gave him the role of Cain in Thornton Wilder's classic Skin of Our Teeth. This 1945 production which also starred Vivien Leigh, proved a huge boost to his career. Morgan joined the Old Vic Company alongside Olivier, playing parts in Richard Brinsley Sheridan and William Shakespeare.

He made his film debut in the role of Laertes opposite Olivier’s Hamlet in the film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Laurence Olivier, 1948). Ronald Bergan in The Guardian: “His Laertes (…) was everything a Laertes should be: daring, dashing and tempestuous. And, at 27, he was young enough to make a convincing student, 14 years younger than Olivier's over-age Hamlet. He wields his sword with aplomb before dying beautifully in Peter Cushing's arms.”

Morgan was probably the first actor in the part to get fan mail from teenage girls. Hamlet is still the Shakespeare film that has received the most prestigious accolades, winning the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Terence Morgan
British postcard by L.D. LTD., London, in the Film Star Autograph Portrait series, no. 55. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation LTD.

Terence Morgan in Dance Little Lady (1954)
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1004. Photo: Rank Film. Publicity still for Dance Little Lady (Val Guest, 1954).

Nasty roles and dramatic exits


Terence Morgan signed a contract with the Rank studio. He played a support to Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo in the American adventure film Captain Horatio Hornblower RN (Raoul Walsh, 1951), made in England. In Mandy (Alexander Mackendrick, 1952) he played the insensitive father of a deaf girl.

In Gigolo And Gigolette, one of the three W. Somerset Maugham stories in Encore (Harold French, 1951) he played a cad risking the life of his wife (Glynis Johns). In 1953 he again played a villain in Turn the Key Softly (Jack Lee, 1953) as a crook who gets his well-bred girlfriend (Yvonne Mitchell) a prison sentence for helping him in a burglary.

More nasty roles quickly followed with Always a Bride (Ralph Smart, 1953) where he played a Treasury Investigator who turns bad, as well as Forbidden Cargo (Harold French, 1954) as a smuggler, and Tread Softly Stranger (Gordon Parry, 1958) where he is an embezzler and murderer, who robs a steel mill in order to keep his girlfriend Diana Dors in fancy clothes.

He was often given dramatic exits: Dance Little Lady (Val Guest, 1954) saw him fry in the conflagration at the end, The Scamp (Wolf Rilla, 1957) had him suffer a fatal fall down a flight of stairs, and in Forbidden Cargo (Harold French, 1954), he attempted to drive across Tower Bridge as it was opening and drowned in the Thames.

Two films he made in 1955 saw him cast in more positive roles - in the espionage melodrama They Can't Hang Me (Val Guest, 1955) he starred as a dapper Special Branch officer charged with discovering the identity of an enemy agent, and in The March Hare (George More O'Ferrall, 1956) he played an impoverished aristocrat riding a horse for the Derby.

One of his nastiest roles was in crime drama The Shakedown (John Lemont, 1959), when he played a pornographer and blackmailer. He just played a petty thief planning a big haul in the thriller Piccadilly Third Stop (Wolf Rilla, 1960) with Yoko Tani.

In 1958, Morgan bought a small hotel in Hove, Sussex, and ran the hotel for 16 years.

Terence Morgan
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 473.

Terence Morgan
British autograph card. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.

The villainous brother of the mummy


When his Rank contract finished, Terence Morgan had his biggest screen success. He landed the title role in the British adventure television series TV series Sir Francis Drake (Clive Donner, Harry Booth, 1961-1962).

Drake is the commander of the sailing ship the Golden Hind during the 1500s and one of the most famous explorers of the high seas. As well as battles at sea and sword fights, the series also deals with intrigue at the court of Queen Elizabeth (Jean Kent).

During his career, Morgan appeared in 20 films and later notable roles included the villainous brother of the mummy (Rameses VIII) in the Hammer horror film Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (Michael Carreras, 1964), Lord Blackwood in the successful French-Spanish-Italian adventure film Surcouf, le tigre des sept mers/The Sea Pirate (Sergio Bergonzelli, Roy Rowland, 1966) starring Gérard Barray, and an estate agent who is forced to watch as his girlfriend (Suzy Kendall) is abused by thugs in the shocker The Penthouse (Peter Collinson, 1967).

Since roles dried up, he spent an increasing amount of time as a property developer in Brighton and Hove. Incidentally he appeared in films like Hide and Seek (David Eady, 1972) with a young Gary Kemp, and The Lifetaker (Michael Papas, 1976), which had him back as the bad guy again where as a wealthy business man he plans ritualistic revenge on his wife and her lover.

Later he gave a haunting performance on television as an ageing, homosexual matinee idol being blackmailed in an episode of King and Castle (1986) and he had a small part in The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Timothy Forder, 1993), based on the novel by Charles Dickens.

In 2005, Terence Morgan died of a heart attack in Brighton, England. He was 83. Since 1945, he was married to actress Georgina Jumel. The couple had a daughter.


Long scene from Tread Softly Stranger (1958) with Diana Dors. Source: Paul Thompson (YouTube).


Trailer of The Penthouse (1967). Source: DEATHTRAP TRAILERS (YouTube).

Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Anthony Hayward (The Independent), The Telegraph, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Junie Astor

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Junie Astor (1911-1967) was a French actress who was highly popular in the late 1930s. Her best known film is Jean Renoir's Les Bas-fonds/The Lower Depths (1936).

Junie Astor
French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 35. Photo: Star, Paris.

Junie Astor in Les Bas-fonds (1936)
French postcard by Massilia. Photo: Filma Albatros. Publicity still for Les Bas-fonds/The Lower Depths (Jean Renoir, 1936).

Junie Astor in Les Bas-fonds (1936)
Italian postcard by Rizzoli E C., Milano, 1941. Photo: Films Albatros. Publicity still for Les Bas-fonds/The Lower Depths (Jean Renoir, 1936).

Junie Astor
French postcard by Ed. Chantal, Rueil, no. 556B. Photo: U.F.P.C

Non-photogenic


Junie Astor was born as Rolande Jeanne Risterucci in Marseille, France in 1911. She was obliged to learn classic ballet which she abandoned for lessons at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique.

This formation permitted her to have her début on stage in the play Lundi 8 heures (Monday at Eight) at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs in 1933, in the company of Julien Carette. The same year Junie Astor also started in the cinema with D’amour et d’eau fraîche/Love and Cool Water (Félix Gandéra, 1933), with Fernandel.

The beautiful newcomer made her mark in Ademaï aviateur/Skylark (Jean Tarride, 1934) with Noël-Noël. From then on, she played one (supporting) part after another, such as in Tovarich (Jacques Deval, 1934) with André Lefaur and Irène de Zilahy, Mayerling (Anatole Litvak, 1936) with Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux, and in Club de femmes (Jacques Deval, 1936).

On the instigation of her paramour, producer Alexander Kamenka, Astor played Jean Gabin's love interest in Jean Renoir’s liberal adaptation of Maxim Gorki’s The Lower Depths: Les bas-fonds (1936), though the real leads were for Gabin as the bum and thief Pepel and Louis Jouvet as the impoverished Baron. Years later Renoir gave a severe critique, condemning Astor as non-photogenic.

Not everybody thought that way, though, because in 1937 Astor won the first Prix Suzanne Bianchetti for the most promising female acting talent of the year. Suzanne Bianchetti had been an actress in the French silent cinema, and her husband the critic René Jeanne had created the award. The award comes in the form of a medallion engraved with Suzanne Bianchetti's image. Since its inception, the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti has been annually awarded to many of the greatest names in French cinema who went on to national and international stardom.

Despite the prestigious award Astor had to be satisfied with mere supporting roles. However she had an active career in the 1930s, and worked with some of the most important directors of the era. Highlights were the Marcel Achard adaptation Noix de coco/Cocoanut (Jean Boyer, 1939) with Raimu and Marie Bell, and Battement de cœur/Beating Heart (Henri Decoin, 1940) with Danielle Darrieux and Claude Dauphin.

Junie Astor
French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 1043.

Junie Astor
French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 19. Photo: Star.

Junie Astor
French postcard by Editions et Publications Cinematographiques (EPC), no. 295. Photo: Carlet.

Junie Astor
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 100. Photo: Star, Paris.

Junie Astor
Italian postcard by Rizzoli, Milano, 1940. In 1940, Junie Astor acted in the Italian film Tutto per la donna/Everything For The Woman (Mario Soldati, 1940).

Train of Shame


In 1939-1940 Junie Astor tried her luck in Italy with such films as Tutto per la donna/Everything For The Woman (Mario Soldati, 1940) with Antonio Centa, but these productions were not shown in France. The year before she had acted in the Italian films Un mare di guai/A lot of trouble (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, 1939) and Il carnevale di Venezia/The Carnival of Venice (Giuseppe Adami, Giacomo Gentilomo, 1939).

In 1942 she was back in France to appear in L’éternel retour/Love Eternal (Jean Delannoy, 1943) with Madeleine Sologne and Jean Marais. Together with Danielle Darrieux, Suzy Delair, René Dary, Albert Préjean and Viviane Romance, Junie Astor was part of the so-called ‘train of shame’ that went to Nazi-Berlin in March 1942 to visit the Berlin film studios. The reason for the visit was the première of Premier rendez-vous/Her First Affair (Henri Decoin, 1942) starring Darrieux. If Danielle Darrieux’ presence was explainable, for she wanted to liberate her husband Porfirio Rubirosa, one wonders why the other actors, working for the Franco-German Continental company, accepted to join this masquerade set up to legitimise the Nazi regime.

After the Liberation Astor had one last major role in Du Guesclin (Bernard de La Tour, 1948), a chronicle of the life of Bertrand du Guesclin, grand officer of the French army in the 14th century featuring Fernand Gravey. Astor married her director Bernard De la Tour and they founded Astor Production, but the promising initiative didn’t struck ground – the marriage neither (they split after six years).

Astor nevertheless joined Raymond Pellegrin in Coupable?/Culprit? (Yvan Noé, 1950) and Eddie ConstantineNoël-Noël and Jean Richard in the comedy Les truands/Lock Up Your Spoons (Carlo Rim, 1956). Astor also returned to the stage in Ombre chère (Dear Shadow, 1952) by Jacques Deval and with Robert Lamoureux.

In the 1960s she played in such crime films as Interpol contre X/Interpol Contra X (Maurice Boutel, 1960) and L’homme de l’Interpol/The Man From Interpol (Maurice Boutel, 1966), but these B-series policiers didn’t help her career. Tired of her profession Astor focused on the exploitation of two Parisian cinemas, Astor and Rio Opéra.

She finished her film career with Joë Caligula - Du suif chez les dabes/Joe Caligula: Tallow for the Old Men (José Bénazéraf, 1966) with Gérard Blain, a film that for two years would remain forbidden by the French censors. Christopher Underwood at IMDb: "Splendid, sparkling black and white widescreen crime caper from Jose Benazeraf. Occasionally resembling a US 'roughie' this is a stylised Movie with, very much, the look of the french new wave. Surprisingly violent with some battle between a bunch of cool kids and the more established crooks and pimps."

Junie Astor died at the age of 55 years, because of a car accident in 1967 in Sainte-Magnance, France. She lies buried at the cemetery of Bagneux.

Junie Astor
French postcard by Editions et Publications Cinematographiques (EPC), no. 133.

Junie Astor
French postcard by Edit. Chantal, Rueil, no. 556A. Photo: U.F.P.C.

Junie Astor
French postcard by Editions O.P., Paris, no. 82. Photo: Le Studio, Paris.

Junie Astor
French postcard, no. 556. Photo: U.F.P.C

Sources: Olivier Sinqsous (Ciné-Artistes - French), Christopher Underwood (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and French), and IMDb.
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