American postcard. Home of Charles Ray, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Cal.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

German press photo by Kövesdi Presse Agentur, München (Munich). Used for the German broadcasting by ZDF in 1983. Jean-Pierre Léaud in Antoine et Colette/Antoine and Colette (François Truffaut, 1962).

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Donald Duck is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known for his semi-intelligible speech and his mischievous, temperamental, and pompous personality. Along with his friend Mickey Mouse, Donald was included in TV Guide's list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time in 2002, and has earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has appeared in more films than any other Disney character.

 

Donald Duck appeared in comedic roles in animated cartoons. Donald's first appearance was in The Wise Little Hen (1934), but it was his second appearance in Orphan's Benefit that same year that introduced him as a temperamental comic foil to Mickey Mouse. Throughout the next two decades, Donald appeared in over 150 theatrical films, several of which were recognized at the Academy Awards. In the 1930s, he typically appeared as part of a comic trio with Mickey and Goofy and was given his own film series starting with Don Donald (1937). These films introduced Donald's love interest and permanent girlfriend Daisy Duck and often included his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. After the film Chips Ahoy (1956), Donald appeared primarily in educational films before eventually returning to theatrical animation in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983). His last appearance in a theatrical film was in Fantasia 2000 (1999). However, since then Donald has appeared in direct-to-video features such as Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers (2004), television series such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (2006–2016), and video games such as QuackShot (1991) and the Kingdom Hearts series.

 

In addition to animation, Donald is well known worldwide for his appearances in comics. Donald was most famously drawn by Al Taliaferro, Carl Barks, and Don Rosa. Barks, in particular, is credited for greatly expanding the "Donald Duck universe", the world in which Donald lives, and creating many additional characters such as Donald's rich uncle Scrooge McDuck. Donald has been a popular character in Europe, particularly in Nordic countries where his weekly magazine Donald Duck & Co was the comics publication with the highest circulation from the 1950s to 2009. In Italy, Donald is a major character in many comics, including a juvenile version named Paperino Paperotto, and a superhero alter ego known as Paperinik (Duck Avenger in the US and Superduck in the UK).

 

Characteristics

Voice

The character is known for possessing an only partly intelligible voice, developed by Donald's original performer, Clarence Nash. During an interview, Tony Anselmo revealed that "Most people believe that Donald's voice is done squeezing air through the cheek, that is not true. I can't reveal how it's actually done, but it is definitely not done by squeezing air through the cheek. The Hanna-Barbera character 'Yakky Doodle' is done that way. Donald Duck is not." Nash reputedly originally developed the voice as that of a "nervous baby goat" before Walt Disney interpreted it as sounding like a duck.

 

Personality

The character of Donald Duck is portrayed as a very impatient, immature, and arrogant duck with a pessimistic attitude and an insecure disposition. In addition, his two dominant personality traits are his fiery temper and his upbeat attitude to life. Many Donald shorts start with Donald in a happy mood, without a care in the world until something comes along and spoils his day. His rage is a great cause of suffering in his life. On multiple occasions, it has caused him to get in over his head and lose competitions. There are times when he fights to keep his temper in check, and he sometimes succeeds in doing so temporarily, but he always returns to his normal angry self in the end.

 

Donald's aggressive nature has its advantages, however. While at times it is a hindrance, and even a handicap, it has also helped him in times of need. When faced with a threat of some kind, for example, Pete's attempts to intimidate him, he is initially scared, but his fear is replaced by anger. As a result, instead of running away, he fights. In fact, his anger can make him powerful enough to defeat ghosts, much stronger individuals, sharks, mountain goats, giant kites, and even the forces of nature.

 

Donald is something of a prankster, and as a result, he can sometimes come across as a bit of a bully, especially in the way he sometimes treats Chip n' Dale and Huey, Dewey and Louie, his nephews. As the animator Fred Spencer has put it:

 

The Duck gets a big kick out of imposing on other people or annoying them, but he immediately loses his temper when the tables are turned. In other words, he can dish it out, but he can't take it.

 

However, with a few exceptions, there is seldom any harm in Donald's pranks. He almost never intends to hurt anyone, and when his pranks go too far, he is often apologetic. In Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he has accidentally killed Huey, Dewey, and Louie, he shows great regret, blaming himself. His nephews appear in the form of angels, and he willingly endures a kick by one of them—that is, of course, until he realizes he has been tricked, whereupon he promptly loses his temper.

 

Donald is also a bit of a poseur. He likes to brag, especially about how skilled he is at something. He does, in fact, have many skills—he is something of a Jack-of-all-trades. Amongst other things, he is a talented fisher and a competent hockey player. However, his love of bragging often leads him to overestimate his abilities, so that when he sets out to make good on his boasts, he gets in over his head, usually to hilarious effect.

 

Another of his personality traits is perseverance. Even though he can at times be a slacker, and likes to say that his favorite place to be is in a hammock, once he has committed to accomplishing something he goes for it 100 percent, sometimes resorting to extreme measures to reach his goal.

 

Health

There is a running gag in the Donald Duck comics about him being physically unhealthy and unmotivated to exercise. Usually, some character close to Donald annoys him by saying he is being lazy and needs to get some exercise. But despite his apparent idleness, Donald proves that he is muscular. In the short film Sea Scouts, Donald is traveling with his nephews in a boat when it is attacked by a shark. Donald makes several attempts to defeat the shark, each of which proves ineffective, but then finally triumphs and defeats the shark with a single well-placed punch. Additionally, as discussed below, Donald had a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II that culminated with him serving as a commando in the film Commando Duck, and he was frequently away serving in the U.S. Navy in the television cartoon series DuckTales.

 

Friendly rivalry with Mickey Mouse

Throughout his appearances, Donald has shown that he is jealous of Mickey and wants his job as Disney's greatest star, similar to the rivalry between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. In most Disney theatrical cartoons, Mickey and Donald are shown as friends and have little to no rivalry (exceptions being The Band Concert, Magician Mickey and near the end of Symphony Hour, which were due to Donald's antagonistic schemes). However, by the time The Mickey Mouse Club aired on television (after Bugs vs. Daffy cartoons such as the "hunting trilogy" of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!), it was shown that Donald always wanted the spotlight.

 

One animated short that rivaled the Mickey Mouse March song showed Huey, Dewey, and Louie as Boy Scouts and Donald as their Scoutmaster at a cliff near a remote forest and Donald leads them in a song mirroring the Mouseketeers theme "D-O-N-A-L-D D-U-C-K! Donald Duck!" The rivalry has caused Donald some problems, for example in a 1988 TV special, where Mickey is cursed by a sorcerer to become unnoticed, the world believes Mickey to be kidnapped. Donald Duck is then arrested for the kidnapping of Mickey, as he is considered to be the chief suspect, due to their feud. However, Donald did later get the charges dismissed, due to lack of evidence. Walt Disney, in his Wonderful World of Color, would sometimes make reference to the rivalry. Walt, one time, had presented Donald with a gigantic birthday cake and commented how it was "even bigger than Mickey's", which pleased Donald. The clip was rebroadcast in November 1984 during a TV special honoring Donald's 50th birthday, with Dick Van Dyke substituting for Walt.

 

The rivalry between Mickey and Donald was shown in the 2001-2003 television series House of Mouse. It was shown that Donald wanted to be the club's founder and wanted to change the name from House of Mouse to House of Duck, which is obvious in the episodes "The Stolen Cartoons" and "Timon and Pumbaa". In the episode "Everybody Loves Mickey", Donald's jealousy is explored and even joins sides with Mortimer Mouse. However, Donald has a change of heart when Daisy reminds Donald how Mickey has always been there to support him. Since then, Donald accepted that Mickey was the founder and worked with Mickey as a partner to make the club profitable and successful.

 

Enemies

Donald has numerous enemies, who range from comical foil to annoying nemesis: Chip 'n' Dale, Pete, Humphrey the Bear, Spike the Bee, Mountain Lion Louie, Bootle Beetle, Witch Hazel (in Trick or Treat), Aracuan Bird and Baby Shelby (in Mickey Mouse Works). During the Second World War, Donald was often set against Adolf Hitler.

 

In the comics, he is often harassed or on the run from the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, Gladstone Gander and Mr. Jones.

 

In the video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers, he saves Daisy from Merlock.

 

The Italian-produced comic PKNA – Paperinik New Adventures stars Donald Duck as Paperinik, or Duck Avenger, in his battles against new alien enemies: Evronian Empire, founded by emperor Evron.

 

Origin

Voice performer Clarence Nash auditioned for Walt Disney Studios when he learned that Disney was looking for people to create animal sounds for his cartoons. Disney was particularly impressed with Nash's duck imitation and chose him to voice the new character. Disney came up with Donald's iconic attributes including his short temper and his sailor suit (based on ducks and sailors both being associated with water). While Dick Huemer and Art Babbit were the first to animate Donald, Dick Lundy is credited for developing him as a character.

 

On April 29, 1934, five days before The Wise Little Hen's first theatrical release, bandleader Raymond Paige performed the score to the cartoon on his California Melodies program for the Los Angeles AM radio station KHJ. The main vocals were performed by a trio, the Three Rhythm Kings. Clarence Nash and Florence Gill performed the character voices for this radio treatment, with Nash performing both Donald Duck and Peter Pig, making it the first time the public heard Nash's duck voice.

 

Animation

Donald Duck's first film appearance was in the 1934 cartoon The Wise Little Hen, which was part of the Silly Symphonies series of theatrical cartoon shorts. The film's given release date of June 9 is officially recognized by the Walt Disney Company as Donald's birthday, though historian J.B. Kaufman, consultant of The Walt Disney Family Museum, discovered in recent years that The Wise Little Hen was first shown on May 3, 1934, at the Carthay Circle Theater for a benefit program, while its official debut was on June 7 at the Radio City Music Hall. Donald's appearance in the cartoon, as created by animator Dick Lundy, is similar to his modern look – the feather and beak colors are the same, as are the blue sailor shirt and hat – but his features are more elongated, his body plumper, his feet smaller, and his sclerae white. Donald's personality is not developed either; in the short, he only fills the role of the unhelpful friend from the original story.

 

Burt Gillett brought Donald back in a 1934 Mickey Mouse cartoon, Orphans' Benefit. Donald is one of a number of characters who are giving performances in a benefit for Mickey's Orphans. Donald's act is to recite the poems Mary Had a Little Lamb and Little Boy Blue, but every time he tries, the mischievous orphans heckle him, leading the duck to fly into a squawking fit of anger. This explosive personality would remain with Donald for decades to come.

 

Donald continued to be a hit with audiences. The character began appearing regularly in most Mickey Mouse cartoons. Cartoons from this period, such as the cartoon The Band Concert (1935) – in which Donald repeatedly disrupts the Mickey Mouse Orchestra's rendition of The William Tell Overture by playing Turkey in the Straw – are regularly noted by critics as exemplary films and classics of animation. Animator Ben Sharpsteen also created the classic Mickey, Donald, and Goofy comedy in 1935, with the cartoon Mickey's Service Station.

 

In 1936, Donald was redesigned to be a bit fuller, rounder, and cuter, beginning with the cartoon Moving Day. He also began starring in solo cartoons, the first of which was Ben Sharpsteen's 1937 cartoon, Don Donald. This short also introduced a love interest of Donald's, Donna Duck, who evolved into Daisy Duck. Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, would make their first animated appearance a year later in the 1938 film, Donald's Nephews, directed by Jack King (they had been earlier introduced in the Donald Duck comic strip by Al Taliaferro, see below). By 1938, most polls showed that Donald was more popular than Mickey Mouse.

 

Wartime

During World War II, Donald appeared in several animated propaganda films, including the 1943 Der Fuehrer's Face. In this cartoon, Donald plays a worker in an artillery factory in "Nutzi Land" (Nazi Germany). He struggles with long working hours, very small food rations, and having to salute every time he sees a picture of the Führer (Adolf Hitler). These pictures appear in many places, such as on the assembly line in which he is screwing in the detonators of various sizes of shells. In the end, he becomes little more than a small part in a faceless machine with no choice but to obey until he falls, suffering a nervous breakdown. Then Donald wakes up to find that his experience was, in fact, a dream. At the end of the short, Donald looks to the Statue of Liberty and the American flag with renewed appreciation. Der Fuehrer's Face won the 1942 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. Der Fuehrer's Face was also the first of two animated short films to be set during the War to win an Oscar, the other being Tom and Jerry's short film, The Yankee Doodle Mouse.

 

Other shorts from this period include a six film mini-series that follows Donald's life in the U.S. Army from his drafting to his experiences in basic training under Sergeant Pete to his first actual mission as a commando having to sabotage a Japanese air base. Titles in the series include:

 

Donald Gets Drafted (May 1, 1942) (shown in his Selective Service Draft Card close-up, we learn Donald's full name: Donald Fauntleroy Duck)

The Vanishing Private (September 25, 1942)

Sky Trooper (November 8, 1942)

Fall Out Fall In (April 23, 1943)

The Old Army Game (November 5, 1943)

Commando Duck (June 2, 1944)

Thanks in part to these films, Donald graced the nose artwork of virtually every type of World War II Allied combat aircraft, from the L-4 Grasshopper to the B-29 Superfortress.

 

Donald also appears as a mascot—such as in the United States Army Air Forces' 309th Fighter Squadron and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which showed Donald as a fierce-looking pirate ready to defend the American coast from invaders. Donald also appeared as a mascot emblem for the 415th Fighter Squadron; 438th Fighter Squadron; 479th Bombardment Squadron; and 531st Bombardment Squadron. He also appeared as the mascot for the Fire Department at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, as well as the Army Air Forces (now currently the United States Air Force) 319 Aircraft Maintenance Unit at Luke Air Force Base — where he is seen wearing an old-style pilot's uniform with a board with a nail in it in one hand, and a lightning bolt in the other hand. Donald's most famous appearance, however, was on the North American Aviation B-25B Mitchell medium bomber (S/N 40-2261) piloted by Lt. Ted W. Lawson of the 95th Bombardment Squadron, USAAF. The aircraft, named the "Ruptured Duck" and carrying a picture of Donald's face above a pair of crossed crutches, was one of sixteen B-25Bs which took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo on April 18, 1942, during the Doolittle Raid. The mission was led by Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Jimmy Doolittle. Like most of the aircraft that participated in the mission, the Ruptured Duck was unable to reach its assigned landing field in China following the raid and ended up ditching off the coast near Shangchow, China. The Ruptured Duck's pilot survived, with the loss of a leg, and later wrote about the Doolittle Raid in the book, later to be the 1944 movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.

 

During World War II, Disney cartoons were not allowed to be imported into Occupied Europe owing to their propagandistic content. Since this lost Disney revenue, he decided to create a new audience for his films in South America. He decided to make a trip through various Latin American countries with his assistants, and use their experiences and impressions to create two feature-length animation films. The first was Saludos Amigos (1942), which consisted of four short segments, two of them with Donald Duck. In the first, he meets his parrot pal José Carioca. The second film was The Three Caballeros (1944), in which he meets his rooster friend Panchito.

 

Several decades after the war, on account of the fact that Donald was never officially separated from service in either his animated shorts or his comic strips, as part of Donald's 50th Birthday celebrations during the 25th Annual Torrance, California Armed Forces Day Parade, the U.S. Army retired Donald Duck from active duty as a "Buck Sergeant" (i.e. "Buck Sergeant Duck").

 

Post-war

Many of Donald's films made after the war recast the duck as the brunt of some other character's pestering. Donald is seen repeatedly attacked, harassed, and ridiculed by his nephews, by the chipmunks Chip 'n' Dale, or by other characters such as Humphrey the Bear, Spike the Bee, Bootle Beetle, the Aracuan Bird, Louie the Mountain Lion, or a colony of ants. In effect, much like Bugs Bunny cartoons from Warner Bros. the Disney artists had reversed the classic screwball scenario perfected by Walter Lantz and others in which the main character is the instigator of these harassing behaviors, rather than the butt of them.

 

The post-war Donald also starred in educational films, such as Donald in Mathmagic Land and How to Have an Accident at Work (both 1959), and made cameos in various Disney projects, such as The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and the Disneyland television show (1959). For this latter show, Donald's uncles Ludwig von Drake (1961) and Scrooge McDuck (1967) were then created in animation.

 

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Donald has a piano duel scene with his Warner Brothers counterpart Daffy Duck voiced by Mel Blanc. Donald has since appeared in several different television shows and (short) animated movies. He played roles in The Prince and the Pauper (1990) and made a cameo appearance in A Goofy Movie (1995).

 

Donald had a rather small part in the animated television series DuckTales. There, Donald joins the U.S. Navy and leaves his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie with their Uncle Scrooge, who then has to take care of them. Donald's role in the overall series was fairly limited, as he only ended up appearing in a handful of episodes when home on leave. Some of the stories in the series were loosely based on the comics by Carl Barks.

 

Donald made some cameo appearances in Bonkers, before getting his own television show Quack Pack. This series featured a modernized Duck family. Donald was no longer wearing his sailor suit and hat, but a Hawaiian shirt. Huey, Dewey, and Louie now are teenagers, with distinct clothing, voices, and personalities. Daisy Duck has lost her pink dress and bow and has a new haircut. No other family members, besides Ludwig von Drake, appear in Quack Pack, and all other Duckburg citizens are humans and not dogs.

 

He made a comeback as the star of the "Noah's Ark" segment of Fantasia 2000 (1999), as first mate to Noah. Donald musters the animals to the Ark and attempts to control them. He tragically believes that Daisy has been lost, while she believes the same of him, but they are reunited at the end. All this to Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1–4.

 

In an alternate opening for the Disney film Chicken Little (2005), Donald would have made a cameo appearance as "Ducky Lucky". This scene can be found on the Chicken Little DVD.

 

Donald also played an important role in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse. In the latter show, he is the co-owner of Mickey's nightclub. He is part of the ensemble cast of characters in the TV show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as well. He also appears in the new 3-minute Mickey Mouse TV shorts for Disney Channel.

 

Donald also appears in the DuckTales reboot, in which he is a main character as opposed to his minor role in the original cartoon. The series depicts him as having once been Scrooge's partner in adventure along with his sister Della. However, ten years prior to the series' beginning, Della went missing, leading to Donald and Scrooge going their separate ways and not speaking to each other throughout that time. In the present, Donald reluctantly brings Della's sons and his legal charges, the triplets, to Scrooge's mansion so he can babysit them while Donald attends a job interview, though he still has not forgiven Scrooge for their past history. Donald is temporarily hired by Scrooge's rival Flintheart Glomgold and ends up at the city of Atlantis, where Scrooge has also brought the boys. After some initial conflict Scrooge offers to let them stay with him in his mansion. Donald owns a boat in the series, which is relocated to Scrooge's pool at the conclusion of the series premiere. Later in the series, it is revealed that Donald's anger is the result of a fear that no one can understand him, though with the help of an anger management counselor and while taking care of Huey, Dewey, Louie, he was able to channel it into protective instinct.

 

Voice actors

Donald's first voice was performed by Clarence Nash, who voiced him for 50 years. Nash voiced Donald for the last time in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), making Donald the only character in the film to be voiced by his original voice actor. He did, however, continue to provide Donald's voice for commercials, promos, and other miscellaneous material until he died in 1985. (From 1964 to 1979, Jim Tadevic occasionally filled in for Nash whenever he was unavailable, voicing Donald in commercials, educational products and the album Mickey Mouse Disco for the song, "Macho Duck". Jack Wagner voiced Donald and other Disney characters in the 1980s, primarily for live entertainment offerings in the parks, Disney on Ice shows, and live-action clips for television.)

 

Since Nash died, Donald's voice has been performed by Disney animator, Tony Anselmo, who was mentored by Nash for the role. Anselmo's first performance as Donald is heard in a 1986 D-TV special, D-TV Valentine on The Disney Channel, and in his first feature film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in 1988.

 

Walt Disney insisted on character consistency and integrity, which extended to characters being portrayed by only one actor. However, there were instances in which other actors would voice Disney characters for various smaller films, recordings, theme parks and other projects. Accuracy and consistency became an issue. In 1988, Imagineer Les Perkins convinced Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy E. Disney to approved the creation the department of Disney Character Voices to insure continuation of character integrity, consistency, and quality in recording methods. Roy named one official voice for all Walt Disney legacy characters. Tony Anselmo was approved by Roy E. Disney as Disney's official voice of Donald Duck.

 

For the TV series Mickey and the Roadster Racers, Donald was voiced by voice actor Daniel Ross. Anselmo continues as the official voice of Donald Duck on all Disney projects, Mickey Mouse Funhouse, Mickey Mouse shorts, Legend of the Three Caballeros, Kingdom Hearts IIII, Disney Parks, attractions, and consumer products.

 

In the 2017 reboot of DuckTales, a young Donald was voiced by Russi Taylor in the episode, "Last Christmas!", using the same voice that she used for Huey, Dewey, and Louie in various Disney media. After Taylor's death in 2019, she was replaced by Cristina Vee in the episode, "The First Adventure!". An alternate version of Donald's voice was provided by Don Cheadle in the episode "The Shadow War!", after he takes a pill that makes his voice more intelligible. This voice returned in the episode, "Quack Pack!".

 

Comics

Main article: Donald Duck in comics

While Donald's cartoons continue to be shown in the United States and around the world, his weekly and monthly comic books enjoy their highest profile in many European countries, especially Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, but also Germany, the Netherlands, and Greece. Most of them are produced and published by the Italian branch of the Walt Disney Company in Italy (Disney Italy) and by Egmont in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. In Germany, the comics are published by Ehapa which has since become part of the Egmont empire. Donald comics have also been produced in The Netherlands and France. Donald also has been appeared in Japanese comics published by Kodansha and Tokyopop.

 

According to the Inducks, which is a database about Disney comics worldwide, American, Italian and Danish stories have been reprinted in the following countries. In most of them, publications still continue: Australia, Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark (Faroe Islands), Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia.

 

Early development

The character's first appearance in comic strip format was the 1934 Silly Symphony comic strip sequence based on the short The Wise Little Hen. For the next few years, Donald made a few more appearances in Disney-themed strips, and by 1936, he had grown to be one of the main characters in the Silly Symphony strip. Ted Osborne was the primary writer of these strips, with Al Taliaferro as his artist. Osborne and Taliaferro also introduced several members of Donald's supporting cast, including his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

 

In 1937, an Italian publisher named Mondadori created the first Donald Duck story intended specifically for comic books. The eighteen-page story, written by Federico Pedrocchi, is the first to feature Donald as an adventurer rather than simply a comedic character. Fleetway in England also began publishing comic book stories featuring the duck.

 

Developments under Taliaferro

A daily Donald Duck comic strip drawn by Taliaferro and written by Bob Karp began running in the United States on February 2, 1938; the Sunday strip began the following year. Taliaferro and Karp created an even larger cast of characters for Donald's world. He got a new St. Bernard named Bolivar, and his family grew to include cousin Gus Goose and grandmother Elvira Coot. Donald's new rival girlfriends were Donna and Daisy Duck. Taliaferro also gave Donald his very own automobile, a 1934 Belchfire Runabout, in a 1938 story, which is often nicknamed by Donald's "313" car plate in the comic incarnation of Donald's world.

 

Developments under Barks

In 1942, Western Publishing began creating original comic book stories about Donald and other Disney characters. Bob Karp worked on the earliest of these, a story called "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold". The new publisher meant new illustrators, however, Carl Barks and Jack Hannah would later repeat the treasure hunting theme in many more stories.

 

Barks soon took over the major development of the duck as both writer and illustrator. Under his pen, Donald became more adventurous, less temperamental and more eloquent. Pete was the only other major character from the Mickey Mouse comic strip to feature in Barks' new Donald Duck universe.

 

Barks placed Donald in the city of Duckburg, creating a host of supporting players, including Neighbor Jones (1944), Uncle Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), April, May and June (1953), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), Magica de Spell (1961), and John D. Rockerduck (1961). Many of Taliaferro's characters made the move to Barks' world as well, including Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Barks placed Donald in both domestic and adventure scenarios, and Uncle Scrooge became one of his favorite characters to pair up with Donald. Scrooge's profile increased, and by 1952, the character had a comic book of his own. At this point, Barks concentrated his major efforts on the Scrooge stories, and Donald's appearances became more focused on comedy or he was recast as Scrooge's helper, following his rich uncle around the globe.

 

Further developments

Dozens of writers continued to utilize Donald in their stories around the world.

 

For example, the Disney Studio artists, who made comics directly for the European market. Two of them, Dick Kinney (1917–1985) and Al Hubbard (1915–1984) created Donald's cousin Fethry Duck.

 

The American artists Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl (1915–1991), who were working directly for the American comic books, created Moby Duck. Strobl was one of the most productive Disney artists of all time and drew many stories which Barks wrote and sketched after his retirement. In the 1990s and early 2000s, these scripts were re-drawn in a style closer to Barks' own by Dutch artist Daan Jippes.

 

Italian publisher Mondadori created many of the stories that were published throughout Europe. They also introduced numerous new characters who are today well known in Europe. One example is Donald Duck's alter ego, a superhero called Paperinik in Italian, created in 1969 by Guido Martina (1906–1991) and Giovan Battista Carpi (1927–1999).

 

Giorgio Cavazzano and Carlo Chendi created Umperio Bogarto, a detective whose name is an obvious parody on Humphrey Bogart. They also created O.K Quack, an extraterrestrial Duck who landed on earth in a spaceship in the shape of a coin. He, however, lost his spaceship and befriended Scrooge, and now is allowed to search through his money bin time after time, looking for his ship.

 

Romano Scarpa (1927–2005), who was a very important and influential Italian Disney artist, created Brigitta McBridge, a female Duck who is madly in love with Scrooge. Her affections are never answered by him, though, but she keeps trying. Scarpa also came up with Dickie Duck, the granddaughter of Glittering Goldie (Scrooge's possible love interest from his days in the Klondike) and Kildare Coot, a nephew of Grandma Duck.

 

Italian artist Corrado Mastantuono created Bum Bum Ghigno, a cynical, grumpy and not too good-looking Duck who teams up with Donald and Gyro a lot.

 

The American artist William Van Horn also introduced a new character: Rumpus McFowl, an old and rather corpulent Duck with a giant appetite and laziness, who is first said to be a cousin of Scrooge. Only later, Scrooge reveals to his nephews Rumpus is actually his half-brother. Later, Rumpus also finds out.

 

Working for the Danish editor Egmont, artist Daniel Branca (1951–2005) and scriptwriters Paul Halas and Charlie Martin created Sonny Seagull, an orphan who befriends Huey, Dewey and Louie, and his rival, Mr. Phelps.

 

One of the most productive Duck artists used to be Victor Arriagada Rios, (deceased 2012) better known under the name Vicar. He had his own studio where he and his assistants drew the stories sent in by Egmont. With writer/editors Stefan and Unn Printz-Påhlson, Vicar created the character Oona, a prehistoric duck princess who traveled to modern Duckburg by using Gyro's time machine. She stayed and is still seen in occasional modern stories.

 

The best known Duck artist of this time is American Don Rosa. He started doing Disney comics in 1987 for the American publisher Gladstone. He later worked briefly for the Dutch editors but moved to work directly for Egmont soon afterwards. His stories contain many direct references to stories by Carl Barks, and he also wrote and illustrated a 12-part series of stories about the life of Scrooge McDuck, which won him two Eisner Awards.

 

Other important artists who have worked with Donald are Freddy Milton and Daan Jippes, who made 18 ten-pagers which experts claim, were very difficult to separate from Barks' own work from the late 1940s.

 

Japanese artist Shiro Amano worked with Donald on the graphic novel Kingdom Hearts based on the Disney-Square Enix video game.

 

Nordic countries

Donald Duck is known in Nordic countries as Kalle Anka in Sweden, Anders And in Denmark, Andrés Önd in Iceland, Donald Duck in Norway, and Aku Ankka in Finland. In the mid-1930s, Robert S. Hartman, a German who served as a representative of Walt Disney, visited Sweden to supervise the merchandise distribution of Sagokonst (The Art of Fables). Hartman found a studio called L'Ateljé Dekoratör, which produced illustrated cards that were published by Sagokonst. Since the Disney characters on the cards appeared to be exactly 'on-model', Hartman asked the studio to create a local version of the English-language Mickey Mouse Weekly.

 

In 1937 L'Ateljé Dekoratör began publishing Musse Pigg Tidningen (Mickey Mouse Magazine), which had high production values and spanned 23 issues; most of the magazine's content came from local producers, while some material consisted of reprints from Mickey Mouse Weekly. The comic anthology ended in 1938. Hartman helped Disney establish offices in all Nordic countries before he left Disney in 1941. Donald became the most successful of the Disney characters in the Nordic countries, and Nordic peoples recognise him better than Mickey Mouse.

 

Kalle Anka & C:o, Donald's first dedicated Swedish anthology, started in September 1948. In 2001 the Finnish Post Office issued a stamp set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Donald's presence in Finland. By 2005 around one out of every four Norwegians read the Norwegian edition Donald Duck & Co. per week, translating to around 1.3 million regular readers. During the same year, every week 434,000 Swedes read Kalle Anka & Co. By 2005 in Finland the Donald Duck anthology Aku Ankka sold 270,000 copies per issue. Tim Pilcher and Brad Books, authors of The Essential Guide to World Comics, described the Donald anthologies as "the Scandinavian equivalent of the UK's Beano or Dandy, a comic that generations have grown up with, from grandparents to grandchildren".

 

Hannu Raittila, an author, says that Finnish people recognize an aspect of themselves in Donald; Raittila cites that Donald attempts to retrieve himself from "all manner of unexpected and unreasonable scrapes using only his wits and the slim resources he can put his hands on, all of which meshes nicely with the popular image of Finland as driftwood in the crosscurrents of world politics". Finnish voters placing protest votes typically write "Donald Duck" as the candidate. In Sweden voters often voted for Donald Duck or the Donald Duck Party as a nonexistent candidate until a 2006 change in voting laws, which prohibited voting for nonexistent candidates. In a twenty-year span, Donald won enough votes to be, in theory, Sweden's ninth-most popular political organization. In 1985, Donald received 291 votes in an election for the Parliament of Sweden.

 

By 1978, within Finland, there was a debate over the morality of Donald Duck. Matti Holopainen jokingly criticized Donald for living with Daisy while not being married to her, for not wearing trousers, and for, in the words of the Library Journal, being "too bourgeois". Some observers from Finland from the same time period supported Donald, referring to him as a "genuine proletarian ... forced to sell his labor at slave rates to make a living". The Library Journal said it was revealed that, since 1950, Donald had secretly been married to Daisy. An annual Christmas special in Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden is From All of Us to All of You, in Norway and Sweden with a title of Donald Duck and His Friends Celebrate Christmas. Segments include Ferdinand the Bull, a short with Chip 'n' Dale, a segment from Lady and the Tramp, a sneak preview of a coming Disney movie and concludes with Jiminy Cricket performing "When You Wish Upon a Star". To many people watching this special is a tradition as important as having a Christmas tree.

 

Germany

Donald Duck-themed comics sell an average of 250,000 copies each week in Germany, mostly published in the kids' weekly Micky Maus and the monthlies Donald Duck Special (for adults) and Lustiges Taschenbuch. The Wall Street Journal called Donald Duck "The Jerry Lewis of Germany", a reference to American star Jerry Lewis' popularity in France. Donald's dialogue in German comics tends to be more sophisticated and philosophical, he "quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings, while the stories often take a more political tone than their American counterparts", features especially associated with Erika Fuchs's German translations of the comics created by The Good Duck Artist Carl Barks. Christian Pfeiler – former president of D.O.N.A.L.D., a German acronym which stands for "German Organization for Non-commercial Followers of Pure Donaldism" – says Donald is appreciated in Germany because "almost everyone can identify with him. He has strengths and weaknesses; he lacks polish but is also very cultured and well-read." It is through this everyman persona that Donald is able to voice philosophical truths about German society that appeal to both children and adults. Donald's writers and illustrators Carl Barks, Don Rosa and Ub Iwerks are well known in Germany and have their own fan clubs.

 

Italy

In Italy, new stories about Donald Duck (named Paolino Paperino) and Scrooge McDuck are hosted in the kids' weekly Topolino and the monthly Paperino. While Paperino is written by many authors, he still maintains several characteristics. He is mostly an everyman, but the fierce, harsh temper he has in the American comic appears to be diluted into a meek, weaker personality, prone to comical fits of rage that are mostly subdued by the realization of its impotence. His frustration at Gladstone's luck is comically enhanced: in the Italian comics, Donald is chronically unlucky, unable to do or get anything right, with Gladstone taking advantage of his superiority or taking genuine pity of his unlucky cousin and trying several plans to grant him some better luck, always failing.

 

However, the constant search for an outlet to vent his frustration led the Italian rendition of Donald Duck to seek his catharsis in several ways: in the sixties, vexed by Scrooge's antics and Gladstone's luck, he reinvented himself as Paperinik, the Duck Avenger (as he came to be known outside Italy), an anti-hero at first, a self-assured, well-adjusted, brilliant hero in later stories, no longer bound by the self-doubt and the mockery Donald is constantly subjected. Duck Avenger is referred to the character Dorellik (parody of Diabolik) performed by Johnny Dorelli, Italian actor and crooner, in the Anglo-Italian movie Arriva Dorellik (How To Kill 400 Duponts). Further along the years, he fashioned for himself the additional identities of QQ7, a bumbling secret agent protecting Scrooge's riches and DoubleDuck, a more confident and suave secret agent, in the mold of James Bond, a more equilibrate mold of the heroic Duck Avenger and the tricky QQ7, often accompanied by the beautiful spy Kay K. Donald's "secret identies" are hosted in the main Topolino comics, but also in several themed comics, like the now-defunct Paperinik, PKNA, PK^2 and the current Paperinik AppGrade, the latter hosting reprints and new stories as well. Paperinik / Duck Avenger also appeared in the video games PK: Out of the Shadows, PK: Phantom Duck, and The Duckforce Rises.

 

Having several full lives to live does not hamper Donald's ability to live adventures on his own: he still lives adventures with his uncle Scrooge and his nephews (often acting as a reluctant bumbler, a ballast to the enthusiasm of his nephews and the wanderlust of his uncle), and he lived a star-crossed love story with a princess from another planet, Reginella. Despite Reginella leaving a deep trace in Donald's heart, he is still depicted as extremely faithful to Daisy, with a small hiccup deriving by Daisy Duck having a secret identity on her own (Paperinika), with Paperinik and Paperinika, both unaware of their secret identities, cultivating a permanent status of belligerent tension.

 

He also keeps a cheerful rivalry with his neighbour Bum Bum Ghigno, more a bumbler and a nuisance than he is, but still a good person at heart.

 

The Italian rendition of Donald Duck seldom, if ever, goes by his first name, having everyone, including his nephews, Daisy and Uncle Scrooge, address him as Paperino (his Italian surname).

 

He also appears in the Topolino comics depicting his childhood, called Paperino Paperotto (English: Donald Duckling), which were first produced in Italy in 1998. He lives in the fictional town, Quack Town with Grandma Duck and Billy Goat.

 

Disney theme parks

Donald Duck has played a major role in many Disney theme parks over the years. He has actually been seen in more attractions and shows at the parks than Mickey Mouse has. He has appeared over the years in such attractions as Animagique, Mickey Mouse Revue, Mickey's PhilharMagic, Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros and the updated version of "It's a Small World". He also is seen in the parks as a meet-and-greet character.

 

Children's books

Donald has been a frequent character in children's books beginning in 1935. Most of these books were published by Whitman Publishing, later called Western Publishing, or one of its subsidiaries. The following is a list of children's books in which Donald is the central character. This does not include comic books or activity books such as coloring books. It also does not include the 1931 book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, which features an entirely different character also named Donald Duck.

 

Beyond Disney

Donald is the only significant film and television cartoon character to appear as a mascot for a major American university: a licensing agreement between Disney and the University of Oregon allows the school's sports teams to use Donald's image as its "Fighting Duck" mascot. In 1984, Donald Duck was named an honorary alumnus of the University of Oregon during his 50th birthday celebration. During a visit to the Eugene Airport, 3,000 to 4,000 fans gathered for the presentation of an academic cap and gown to Donald. Thousands of area residents signed a congratulatory scroll for Donald, and that document is now part of Disney's corporate archives.

Donald was one of the few celebrities mentioned in the original version of the song Hooray for Hollywood, which was first featured in the 1937 film Hollywood Hotel, released only 3 years after Donald's first appearance. While later versions of the song would change lyrics, the line mentioning Donald was always kept.

In the 1940s, Donald was adopted as the mascot of Brazilian sports club Botafogo after Argentinean cartoonist Lorenzo Mollas, who was working in Brazil at the time, drew him with the club's soccer uniform. Mollas chose Donald because he complains and fights for his rights, like the club's managers at those years, and also because, being a duck, he does not lose his elegance while moving in the water (an allusion to rowing). He was eventually replaced so that the club would not have to pay royalties to Disney (Botafogo's current official mascot is Manequinho, a boy who represents the Manneken Pis statue in front of the club's head office), but has since retained the status of unofficial mascot.

Donald's name and image are used on numerous commercial products, one example being Donald Duck brand orange juice, introduced by Citrus World in 1940.

Donald Duck was temporarily listed as a "hired" employee in the database of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development as late as 1978. Given a $99,999 salary – more than double the $47,500 take federal civil servants were legally limited to be paid at the time – the name was unchallenged by a computer intended to catch government payroll fraud. Picked as one of thirty fictitious names by the Government Accounting Office, the use of it was a test to see if the payroll system of the HUD could be manipulated to defraud the government.

Donald Duck's head and neck, wearing a radio headset and wrapped in earphone wires with an expression of pain on his face and with crossed crutches below, was the nose art on Lieutenant Ted W. Lawson's B-25 Mitchell bomber, the Ruptured Duck, on the famous Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942.

In the 1950s, an early Mad Magazine parody of Mickey Mouse (called "Mickey Rodent", written by "Walt Dizzy") featured "Darnold Duck", whose quacky voice had to be "translated" for the readers, and who was shamed into finally wearing pants.

Although Donald's military service during his wartime cartoons has mostly been in the U.S. Army (and to a lesser extent in the U.S. Navy in DuckTales), Walt Disney authorized Donald to be used as a mascot for the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard image shows a fierce-looking Donald Duck dressed in a pirate's outfit, appearing vigilant against any potential threats to the coastal regions in the United States. This image is often used on Coast Guard bases and Coast Guard cutters.

Donald Duck is referred to in the song "The Village Green Preservation Society" by The Kinks: "We are the Village Green Preservation Society/ God save Donald Duck, vaudeville, and variety..." The reference is ironical, as the singer is lamenting the disappearance of perceived traditional English cultural artifacts.

Donald Duck makes a cameo appearance in the cartoon sequence in 200 Motels (1971).

During the late 1970s, Donald had his first and only disco song named "Macho Duck", available as part of the Mickey Mouse Disco children's album.

In Sweden, a comic book artist named Charlie Christensen got into a legal dispute with Disney when his creation Arne Anka looked similar to Donald Duck (albeit Arne is a pessimistic drunkard). However, Charlie made a mockery of the legal action and staged a fake death for his character, which then had plastic surgery performed and reappeared as Arne X with a more corvine beak. He later purchased a strap-on duck beak from a novelty gift shop, pointing out that "If Disney is planning to give me any legal action; all I have to do is remove my fake beak."

Donald Duck is a constant source of irritation for the eponymous hero of Donald Duk (1991), a coming-of-age novel by Frank Chin set in San Francisco's Chinatown.

 

Donald Duck's Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

In 1991, the Disney Corporation sued the Israeli caricaturist Dudu Geva for copyright infringement, claiming his character "Donald Dach" in the story "Moby Duck" was a rip-off of Donald. The Courts found in their favor and forced Geva to pay for the legal expenses and remove his book from the shelves. More mildly, the character Howard the Duck's original design was modified to include pants allegedly due to pressure from Disney.

In 2005, Donald received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6840 Hollywood Blvd joining other fictional characters such as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, The Simpsons, Winnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, Godzilla and Snow White.

Donald's fame has led Disney to license the character for a number of video games, such as the Kingdom Hearts series, where Donald is the court magician of Disney Castle. He accompanies Goofy and a young boy named Sora on a quest to find King Mickey Mouse, defeat the Heartless and Nobodies, and put an end to the evil Xehanort and Organization XIII. He is voiced by Tony Anselmo in the English version and Kōichi Yamadera in the Japanese version.

Italian power metal band Trick or Treat have a song called "Like Donald Duck" in their debut album Evil Needs Candy Too (2006).

Asteroid 12410 was named after Donald Duck.

In the 2016 US presidential election, according to Donna Brazile, DNC chair, who quotes Charlie Baker, the use of a protester in a Donald Duck costume was approved by Hillary Clinton's campaign to bring attention to Donald Trump's "ducking the release of his taxes"

German postcard by Ross-Verlag, no. 3570/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Arthur Erma, Hollywood / Ama-Film.

 

Nathalie Kovanko (1899-1967) was a Russian-Ukrainian actress who played in the Russian and French silent cinema.

 

Natalia Ivanovna Kovanko (Наталья Ивановна Кованько) was born in Yalta, Russian Empire (now Crimea, Ukraine) in 1899. She was the sister of author/scriptwriter Boris de Fast, né Boris Fastovich. She debuted in the Russian cinema in 1917 in Kozy…kozochki…kozly/The Goats (Ivan Perestani, 1917) with Viatcheslav (Victor) Tourjansky and Nikolai Orlov. In 1917-1919, she played in many Russian films shot in Yalta at the Ermolieff studio, of which most were directed by actor-turned-director Victor Tourjansky: Zakoldovanny ykrug/The Vicious Circle (1917), Bolotnye mirazhi/Storm in March (1918), Bal gospoden/The Eternal Ball (1918), Irene Negludov (1919), and Grekh i iskuplenie/Sin and Redemption (1919). She also played in a film by animation master Ladislas Starevitch, Sorotchinskai a yarmaka/The Sorotochinsk Fair (1918). Kovanko and Tourjansky had married in the meanwhile. When the Red Army reached Yalta, Tourjansky and Kovanko, together with the other Ermolieff actors (Ivan Mozzhukhin, Nicolas Koline, Nicolas Rimsky and Nathalie Lissenko) fled the Crimea and emigrated to France. There Tourjansky managed to build up a career through the help of the Russian producers Alexander Kamenka and Joseph Ermolieff.

 

For a decade Nathalie Kovanko was a French film star in films that were almost all directed by her husband. One exception was Jean d’Algreve (1922) by René Leprince, with Léon Mathot. Among the films directed by her husband were L’ordonnance/The order (1921) with Alexandre Colas, Les contes de mille et une nuits/Tales from Arabian Nights (1921), Nuit de carnaval/Carnival Night(1922) with Rimsky and Koline, Le quinzième prélude de Chopin/The fifteenth Chopin prelude (1922) with André Nox, Le chant de l’amour triomphant/The song of triumphant love (1923) with Jean Angelo and Rolla Norman, Calvaire d’amour/Calvary Love (1923) with Charles Vanel, La dame masquée/The masked lady (1924) with René Maupré, Le prince charmant/Prince Charming (1925) with Jaque Catelain, and Michel Strogoff/Michael Strogoff (1926) in which she played Nadia Fedor and Ivan Mozzhukhin Strogoff. It was her last silent film. She did not collaborate on Abel Gance’s Napoléon for which Tourjansky assisted Gance, neither was she involved in the film projects of her husband in Hollywood in 1928, or in his German films from the late 1920s. Kovanko’s last film was the sound film Volga en flammes (Viktor Tourjansky, 1934) starring Albert Préjean. In 1931 Tourjansky had discovered Simone Simon and directed her in Le Chanteur inconnu/The Unknown Singer (1931). The two became a pair and Tourjansky directed her again in Les yeux noirs/The Black Eyes (1935). Nathalie Kovanko divorced from Tourjansky and returned to Ukraine, where she died in Kiev in 1967.

 

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

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German press photo by Goepfert Arthur, Tessin, Barbengo / Films du Carrosse / Valoria Films, Paris / Fida Cinematografica, Rome. Jean-Pierre Léaud and Hiroko Berghauer in Domicile Conjugal (François Truffaut, 1970).

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 264/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

 

German-Belgian actress Ria Jende (1898-?) was a star and producer of the silent German cinema. She appeared in 40 films, before she married and retired.

 

Ria Jende's life is largely hidden in the dark. We know that she was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1898. As a young girl, she went from Belgium to Germany. Before the First World War, Edison brought her before the camera in Das Stelldichein der Verehrer (Manfred Noa, 1912) and another film pioneer Oskar Messter followed with Problematische Naturen (Hans Oberländer, 1912) with Erich Kaiser-Titz. After her film debut, she worked in the theatre. For a while she was a magician’s assistant. In 1917, Jende accepted another film offer by Messter-film and co-starred with Vigo Larsen in his Der graue Herr (Viggo Larsen, 1917). Then she co-starred with Bruno Kästner and Mia May in Ein Lichtstrahl im Dunkel (Joe May, 1917). For the next five years she appeared in several insignificant entertainment productions. These included Der Ring der drei Wünsche (Arthur Wellin, 1918) with Alexander Moissi, Der Teufel/The Devil (Ewald André Dupont, 1918), and the mystery Die Japanerin/The Japanese Woman (Ewald André Dupont, (1919) with Bernhard Goetzke and Max Landa.

 

During the production of Nixchen (Paul Legband, 1919), starring Georg Alexander, Ria Jende met author and scriptwriter Franz W. Koebner who became her husband. In 1919 Jende started her own film company, Ria Jende Film. She produced Madeleine (Siegfried Philippi 1921) with Hermann Valentin, and Versunkene Welten (Siegfried Philippi, 1922) with Victor Varconi, but her company was short-lived. As an actress she appeared in films like Die Schlange mit dem Mädchenkopf (Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1920) opposite Hans Albers, Der Held des Tages (Rudi Bach, 1921) and Das Geheimnis der Santa Margherita (Rolf Randolf, 1921). In 1922, Ria Jende married and thus ended her film career. Her final film was Das blinde Glück (Iva Raffay, 1922). After that she once returned to the cinema, for a part in Die Abenteuer des Kapitän Hasswell (Rolf Randolf, 1925) with Ernst Pittschau. In 1926 Ria Jende published a travelogue of Malta in the Berlin magazine Das Magazin. Her husband also wrote for the same issue. Further data of her life are not known.

 

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

German postcard in the Moderne Künstler series by MMB, no. 457. Photo: F.J. Wesselsky.

 

German actress Hanni Weisse (1892-1967) belonged to the great film divas of the early German silent film. She was able to maintain her stardom till the 1920s.

 

Hanni Klara Therese Weisse was born in Chemnitz, Germany in 1892. She studied to play the cello but started her musical career in 1910 as a chorister at the Thalia-Theater in Berlin. In 1912 she was an ensemble member of the Royal Belvedere Dresden, which made a national tour through Germany. In Berlin, she had a chance meeting with film director Max Mack, who engaged her for the production company Vitascope. She made her film debut in his short Der Zigeunerin/The Gypsy (Max Mack, 1912) with Ernst Pittschau. One of her first successes was Der Andere/The Other (Max Mack, 1913), starring Albert Bassermann, which according to critics belonged to the first art films. In the following years she appeared in many great productions like Das Eiserne Kreuz/The Iron Cross (Richard Oswald, 1914), Anita Jo (Dimitri Buchowetzki, 1919), Die Apachen/The Apaches (Ewald André Dupont, 1919), Alkohol/Alcohol (Ewald André Dupont, Alfred Lind, 1920) and the horror film Der Graf von Cagliostro/The Count of Cagliostro (Reinhold Schünzel, 1920) starring Anita Berber and Conrad Veidt. She was also playing in the very popular Sherlock Holmes films such as Der Hund von Baskerville/The Hound of the Baskervilles (Rudolf Meinert, 1914) and Das dunkle Schloß/The Dark Castle (Willy Zeyn, 1915).

 

In the 1920s Hanni Weisse was a very busy actress and played in films like Die Insel der Verschollenen/The Island of the Lost (Urban Gad, 1921), Nanon (Hanns Schwarz, 1924), Die Drei Portiermädel/The Three Porter Girls (Carl Boese, 1925), Le train sans yeux/Train Without Eyes (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1927), Männer vor der Ehe/Men Before Marriage (Constantin J. David, 1927) and Kaczmarek (Carl Wilhelm, 1928) with Ernst Verebes. Her engagements in the 1930s became rarer, new faces were in demand. She had roles in short comedies and played small parts in Die Heilige und ihr Narr/The Saint and Her Fool (Hans Deppe, Paul May, 1935), Krach im Hinterhaus/Trouble Backstairs (Veit Harlan, 1936), and Sergeant Berry (Herbert Selpin, 1939) starring Hans Albers. In 1942 she made her last film Vom Schicksal verweht/Blown Away By Fate (1942, Nunzio Malasomma) featuring Sybille Schmitz. After 127 films Hanni Weisse retired from show business. In her later years she and her second husband managed hotel restaurants and bars, first in Aussig and Dresden, and from 1948 on in Frankfurt a.M. Her hotel-restaurant Zum Heidelberger became a popular meeting place there for artists. Hanni Weisse died in 1967 in Bad Liebenzell, Germany. Her first marriage was to scriptwriter Bobby E. Lüthge, who wrote the scripts for her films Mater dolorosa (1924), Der Kavalier vom Wedding (1927), and Kaczmarek (1928).

 

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

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Diana Markosian

Armenia / United States (1989)

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, the first American soap opera aired in Russia after the fall of the USSR, was followed by millions of Russians, including Diana Markosian’s mother. In 1996, when she decided to leave Moscow and the father of her children, she placed an ad with various marriage agencies. She accepted a proposal from a man living in Santa Barbara, California, and moved there with her two children. Years later, Diana devised a docudrama about her mother’s extraordinary story. This artist enlisted the help of one of the scriptwriters of the original soap opera to make a short film with actors embodying her own family drama.

 

Created especially for Images Vevey, Santa Barbara is a poignant piece about the American dream and the disenchantment it could bring, but also about the tenuous line between reality and fiction.

East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 208/71, 1971. Photo: Linke.

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1469/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Aafa Film. Wilhelm (William) Dieterle in Zopf und Schwert - Die tolle Prinzessin (Victor Janson, 1926).

 

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

 

Wilhelm Dieterle was born in 1893 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein and of humble descendant, took acting lessons at a young age, and began his career as a stage actor in 1911 at the theatre in Arnsberg, which also included work as extra, singer, dancer and stagehand; hence his white gloves, which he continued to wear in Hollywood. In 1912-1914 he worked at theatres in Heilbronn, Plauen and Bad Dürkheim, in 1914-1917 in Mainz (under the direction of future film director Ludwig Berger). In 1917-1918 he played in Zürich, in 1918-1919 in Berlin and 1919-1920 in Munich. He had his breakthrough in 1920-1923 with Max Reinhardt’s Deutschen Theater in Berlin. In this era, he mainly worked there, next to sidesteps with the companies of Leopold Jessner, Viktor Barnowsky and Karlheinz Martin. In 1924 Dieterle had his own theatre company, but it was short-lived. After an incidental film performance in the Schiller adaptation Fiesko (Phil Jutzi, 1913), Dieterle’s acting became numerous from 1919 on, all through the 1920s. Dieterle appeared in major films of the Weimar era. He was Henny Porten’s ill-fated fiancé and Fritz Kortner’s rival in love in Leopold Jessner’s classic Kammerspiel Hintertreppe/ Backstairs (1921). Actually, in those years Dieterle was often paired with Porten, before Hintertreppe in Die Geier-Wally (E.A. Dupont, 1921), and afterward in Frauenopfer (Karl Grune, 1921). Dieterle also was the poet, and the Persian baker and Russian prince in the Harun al Raschid and Iwan the Terrible sequences, in Paul Leni’s Wachsfigurenkabinett/Waxworks (1923/1924). He was Henny Porten’s young husband in the internationally popular Mutter und Kind (Carl Froehlich, 1924). And he was Gretchen’s brother Valentin in F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926), killed by Mephisto.

 

From 1923 on, Wilhelm Dieterle directed his first films, in which he always had the lead; starting with the Heimat-film Der Mensch am Wege (1923), in which Marlene Dietrich had one of her first roles. The major example of his own output was Geschlecht in Fesseln/Sex in Chains (1928), one of the films produced by his own company Charha (1927), which he ran with his wife, scriptwriter and actress Charlotte Hagenbruch. A man (Dieterle) accidentally kills another who tried to harass his wife (Mary Johnson) and ends in jail, where he is seduced by an inmate, while his wife gives in to another man as well. After his liberation, the couple feels guilt and commits suicide. In particular between 1928 and 1930, Dieterle directed many films for his own company, in which he starred and for which his wife signed the script, such as the melodrama Die Heilige und ihr Narr (1928), with Lien Deyers and Gina Manès, and the mountain film Das Schweigen im Walde (1929). Dieterle’s work in Germany was internationally so successful, that he was offered a contract by Warner Bros. in 1930 to make German versions of American sound films for the German department of Warner’s subsidiary First National, Deutsche First National Pictures GmbH (Defina). An example is Die heilige Flamme (1930/31), co-directed with Berthold Viertel and starring Salka Viertel. In the States, Dieterle stopped acting and focused on directing. As Dieterle was Jewish, he was lucky to get away from the slowly worsening situation in Germany; three years later, Hitler would take over and ban all Jews from the film industry.

 

In the US, William Dieterle quickly adapted and was permitted to start directing his own films. With Michael Curtiz, Dieterle soon became the regular Warner film director, working in every possible genre, such as comedies with Kay Francis and the melodrama The Crash with Ruth Chatterton. Together with Max Reinhardt, with whom Dieterle had played in Germany, he adapted Midsummer Night’s Dream for cinema, but the result failed to convince the critics. In the early 1930s, Dieterle was highly productive with Warner, turning out 6 films per year in 1933 and 1934. He probably had to: in 1933 he had received a seven-year contract from Warner. From the mid-1930s on Dieterle became well-known for his bio-pics. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) won him an Oscar nomination while The Life of Emile Zola (1937) got him the Oscar; in both films, Paul Muni played the lead. Other memorable titles were the Mark Twain adaptation The Prince and the Pauper (1937) with Errol Flynn, Juarez (1939) with Bette Davis as the empress Carlotta, and The Hunchback of the Notre Dame (1939) with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. In 1937 Warner offered Dieterle, by now an American citizen, the opportunity to study Russian production methods for four months at Lenfilm in Moscow. In 1938-1940 he taught theatre lessons at the Max Reinhardt Workshop of Stage, Screen, and Radio, and in 1939 he co-founded the antifascist cultural magazine The Hollywood Tribune and the English spoken exile theatre company The Continental Players, directed by Jessner. After his contract with Warner expired, Dieterle broke with them and tried his own film company at RKO. When that failed, he mainly made films with MGM, Selznick, and Paramount.

 

During the 1940s, William Dieterle focused on romantic, lush melodramas such as the Technicolor exotic tale Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich, and Love Letters (1945) and Portrait of Jennie (1948), both with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones. Love Letters became an enormous success and earned Jones an Oscar. In the 1950s, Dieterle’s career declined because of McCarthyism. In 1950 he went to Italy to shoot Vulcano, the rival to Rossellini’s Stromboli. When Anna Magnani knew that her former lover planned to make a film with his new girlfriend Ingrid Bergman on an Italian island near Sicily, Magnani pushed a Sicilian producer to make a rivalling film that had to come out before Rossellini’s. The affair was known as ‘la Guerra dei vulcani’, also referring to Magnani’s tempestuous character. Around the same time, Dieterle also shot in Italy the highly romantic September Affair (1950), with Joseph Cotten and Joan Fontaine, about a married man and a woman who start an affair in Naples and Capri. After they decide to split, they are believed to have been killed in a plane crash and start a second life, but responsibility calls. Returned to Hollywood, Dieterle made crime films like Dark City (1950) with Charlton Heston, Boots Malone (1952) and The Turning Point (1952), both with William Holden. but also epic melodramas such as Salome (1953), starring Rita Hayworth and partly shot in Jerusalem, and Omar Khayyam (1956), starring Cornel Wilde and shot in the Bronson Canyon. In 1958 Dieterle returned to Germany and worked till his death as stage director for various companies in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; he also worked for German (Sender Freies Berlin) and Austrian television and (co-) directed two features: a remake of Joe May’s classic Herrin der Welt (1959/60) and Die Fastnachtsbeichte (1960). From 1961 to 1965, he was the manager of the theatre at Bad Hersfeld. After his failed attempt to make a comeback in Hollywood with The Confession (1964), Dieterle’s last film direction, he remained in Germany, working at the stage. Wilhelm Dieterle died in 1972 and was buried in Munich. From 1921 on, Dieterle was married to Charlotte Hagenbruch; after she died in 1968, his second wife was Elisabeth Daum.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (English and German), Filmportal.de, Cinegraph, and IMDb.

Dutch collectors card by Monty, no. 119, 1970. Photo: Gerard Soeteman. Rutger Hauer in the TV series Floris (Paul Verhoeven, 1969).

 

The Dutch TV series Floris (1969) was the start of the successful careers of director Paul Verhoeven, scriptwriter Gerard Soeteman and of course actor Rutger Hauer. Hauer played the exiled knight Floris. With his Indian friend Sindala (Jos Bergman), he tries to get his birth right papers back from Maarten van Rossem (Hans Culeman), an evil lord. During their quest they get help from Wolter van Oldenstein (Ton Vos), a noble man who offers them a place in his castle. They also meet the pirate Lange Pier (Hans Boskamp).

 

Source: IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

French postcard. Cinématographes Méric. Scene from Mes p'tits aka Le Calvaire d'une saltimbanque (1923) by Paul Barlatier and Charles Keppens, and starring Mario Guaita/ Ausonia. The film evolves in the circus and fairground milieu and was scripted by Ausonia's wife Renée Deliot aka de Liot.

 

The circus artist Ausonia (Mario Guaita) lives with his two children in the circus Rancy [which was shot at the existing circus Rancy]. Ausonia is a widower after his young wife fell from a trapeze. Only his children prevent him from committing suicide. All of the circus crew like Ausonia because of his strength and goodness. Wanda the Amazon (Jane Rollette) is even in love with him and shows this indirectly by her affection to his children, but Ausonia is too deep in mourning to notice. When the circus manager dies, his wife absolves the circus and all artists are on the street. In a nearby village, Ausonia discovers a fairground booth of wrestlers and becomes the center of attention, alas not only of the audience but also of Mme Pons, the manager (Huguette Sandry), the widow of a wrestler. He instead is enamored by her daughter Paulette (Gina Relly), whom the widow has promised to a jealous man, her cousin Frederick (Edouard Mathé). What the others don’t know is that Paulette is secretly married to a young man from a rich British family. She confesses her secret to Ausonia and tells him also she is pregnant. Ausonia promises to help her, but because of the jealousy of Frederick and the widow, he is fired and once more on the streets.

 

Ausonia has odd jobs as a carrier in the food halls, but when his little girl gets sick they head for the sea. Here he sees the booth of Paulette’s mother again but cannot reach Paulette. He finds an anonymous letter, though, asking to send the letter a.s.a.p. to someone else. He arrives at a villa where two men quarrel and one draws a gun. While the culprit flees, Ausonia helps the victim who seems to be dying and is arrested for murder. His children are brought to the countryside, to his mother, who dies when she reads about her son’s arrest. The children are on the street, on their own. Meanwhile, Paulette, who had thrown the letter, is locked up by Frederick, who discovered her secret marriage and who afterward shot her English husband.

 

Ausonia manages to escape from prison, returns to his natal village to discover, to his despair, that the house is empty, his mother died and his children are on the streets. He meets a small acrobatic guy (Riri Fortoul) and they form a duo. They travel the small fairgrounds, while he keeps looking for his children. His fate turns when he meets Wanda again, who has become a big music hall star. She enlists Ausonia for the music-hall and hires detectives to help him. When in a dance hall defending Wanda, Ausonia gets in a fight and disgusted he leaves the city. By chance, he manages to trace and find his children in the countryside, who are starving of hunger. He also discovers a villa where Frederick keeps Paulette locked up and the husband who survived the gunshot and now tries to free Paulette. After a fierce fight, Ausonia conquers Frederick and has him arrested, gives Paulette back to her husband and marries Wanda, thus giving the children a new mother.

 

Sources: print of the film at the Archives françaises du film du CNC, Bois d'Arcy.

 

Athletic muscleman Mario Guaita aka Ausonia (1881-1956) was an Italian actor, director, producer and scriptwriter in the silent era. He had his international breakthrough with Spartaco (Enrico Vidali 1913) and became a major actor in the Italian forzuto genre. In the early 1920s, he moved to Marseille, made a few films there and ran a cinema.

Shanghai Ballet: Echoes of Eternity

 

Shanghai Ballet presents 'Echoes of Eternity ' at the London Coliseum, choreographed by Patrick de Bana and inspired by the ancient Chinese poem ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow. 7-21 August 2016.

 

Choreographer: Patrick de Bana

Set designer: Jaya Ibrahim

Costume designer: Agnes Letestu

Light designer: James Angot

Scriptwriter: Jean Francois Vazelle

Literature Consultant: Sifu TANG

 

Dancers:

Emperor: WU Husheng

Lady Yang: QI Bingxue

Moon Fairy: ZHAO Hanbing

Gao Lishi: ZHANG Yao

Chen Xuanli: WU Bin

An Lushan: ZHANG Wenjun

 

see www.dancetabs.com

photo - © Foteini Christofilopoulou | All rights reserved | For all usage/licensing enquiries please contact www.foteini.com

Shanghai Ballet: Echoes of Eternity

 

Shanghai Ballet presents 'Echoes of Eternity ' at the London Coliseum, choreographed by Patrick de Bana and inspired by the ancient Chinese poem ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow. 7-21 August 2016.

 

Choreographer: Patrick de Bana

Set designer: Jaya Ibrahim

Costume designer: Agnes Letestu

Light designer: James Angot

Scriptwriter: Jean Francois Vazelle

Literature Consultant: Sifu TANG

 

Dancers:

Emperor: WU Husheng

Lady Yang: QI Bingxue

Moon Fairy: ZHAO Hanbing

Gao Lishi: ZHANG Yao

Chen Xuanli: WU Bin

An Lushan: ZHANG Wenjun

 

see www.dancetabs.com

photo - © Foteini Christofilopoulou | All rights reserved | For all usage/licensing enquiries please contact www.foteini.com

American postcard by Max B. Sheffer Card Co., Chicago (M.B.S.C.Co.), 1922. Photo: First National. Charles Ray as Richard Morgan in R.S.V.P. (Charles Ray, 1921).

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

 

Charles Edgar Ray was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1891. He moved several times in his youth before settling in Los Angeles, where he finished his education. Ray started his career as an actor on stage. Later he also began to act in short silent films, making his debut as an extra in The Fortunes of War (Thomas Ince, 1911). He appeared in several bit parts before moving on to supporting roles. From 1913 he had a steady career as the male lead in one- and two-reel short Western, Quaker, and Civil War dramas at Kaybee Pictures, Broncho Pictures, and Domino Pictures. In these films, he would be paired with actresses such as Enid Markey, Bessie Barriscale, Louise Glaum, and Dorothy Davenport. Ray must have worked fast then, as in 1913 and in 1914 he had a ratio of a film every two weeks. At Kaybee, Ince would direct him at times, at times also Raymond West, while at Bronco he was often directed by Charles Giblyn, and in 1915 a few times by William S. Hart. In 1915, Ray had his breakthrough in his first feature The Coward, produced by Thomas Ince for Kay-Bee and directed by Reginald Barker. In this Civil War drama, Ray played the son of a Virginia colonel (Frank Keenan), who needs to overcome his cowardice.

 

Charles Ray's popularity rose after appearing in a series of films, as Wikipedia writes "which cast him in juvenile roles, primarily young, wholesome hicks or naive 'country bumpkins' that foiled the plans of thieves or con men and won the heart of his dream girl." Ray's Kay-Bee films were now distributed by Triangle Distributing. Victor Schertzinger, the musician who had provided the music for The Coward, turned director at Kay-Bee and directed Ray in several films in 1917. Ray, Ince, and Schertzinger moved over to Paramount in 1917, where Ince got his own production company and where Schertzinger directed Ray in more films, such as The Claws of the Hun (Victor Schertzinger, 1918), a propaganda film signalling the US's participation in the First World War. Ray's star rose and rose. By 1920, he was earning a reported $11,000 a week (approximately $138,000 today). Ray had also earned a reputation for being egomaniacal and difficult to work with. In 1920, he left Paramount after studio head Adolph Zukor refused to give him a substantial pay raise. Ray started his own production company. Charles Ray Productions, and bought a studio on Sunset Boulevard where he began producing and shooting his own films. While he initially was fairly successful, an experiment for First National with a film without intertitles, The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921), co-starring Laura La Plante, had critical but not a huge popular success. Mind you, this was years before Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's famous Der Letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924), which was made with only one intertitle.

 

In 1922, Charles Ray signed a contract with United Artists and starred in e.g. The Girl I Loved (1923) with Patsy Ruth Miller. He was fed up with the hillbillies types and strove to profile himself as a romantic lead and man of the world. Against everybody's advice to avoid lengthy historical drama, Ray insisted on the making of The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923), investing $500,000 (approximately $7,353,000 today) of his own money, including a $65,000 (approximately $956,000 today) 180-ton replica of the Mayflower. The film was a box office failure, Ray lost all his money and his reputation went down too. It did not mean his career was all over (despite what Wikipedia writes), because he first continued as a leading actor at smaller companies, produced by Ince, and in 1925 he got a contract at MGM, where he played for two years and acted as the male lead opposite actresses such as Pauline Starke, Joan Crawford, and May McAvoy. In those years Ray and his wife Clara Grant were enormous spendthrifts, with an over-the-top villa in Beverly Hills, a huge staff, and expensive cars. Grant would never wear a dress two times. Yet, in December 1925 Ray had to file for bankruptcy and his production company went under as well. Though he continued to act, after MGM the companies he worked for were less prestigious, such as Universal. In 1928 he made his last silent film, The Count of Ten (James Flood, 1928), after which he acted on stage for years, in off-Broadway productions, without much success. In 1932 Ray returned to the sets, but without success, and in 1934 he declared bankruptcy again. In 1935 he got divorced from Clara Grant, from whom he was already separated as of 1930. Ray still acted in cinema but in the mid-1930s in minor parts and in the early 1940s on uncredited parts. He tried to earn money by writing short stories and a popular movie magazine but to no avail. Charles Ray died of a systemic infection caused by an impacted wisdom tooth in 1943. He was only 52. In 1960 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the motion picture industry.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (English, French and Italian), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Spanish collectors card by Chocolates Amatller, Barcelona, in the 'Artistas de cine' series, no. 28: Charles Ray. Image: Martinez Surroca.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

TITLE: The Raven

YEAR RELEASED: 1963

DIRECTOR: Roger Corman

CAST: Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Hazel Court and Peter Lorre.

MINI-REVIEW BY STEPHEN JACOBS: “Roger Corman’s comedy is great fun. Vincent Price plays Dr. Erasmus Craven, a magician who discovers his wife [Hazel Court] is not dead but resides with rival sorcerer Dr. Scarabus [Boris Karloff]. Peter Lorre, however, steals the picture as Dr. Bedlo, a grouchy wizard who had been transformed into a raven by Scarabus. Also noteworthy as featuring a young Jack Nicholson as Lorre’s son, Rexford.”

 

MAIN REVIEW BY ADAM SCOVELL

 

With its rather ominous opening, the viewer would perhaps be forgiven for thinking that Roger Corman’s adaptation of Poe’s The Raven would be in similar ilk to his other dark Poe films. What at first seems like yet another gothic retelling of a Poe classic turns out to be a swiftly delivered curve ball that has, at its core, a desire for fun and mischief rather than for scares and dark forebodings.

Vincent Price plays Dr Erasmus Craven, one of many sorcerers to appear in the film. He may be on the side of good but this implies that the villains are genuinely bad. Boris Karloff plays the closest to what the film has to a villain in the form of Dr Scarabus but this is a film about having a laugh at the absurdity of the fantasy genre rather than genuine battles of good vs. evil. To add to an already impressive cast is Peter Lorre as the hilarious Dr. Bedlo who appears first in the form of a raven and then proceeds to be one of the most hilariously inept sorcerers in fantasy.

Bedlo was turned into a raven by Scarabus but the action taken by the sorcerers seems more in line with playground antics than fantasy action. Jack Nicholson also makes an early film appearance as the dashing hero of the piece though is sidelined in the film in place wizardry and joyfully silly battles. Though very clearly aiming at a younger market, Corman still manages to add a few spine tingling elements to the film. These are mainly to be found in the film’s opening twenty minutes and revolve around Craven trying to find the rather gruesome ingredients to cure Bedlo from of his raven form. It must be stated that though the connection to the original adaptation of The Raven (1935) through Boris Karloff is its only link. The original was a tense, gothic tale of murder far more in line with Poe’s original prose. This is the polar opposite in almost every conceivable way.

Corman’s Raven is far more laxed about its source material to the point where it’s all but abandoned after the film’s introduction. Though this may perhaps not do it any favours among the horror purists, criticisms of the film based around its lack of seriousness misses the point entirely. Perhaps also with Corman’s excellent track record for Poe adaptations, it comes as a shock to find him playing so freely with the material but it’s something he would come back to again and again (also remembering his previous horror comedy Little Shop of Horrors (1960)).

Though more in line with the TV series Bewitched than with the likes of Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Raven is a perfect film for the winter. Its silly nature gives it the feel of a Christmas film, however, boasting an extremely strong cast of horror royalty and providing some genuine laughs along with its witty wizardry, The Raven is a film that can be forgiven for straying array from the purely horrific and should instead be enjoyed for what it is; fun.

synopsis

Although Roger Corman narrowly managed to avoid self-mockery in his pulpy, flamboyant adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe tales, it appears that the director chose this opportunity to let loose with outright parody; the result is a wonderfully entertaining romp with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The first screen teaming of legendary horror stars Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, and Peter Lorre -- later billed as "The Triumvirate of Terror" -- this so-called "adaptation" uses Poe's most famous poem as a springboard for Grand Guignol comedy from scriptwriter Richard Matheson. Melancholy magician Erasmus Craven (Price), having recently relinquished his membership in the Brotherhood of Sorcerers after the apparent death of his wife Lenore (Hazel Court), is paid a visit by a foul-mouthed talking raven, claiming to be small-time wizard Adolphus Bedlo (Lorre). After some persuasion, Craven returns Bedlo to human form, reversing a spell placed by the evil Dr. Scarabus (Karloff), Craven's chief rival. After learning that a woman bearing a strong likeness to Lenore was seen in the Doctor's company, Craven accompanies Bedlo to Scarabus' castle, where the resulting battle of wills escalates into all-out magical warfare between the two embittered sorcerers. Corman and company relished the opportunity to poke fun at the staid Poe series, and the distinguished leads contribute to the spirit of fun by lampooning their own cinematic reputations. Fans of Jack Nicholson (who cut his acting teeth on this and other AIP productions) should enjoy his melodramatic performance here as Bedlo's straight-arrow son; Nicholson would later co-star with Karloff in Corman's The Terror, which was shot in two days using the same sets!

 

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 626/2. Photo: Viggo Larsen Tempelhof. Viggo Larsen in Der Fürst der Diebe und seine Liebe/The King of Thieves and His Love (Viggo Larsen, 1919).

 

Der Fürst der Diebe und seine Liebe was a four-part film which premiered in Berlin on November 4, 1919. Scriptwriter was Hans Hyan, photographer Julius Balting. Initially, the state censorship of 1921, completely forbade the film but after cuts, it remained only forbidden for youngsters.

 

While no content description of the film could be found, it is clear the plot deals with a gentleman criminal, played by Larsen himself. Critic Friedrich Sieburg in 1920 wrote about a terrifying experience he had when viewing this very film when suddenly the musicians stopped playing while the film went on. "In act 3, as Der Fürst der Diebe was roaring along in his car (his shawl fluttering like a flag, wind blowing briskly through the high grass of the passing landscape), the musicians in the small orchestra - violin and piano for lively scenes, organ for deathly scenes - suddenly decided to break for dinner. The music stopped. Silence. The reels whirred. The light hissed. The action sped ahead. I tell you, it was frightening. I felt as if I was six feet under." (Anton Kaes/ Michael Cowan ed., The Promise of Cinema: German Film Theory, 1907–1933).

 

Viggo Larsen (1880-1957) was a Danish actor, director, scriptwriter and producer. He was one of the pioneers in film history. With Wanda Treumann he directed and produced many German films of the 1910s.

 

Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 435. Photo: Vettori, Bologna.

 

Annibale Betrone (1883-1950) was an Italian film, stage and radio actor, who did some silent films but was rather highly active in Italian sound cinema of the 1930s and 1940s.

 

Annibale Betrone was born in Turin in 1883. Unlike many of his stage colleagues, he was no ‘figlio d’arte’, his father was a tailor, who was passionate about the stage. Annibale found a way to study acting with Domenico Bassi. His debut came at the age of 17, in 1900, with the title of ‘second actor’ in the company of the brothers Marchetti. He was then hired by the company of Ermete Novelli, with whom he remained from 1901 to 1908. He passed the whole trajectory going from extra, to lover, to the young first actor, and finally the first actor. He then moved over to Virgilio Talli’s company for a long period (1909-1921), where he established a famous triad with Maria Melato and Alberto Giovannini. Between the two wars, he formed famous companies with some of the most reputed actresses, such as Maria Melato, Giannina Chiantoni, Tatiana Pavlova, Emma Gramatica, Paola Borboni, Kiki Palmer, Margaret Bagni, Olga Solbelli, and many more. Betrone was an actor of a strong dramatic, sometimes explosive, temperament, and moved around within a vast repertory. He achieved great fame. Among his greatest successes are Il beffardo by Nino Berrini and Glauco by Ercole Luigi Morselli. He also played in Anfissa by Leonid Andreev and in La sonata di Kreutzer (The Kreutzer Sonata) by François Nozières, after Leo Tolstoy. He was Bruneri-Canella in L’uomo no. 15 by E. Wool, and also recited in plays by Rosso di San Secondo (Il delirio dell’oste Bassà) and Diego Fabbri. In 1945, in the just liberated Rome, he performed in The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck, directed by Vito Pandolfi. In the late 1930s he had his own company, together with Anna Magnani. He directed her and Salvo Randone in several plays at the Roman Teatro Eliseo. In 1940 he worked with Letitia Maria Celli and Angelo Calabrese, but after the outbreak of the war and the immediate post-war period, he reduced his presence on stage and focused on film acting.

 

Annibale Betrone was very active in cinema, though his silent parts were scarce. He began in 1916 with the silent films Tigrana (Edouard Micheroux de Dillon, 1916) and Alcova tragica (Edouard Micheroux de Dillon, 1916), both with Betrone, Mary Light and Sergio Tofano. After this followed two films with Italia Almirante Manzini: L’innamorato (Gennaro Righelli, 1920) and L’arzigogolo (Mario Almirante, 1924). In the early 1930s. Betrone had a new breakthrough in the Italian sound film, when he got a critical and public success playing king Vittorio Emanuele II in the feature film Villafranca (Gioacchino Forzano, 1934). A year earlier, he had also acted in Forzano's fascist propaganda film Camicia nero (Gioacchino Forzano, 1933). Later he was admired as the human uncle in Piccolo mondo antico/Old-Fashioned World (Mario Soldati, 1941) - where he rivaled with the icy Ada Dondini - and the sensitive father of Doris Duranti in Nessuno torna indietro (Alessandro Blasetti, 1943).

 

During the war years, Annibale Betrone acted in some 26 films, ranging from propaganda films like Giarabub (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942) to comedies like Teresa Venerdi (Vittorio De Sica, 1941) with Vittorio De Sica himself and Adriana Benetti, and (melo)dramas like the two-part film Noi vivi/Addio Kira! (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1943) with Alida Valli, Rossano Brazzi and Fosco Giachetti. In 1912, Betrone had married Elvira Sanipoli - who later took the name of Elvira Betrone - and who often played with him on stage and on the screen, such as in the films Teresa Venerdi, Noi vivi, and Nessuno torna indietro. Betrone was also the father of the young assistant-director, scriptwriter, and editor Gino (Cino) Betrone, who e.g. edited the film Tosca (1941) by Carl Koch and Jean Renoir. As lieutenant of the Alpine soldiers, he fell on the Greek-Albanian front in 1941. Dedicated to his memory was the film Quelli della montagna (Aldo Vergano, 1943) with Amedeo Nazzari and Mariella Lotti. Cino had delivered the idea for this film, and Annibale played a small part in it. After the war, Betrone was active on the radio. Among his last film roles were minor parts in two epics: Fabiola (Alessandro Blasetti, 1949) and Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (Marcel L’Herbier, Paolo Moffa, 1950), starring Micheline Presle and Georges Marchal. Annibal Betrone died in Rome in 1950. His wife Elvira Betrone died in Milan in 1961.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

American arcade postcard. Photo: Evans Studio, L.A.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

 

Charles Edgar Ray was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, in 1891. He moved several times in his youth before settling in Los Angeles, where he finished his education. Ray started his career as an actor on stage. Later he also began to act in short silent films, making his debut as an extra in The Fortunes of War (Thomas Ince, 1911). He appeared in several bit parts before moving on to supporting roles. From 1913 he had a steady career as the male lead in one- and two-reel short Western, Quaker, and Civil War dramas at Kaybee Pictures, Broncho Pictures, and Domino Pictures. In these films, he would be paired with actresses such as Enid Markey, Bessie Barriscale, Louise Glaum, and Dorothy Davenport. Ray must have worked fast then, as in 1913 and in 1914 he had a ratio of a film every two weeks. At Kaybee, Ince would direct him at times, at times also Raymond West, while at Bronco he was often directed by Charles Giblyn, and in 1915 a few times by William S. Hart. In 1915, Ray had his breakthrough in his first feature The Coward, produced by Thomas Ince for Kay-Bee and directed by Reginald Barker. In this Civil War drama, Ray played the son of a Virginia colonel (Frank Keenan), who needs to overcome his cowardice.

 

Charles Ray's popularity rose after appearing in a series of films, as Wikipedia writes "which cast him in juvenile roles, primarily young, wholesome hicks or naive 'country bumpkins' that foiled the plans of thieves or con men and won the heart of his dream girl." Ray's Kay-Bee films were now distributed by Triangle Distributing. Victor Schertzinger, the musician who had provided the music for The Coward, turned director at Kay-Bee and directed Ray in several films in 1917. Ray, Ince, and Schertzinger moved over to Paramount in 1917, where Ince got his own production company and where Schertzinger directed Ray in more films, such as The Claws of the Hun (Victor Schertzinger, 1918), a propaganda film signalling the US's participation in the First World War. Ray's star rose and rose. By 1920, he was earning a reported $11,000 a week (approximately $138,000 today). Ray had also earned a reputation for being egomaniacal and difficult to work with. In 1920, he left Paramount after studio head Adolph Zukor refused to give him a substantial pay raise. Ray started his own production company. Charles Ray Productions, and bought a studio on Sunset Boulevard where he began producing and shooting his own films. While he initially was fairly successful, an experiment for First National with a film without intertitles, The Old Swimmin' Hole (1921), co-starring Laura La Plante, had critical but not a huge popular success. Mind you, this was years before Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's famous Der Letzte Mann/The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau, 1924), which was made with only one intertitle.

 

In 1922, Charles Ray signed a contract with United Artists and starred in e.g. The Girl I Loved (1923) with Patsy Ruth Miller. He was fed up with the hillbillies types and strove to profile himself as a romantic lead and man of the world. Against everybody's advice to avoid lengthy historical drama, Ray insisted on the making of The Courtship of Miles Standish (1923), investing $500,000 (approximately $7,353,000 today) of his own money, including a $65,000 (approximately $956,000 today) 180-ton replica of the Mayflower. The film was a box office failure, Ray lost all his money and his reputation went down too. It did not mean his career was all over (despite what Wikipedia writes), because he first continued as a leading actor at smaller companies, produced by Ince, and in 1925 he got a contract at MGM, where he played for two years and acted as the male lead opposite actresses such as Pauline Starke, Joan Crawford, and May McAvoy. In those years Ray and his wife Clara Grant were enormous spendthrifts, with an over-the-top villa in Beverly Hills, a huge staff, and expensive cars. Grant would never wear a dress two times. Yet, in December 1925 Ray had to file for bankruptcy and his production company went under as well.

 

Though he continued to act, after MGM the companies he worked for were less prestigious, such as Universal. In 1928 he made his last silent film, The Count of Ten (James Flood, 1928), after which he acted on stage for years, in off-Broadway productions, without much success. In 1932 Ray returned to the sets, but without success, and in 1934 he declared for bankruptcy again. In 1935 he got divorced from Clara Grant, from whom he was already separated as of 1930. Ray still acted in cinema but in the mid-1930s in minor parts and in the early 1940s on uncredited parts. He tried to earn money by writing short stories and a popular movie magazine but to no avail. Charles Ray died of a systemic infection caused by an impacted wisdom tooth in 1943. He was only 52. In 1960 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the motion picture industry.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (English, French and Italian), and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin. Photo: Zelnik-Film. Wilhelm Dieterle in Die Weber/The Weavers (Friedrich Zelnik, 1927).

 

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

 

Wilhelm Dieterle was born in 1893 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein and of humble descendants, took acting lessons at a young age, and began his career as a stage actor in 1911 at the theatre in Arnsberg, which also included work as an extra, singer, dancer and stagehand; hence his white gloves, which he continued to wear in Hollywood. In 1912-1914, he worked at theatres in Heilbronn, Plauen and Bad Dürkheim, and in 1914-1917 in Mainz (under the direction of future film director Ludwig Berger). In 1917-1918, he played in Zürich, in 1918-1919 in Berlin and 1919-1920 in Munich. He had his breakthrough in 1920-1923 with Max Reinhardt’s Deutschen Theater in Berlin. In this era, he mainly worked there, next to sidesteps with the companies of Leopold Jessner, Viktor Barnowsky and Karlheinz Martin. In 1924 Dieterle had his own theatre company, but it was short-lived. After an incidental film performance in the Schiller adaptation Fiesko (Phil Jutzi, 1913), Dieterle’s acting became numerous from 1919 on, all through the 1920s. Dieterle appeared in major films of the Weimar era. He was Henny Porten’s ill-fated fiancé and Fritz Kortner’s rival in love in Leopold Jessner’s classic Kammerspiel Hintertreppe/ Backstairs (1921). Actually, in those years Dieterle was often paired with Porten, before Hintertreppe in Die Geier-Wally (E.A. Dupont, 1921), and afterwards in Frauenopfer (Karl Grune, 1921). Dieterle also was the poet, the Persian baker and the Russian prince in the Harun al Raschid and Iwan the Terrible sequences, in Paul Leni’s Wachsfigurenkabinett/Waxworks (1923/1924). He was Henny Porten’s young husband in the internationally popular Mutter und Kind (Carl Froehlich, 1924). And he was Gretchen’s brother Valentin in F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926), killed by Mephisto.

 

From 1923 on, Wilhelm Dieterle directed his first films, in which he always had the lead; starting with the Heimat-film Der Mensch am Wege (1923), in which Marlene Dietrich had one of her first roles. The major example of his output was Geschlecht in Fesseln/Sex in Chains (1928), one of the films produced by his own company Charha (1927), which he ran with his wife, scriptwriter and actress Charlotte Hagenbruch. A man (Dieterle) accidentally kills another who tried to harass his wife (Mary Johnson) and ends up in jail, where he is seduced by an inmate, while his wife gives in to another man as well. After his liberation, the couple feels guilty and commits suicide. In particular, between 1928 and 1930, Dieterle directed many films for his own company, in which he starred and for which his wife signed the script, such as the melodrama Die Heilige und ihr Narr (1928), with Lien Deyers and Gina Manès, and the mountain film Das Schweigen im Walde (1929). Dieterle’s work in Germany was internationally so successful, that he was offered a contract by Warner Bros. in 1930 to make German versions of American sound films for the German department of Warner’s subsidiary First National, Deutsche First National Pictures GmbH (Defina). An example is Die heilige Flamme (1930/31), co-directed with Berthold Viertel and starring Salka Viertel. In the States, Dieterle stopped acting and focused on directing. As Dieterle was Jewish, he was lucky to get away from the slowly worsening situation in Germany; three years later, Hitler would take over and ban all Jews from the film industry.

 

In the US, William Dieterle quickly adapted and was permitted to start directing his own films. With Michael Curtiz, Dieterle soon became the regular Warner film director, working in every possible genre, such as comedies with Kay Francis and the melodrama The Crash with Ruth Chatterton. Together with Max Reinhardt, with whom Dieterle had played in Germany, he adapted Midsummer Night’s Dream for cinema, but the result failed to convince the critics. In the early 1930s, Dieterle was highly productive with Warner, turning out 6 films per year in 1933 and 1934. He probably had to: in 1933 he had received a seven-year contract from Warner. From the mid-1930s on Dieterle became well-known for his bio-pics. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) won him an Oscar nomination while The Life of Emile Zola (1937) got him the Oscar; in both films, Paul Muni played the lead. Other memorable titles were the Mark Twain adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper (1937) with Errol Flynn, Juarez (1939) with Bette Davis as the empress Carlotta, and The Hunchback of the Notre Dame (1939) with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. In 1937 Warner offered Dieterle, by now an American citizen, the opportunity to study Russian production methods for four months at Lenfilm in Moscow. In 1938-1940 he taught theatre lessons at the Max Reinhardt Workshop of Stage, Screen, and Radio, and in 1939 he co-founded the antifascist cultural magazine The Hollywood Tribune and the English-spoken exile theatre company The Continental Players, directed by Jessner. After his contract with Warner expired, Dieterle broke with them and tried his own film company at RKO. When that failed, he mainly made films with MGM, Selznick, and Paramount.

 

During the 1940s, William Dieterle focused on romantic, lush melodramas such as the Technicolor exotic tale Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich, and Love Letters (1945) and Portrait of Jennie (1948), both with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones. Love Letters became an enormous success and earned Jones an Oscar. In the 1950s, Dieterle’s career declined because of McCarthyism. In 1950 he went to Italy to shoot Vulcano, the rival to Rossellini’s Stromboli. When Anna Magnani knew that her former lover planned to make a film with his new girlfriend Ingrid Bergman on an Italian island near Sicily, Magnani pushed a Sicilian producer to make a rivalling film that had to come out before Rossellini’s. The affair was known as ‘la Guerra dei vulcani’, also referring to Magnani’s tempestuous character. Around the same time, Dieterle also shot in Italy the highly romantic September Affair (1950), with Joseph Cotten and Joan Fontaine, about a married man and a woman who start an affair in Naples and Capri. After they decide to split, they are believed to have been killed in a plane crash and start a second life, but responsibility calls. Returned to Hollywood, Dieterle made crime films like Dark City (1950) with Charlton Heston, Boots Malone (1952) and The Turning Point (1952), both with William Holden. but also epic melodramas such as Salome (1953), starring Rita Hayworth and partly shot in Jerusalem, and Omar Khayyam (1956), starring Cornel Wilde and shot in the Bronson Canyon. In 1958 Dieterle returned to Germany and worked till his death as a stage director for various companies in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; he also worked for German (Sender Freies Berlin) and Austrian television and (co-)directed two features: a remake of Joe May’s classic Herrin der Welt (1959/60) and Die Fastnachtsbeichte (1960). From 1961 to 1965, he was the manager of the theatre at Bad Hersfeld. After his failed attempt to make a comeback in Hollywood with The Confession (1964), Dieterle’s last film direction, he remained in Germany, working on the stage. Wilhelm Dieterle died in 1972 and was buried in Munich. From 1921 on, Dieterle was married to Charlotte Hagenbruch; after she died in 1968, his second wife was Elisabeth Daum.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (English and German), Filmportal.de, Cinegraph, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5770/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.

 

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.

 

Brigitte Helm was born as Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm in Berlin, Germany, in 1906 (some sources say 1908). Her father was a Prussian army officer, who left his wife a widow not long after. Brigitte gained her acting experience in school productions but never thought of acting classes. After her school exams, she wanted to be an astronomer. But then she was discovered by the famous director Fritz Lang for the lead in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), then the most expensive German film ever made. Her mother had sent a photograph of her beautiful 16-years-old daughter to Lang's wife, scriptwriter Thea von Harbou. Helm was invited to the set of Die Nibelungen and was given a screen test. She got the double role of the noble and virginal Maria and her evil and sensual twin, the Maschinenmensch, a robot created to urge the workers in revolting and destroy their own city. In their 1996 obituary in The New York Times, Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog note: "The film depicts the world of 2006, a time, Lang envisioned, when a ruling class lives in decadent luxury in the loft heights of skyscrapers linked by aerial railways, while beneath the streets slave-like workers toll in unbearable conditions to sustain their masters. But for all the steam and special effects, for many who have seen the movie in its various incarnations, including a tinted version and one accompanied by music, the most compelling lingering image is neither the towers above nor the hellish factories below. It is the staring transformation of Ms. Helm from an idealistic young woman into a barely clad creature performing a lascivious dance in a brothel." Metropolis made Brigitte Helm a star overnight.

 

UFA gave Brigitte Helm a contract, and over the next 10 years, she acted in 29 German, French, and English films. She was cast as the evil but oh so seductive protagonist in the Sci-Fi-horror film Alraune. First in the silent version of 1928, directed by Henrik Galeen. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel 'Alraune' has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his 'mad doctor' roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, the sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions - least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself." Two years later Helm also starred in the sound version, Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny (Richard Oswald, 1930), for which the Dutch postcard lower in this post was made.

 

Brigitte Helm played a helpless blind woman who is seduced by a rogue in the wartime melodrama Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney/The Love of Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927). It was Brigitte Helm's first project with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the director who could - better than any other director - bring out her mysterious adaptability. In his films Abwege/The Devious Path (1928) and L’Atlantide/Die Herrin von Atlantis/Queen of Atlantis (1932) she proved that she could perform more restrained and emotionally expressive characters. In Abwege, she portrays a spoilt woman of the world who from sheer boredom almost destroys her own life. In L'Atlantide (1932), Helm plays a goddess, the mere sight of whom makes men crazy. Werner Sudendorff wrote in his obituary of Helm in The Independent: "Her power is not of this world, but incomprehensible, magical. This was Helm's last really great role, a legendary mysterious sphinx of the German cinema." These films and Marcel L'Herbier's late silent film L'Argent/The Money (Marcel L’ Herbier, 1928) allowed Helm to act outside the tired cliches she was later often subjected to by scriptwriters and producers.

 

Brigitte Helm's first sound film was the musical Die singende Stadt/City of Song (Carmine Gallone, 1930) with Jan Kiepura. She also appeared in the French and English versions of her German films. Werner Sudendorff: "In her films of the early 1930s, Brigitte Helm became the embodiment of the down-to-earth, affluent modern woman. With her slim figure and austere pre-Raphaelite profile, she seems unapproachable, a model fashion-conscious woman, under whose ice-cold outer appearance criminal energies flicker." However, her sound films, like Gloria (Hans Behrendt, 1931), The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932), and Gold/L’Or (Karl Hartl, 1934), do not have the artistic cachet of her best silent films. Her relationship with the Ufa happened to be very rocky. While the studio had made her a star and kept increasing her pay, the actress was unhappy with the material the Ufa offered her and she was annoyed about the restrictive clauses dictating her weight.

 

Reportedly Brigitte Helm was Josef Von Sternberg's original choice for the starring role of Der Blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930), but the part went to Marlene Dietrich. Helm was also James Whale's first choice for his Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but reportedly she refused to go to America. In 1935, angered by the Nazi control of the German film industry, she didn’t extend her contract with the Ufa. Perhaps another reason for her decision were the negative press reports about her many traffic accidents and the short prison sentence as a result of it. Her last film was Ein Idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935), an adaptation of the play by Oscar Wilde.

 

In private, Brigitte Helm was a timid, modest, and not very ambitious personality. In 1935, after a short but prolific career of 32 films, she married Dr. Hugo Von Kunheim, a German industrialist of Jewish descent, and retired. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "in addition to no longer needing to pursue her acting, with which she was never 100-percent comfortable, she was repelled by the takeover of the German movie industry by the Hitler government. Her marital status, coupled with her anti-Nazi political views, made it impossible for Helm to continue working in movies or living in Germany. From 1935 onward, the couple lived in Switzerland. After the war, they divided their time between Germany and Switzerland, but Helm chose to live quietly and remain anonymous." The pair would raise four children. In 1968 Helm received the Filmband in Gold for “continued outstanding individual contributions to German film over the years". She steadfastly refused to appear in a film again, nor even grant an interview about her film career, but she always answered requests from her old fans for her signature. Brigitte Helm died in 1996 in Ascona, Switzerland. In particular, her Evil Maria won't be forgotten. Apt for her is the Mae West line: "When I am good, I am very good; but when I am bad, I am better."

 

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog (The New York Times), Werner Sudendorff (The Independent), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film Reference, Lenin Imports, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch postcard. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Film. Louis de Bree in Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).

 

Johan Kaart and Louis de Bree starred in the Dutch romantic comedy Malle gevallen/Silly situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934), produced by the Dutch mogul Loet C. Barnstijn.

 

Malle gevallen/Silly situations (1934) was one of the dozens of Dutch sound films, made after the success of the musical De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1933). The producer of De Jantjes, film distributor and former cinema operator Loet C. Barnstijn, engaged director Jaap Speyer, who had worked for years in the silent film industry in Berlin and who had directed De Jantjes. In 1929, Barnstijn had Philips develop the ‘Loetafoon’, his own projection system for sound films. In the few years that followed, he imported sound-film cameras, and was the first person in the Netherlands to produce a short sound film. Malle gevallen is a romantic comedy written by Hans Martin and Simon Koster based on Martin's 1913 novel. The plot is about three students (Roland Varno, Louis Borel and Johan Kaart Jr.) who are in love with three girls (Enny Meunier, Annie van Duyn and Jopie Koopman). At the time, Roland Varno (1908-1996) was already known for his role as one of the gymnasiasts in Josef von Sternberg's Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930). He later worked in Hollywood as a character actor, mainly in B-pictures. Louis Borel (1905-1973) appeared in films in the Netherlands, in Great Britain and in Hollywood. He also adapted, translated, directed and starred in many stage plays. At the end of his career he became a popular TV star. Johan Kaart Jr. (1897-1976) starred in seven Dutch films between 1934 and 1937. After the war he played in several other Dutch films. He also worked often for radio and TV, but his main stage was the theatre.

 

Malle gevallen/Silly situations (1934) was intended as a light romantic comedy, but it was made into a musical with songs by orchestra leader Max Tak. Although scriptwriters Martin and Koster wanted to make something sophisticated, the final result was a farce. The famous film critic L.J. Jordaan complained about the "coarseness and bad taste" in the film. Nevertheless, the film was a commercial success. The film was regularly shown in the Dutch cinemas until it was banned in 1942 by the Nazis. Why the Nazis forbade the film is still unknown. In 1935, Loet C. Barnstijn released De familie van mijn vrouw/The family of my wife (Jaap Speyer, 1935) with Sylvain Poons. That same year he bought the Oosterbeek Estate near Wassenaar and built two film studios. He called this Filmstad (Film City). It consisted of an office, a storage film, a recording studio and a technical workshop. This studio produced the successful film Merijntje Gijzen's jeugd/Merijntje Gijzen's youth, based on the novels by A.M. de Jong. When World War II broke out, Barnstijn stayed in the United States because of his Jewish background. The film studios of Oosterbeek were confiscated by the German film company Ufa and were later destroyed during an air raid. Barnstijn died in the USA in 1953. In 2007, the Dutch Filmmuseum presented a DVD of Malle gevallen.

 

Sources: Eye (Dutch), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Spanish collector's card. Escenas selectas de cinematografía. Chocolates Guillèn, Barcelona, Series B, No. 15. Charles Ray in Un frac para dos/ A Tailor-Made Man (Joseph De Grasse, 1922). This comedy was shown in Spain in 1923-1924. Plot: John Paul Bart is mistaken for the arbitrator in a big steamship labor case when in actuality he is a lowly pants presser.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

《A GAMBLING WORLD 大世界娛樂場》script book / step out 足跡 / book design / May 2013

 

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MOP$68／NTD240

 

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DATA：24 ~ 26/5 (8pm), 26/5 (3pm)

LOCATION：Court Building

 

Producer: Winter Chiang

Production Manager: Lou Chong Neng

Playwright and Director: Koh Choon Eiow (Malaysia)

Co-Playwright: Mok Sio Chong

Lighting Designer: Lau Ming Hang (Hong Kong)

Set Designer: Wu Hsiu Ho (Taiwan)

Music Designer: Kandala Records (Taiwan)

Costume Designers and Stylists: Lou Chong Neng and Mok Kuan Chong

Performers: Cheng Yin Chen (Taiwan), Lam Wai Tong, Ip Ka Man, Mok Sio Chong, Wang Chao Yang (Taiwan), Lao Nga Man, Mok Kuan Chong and Cheong Peng Hou

 

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Established in 2001, Step Out cannot be narrowly defined as either a theatrical or a dance company. Their multidisciplinary works are characterised by the skilful use of poetic and aesthetic dramatic language to compose contemporary fables about the urban city.

 

The talented Malaysian playwright and director Koh Choon Eiow and a group of experienced Macao scriptwriters, directors and actors are joined by strong teams from Taiwan and Hong Kong to create A Gambling World, a new experience in Chinese theatre, presenting audiences with a provocative show about money, desire and dreams in the “Las Vegas of the East”.

 

「問題不在輸錢，而在贏錢。我們在贏錢中一點一滴地輸掉。」 一場有關下注與被下注的遊戲， 一場有關慾望驅使的不等價交換， 一場有關城市擴張的蔓延與移居生活的變動， 一場有關夢想競逐的跨世紀大寓言。 此一時，彼一時， 從大大小小的博彩娛樂場， 我們逐步窺視及逼近 「大世界娛樂場」這一座巨大的當代城市隱喻。 「就讓我們盡地一鋪，娛樂眾生。」

 

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somethingmoon.com/post/51610710197/agamblingworld

www.icm.gov.mo/fam/24/en/events/detail.aspx?id=4445

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3968/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ufa.

 

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.

 

Brigitte Helm was born as Brigitte Eva Gisela Schittenhelm in Berlin, Germany, in 1906 (some sources say 1908). Her father was a Prussian army officer, who left his wife a widow not long after. Brigitte gained her acting experience in school productions but never thought of acting classes. After her school exams, she wanted to be an astronomer. But then she was discovered by the famous director Fritz Lang for the lead in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), then the most expensive German film ever made. Her mother had sent a photograph of her beautiful 16-years-old daughter to Lang's wife, scriptwriter Thea von Harbou. Helm was invited to the set of Die Nibelungen and was given a screen test. She got the double role of the noble and virginal Maria and her evil and sensual twin, the Maschinenmensch, a robot created to urge the workers in revolting and destroy their own city. In their 1996 obituary in The New York Times, Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog note: "The film depicts the world of 2006, a time, Lang envisioned, when a ruling class lives in decadent luxury in the loft heights of skyscrapers linked by aerial railways, while beneath the streets slave-like workers toll in unbearable conditions to sustain their masters. But for all the steam and special effects, for many who have seen the movie in its various incarnations, including a tinted version and one accompanied by music, the most compelling lingering image is neither the towers above nor the hellish factories below. It is the staring transformation of Ms. Helm from an idealistic young woman into a barely clad creature performing a lascivious dance in a brothel." Metropolis made Brigitte Helm a star overnight.

 

UFA gave Brigitte Helm a contract, and over the next 10 years, she acted in 29 German, French, and English films. She was cast as the evil but oh so seductive protagonist in the Sci-Fi-horror film Alraune. First in the silent version of 1928, directed by Henrik Galeen. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "Hanns Heinz Ewers' grim science-fiction novel 'Alraune' has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his 'mad doctor' roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, the sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions - least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself." Two years later Helm also starred in the sound version, Alraune/A Daughter of Destiny (Richard Oswald, 1930), for which the Dutch postcard lower in this post was made.

 

Brigitte Helm played a helpless blind woman who is seduced by a rogue in the wartime melodrama Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney/The Love of Jeanne Ney (G.W. Pabst, 1927). It was Brigitte Helm's first project with Georg Wilhelm Pabst, the director who could - better than any other director - bring out her mysterious adaptability. In his films Abwege/The Devious Path (1928) and L’Atlantide/Die Herrin von Atlantis/Queen of Atlantis (1932) she proved that she could perform more restrained and emotionally expressive characters. In Abwege, she portrays a spoilt woman of the world who from sheer boredom almost destroys her own life. In L'Atlantide (1932), Helm plays a goddess, the mere sight of whom makes men crazy. Werner Sudendorff wrote in his obituary of Helm in The Independent: "Her power is not of this world, but incomprehensible, magical. This was Helm's last really great role, a legendary mysterious sphinx of the German cinema." These films and Marcel L'Herbier's late silent film L'Argent/The Money (Marcel L’ Herbier, 1928) allowed Helm to act outside the tired cliches she was later often subjected to by scriptwriters and producers.

 

Brigitte Helm's first sound film was the musical Die singende Stadt/City of Song (Carmine Gallone, 1930) with Jan Kiepura. She also appeared in the French and English versions of her German films. Werner Sudendorff: "In her films of the early 1930s, Brigitte Helm became the embodiment of the down-to-earth, affluent modern woman. With her slim figure and austere pre-Raphaelite profile, she seems unapproachable, a model fashion-conscious woman, under whose ice-cold outer appearance criminal energies flicker." However, her sound films, like Gloria (Hans Behrendt, 1931), The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932), and Gold/L’Or (Karl Hartl, 1934), do not have the artistic cachet of her best silent films. Her relationship with the Ufa happened to be very rocky. While the studio had made her a star and kept increasing her pay, the actress was unhappy with the material the Ufa offered her and she was annoyed about the restrictive clauses dictating her weight.

 

Reportedly Brigitte Helm was Josef Von Sternberg's original choice for the starring role of Der Blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930), but the part went to Marlene Dietrich. Helm was also James Whale's first choice for his Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but reportedly she refused to go to America. In 1935, angered by the Nazi control of the German film industry, she didn’t extend her contract with the Ufa. Perhaps another reason for her decision were the negative press reports about her many traffic accidents and the short prison sentence as a result of it. Her last film was Ein Idealer Gatte/An Ideal Husband (Herbert Selpin, 1935), an adaptation of the play by Oscar Wilde.

 

In private, Brigitte Helm was a timid, modest, and not very ambitious personality. In 1935, after a short but prolific career of 32 films, she married Dr. Hugo Von Kunheim, a German industrialist of Jewish descent, and retired. Bruce Eder at AllMovie: "in addition to no longer needing to pursue her acting, with which she was never 100-percent comfortable, she was repelled by the takeover of the German movie industry by the Hitler government. Her marital status, coupled with her anti-Nazi political views, made it impossible for Helm to continue working in movies or living in Germany. From 1935 onward, the couple lived in Switzerland. After the war, they divided their time between Germany and Switzerland, but Helm chose to live quietly and remain anonymous." The pair would raise four children. In 1968 Helm received the Filmband in Gold for “continued outstanding individual contributions to German film over the years". She steadfastly refused to appear in a film again, nor even grant an interview about her film career, but she always answered requests from her old fans for her signature. Brigitte Helm died in 1996 in Ascona, Switzerland. In particular, her Evil Maria won't be forgotten. Apt for her is the Mae West line: "When I am good, I am very good; but when I am bad, I am better."

 

Sources: Vittorio Martinelli (Le dive del silenzio), Robert McThomas and Peter Herzog (The New York Times), Werner Sudendorff (The Independent), Bruce Eder (AllMovie), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Film Reference, Lenin Imports, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch postcard by Art Unlimited, Amsterdam, no. C 1930. Photo: Bettie Ringma, 1980. Caption: Nina Hagen with Sacha, New York.

 

German singer, songwriter, and actress Nina Hagen (1955) is known for her theatrical vocals and is often referred to as the ‘Godmother of Punk due to her prominence during the punk and new wave movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During her 40-years-career she appeared in several European films.

 

Catharina ’Nina’ Hagen was born in 1955) in the former East Berlin, German Democratic Republic. She was the daughter of scriptwriter Hans Hagen and actress and singer Eva-Maria Hagen (née Buchholz). Her paternal grandfather died in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp (her father was Jewish). Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and growing up, she saw her father infrequently. At age four, she began to study ballet, and was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine. When Hagen was 11, her mother married Wolf Biermann, an anti-establishment singer-songwriter. Biermann's political views later influenced young Hagen. Hagen left school at age sixteen and went to Poland, where she began her career. She later returned to Germany and joined the cover band, Fritzens Dampferband (Fritzen's Steamboat Band). She added songs by Janis Joplin and Tina Turner to the ‘allowable’ set lists during shows. From 1972 to 1973, Hagen enrolled in the crash-course performance program at The Central Studio for Light Music in East Berlin. Upon graduating, she formed the band Automobil and released in 1974 the single Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film), a subtle dig mocking the sterile, gray, Communist state. Nina became one of the country's best-known young stars. She also appeared in several East-German films and TV films sometimes alongside her mother Eva-Maria Hagen, including Heiraten/Weiblich/Marrying/Female (Christa Kulosa, 1975), Heute ist Freitag/Today is Friday (Klaus Gendries, 1975), Liebesfallen/Love Traps (Werner W. Wallroth, 1976) and Unser stiller Mann/Our Quite Man (Bernhard Stephan, 1976). Her career in the GDR was cut short after her stepfather Wolf Biermann's East German citizenship was withdrawn from him in 1976. Hagen and her mother followed him westwards to Hamburg. The circumstances surrounding the family's emigration were exceptional: Biermann was granted permission to perform a televised concert in Cologne, but denied permission to re-cross the border to his adopted home country.

 

Nina Hagen was offered a record deal from CBS Records. Her label advised her to acclimatise herself to Western culture through travel, and she arrived in London during the height of the punk rock movement. Hagen was quickly taken up by a circle that included The Slits and Sex Pistols. Back in Germany by mid-1977, Hagen formed the Nina Hagen Band in West Berlin's Kreuzberg district. In 1978 they released their self-titled debut album, Nina Hagen Band, which included the single TV-Glotzer (a cover of White Punks on Dope by The Tubes, though with entirely different German lyrics), and Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo, about West Berlin's then-notorious Berlin Zoologischer Garten station. The album also included a version of Rangehn (Go for It), a song she had previously recorded in East Germany, but with different music. The album received critical acclaim for its hard rock sound and for Hagen's theatrical vocals, far different from the straightforward singing of her East German recordings. It was a commercial success selling over 250,000 copies. Relations between Hagen and the other band members deteriorated over the course of the subsequent European tour. The band released one more album Unbehagen (Unease) before their break-up in 1979. It included the single African Reggae and Wir Leben Immer... Noch, a German language cover of Lene Lovich's Lucky Number. Meanwhile, Hagen's public persona was steadily creating media uproar. She starred in two films. In Germany she made the experimental film Bildnis Einer Trinkerin/Portrait of a Female Drunkard (Ulrike Ottinger, 1979) with Tabea Blumenschein, Magdalena Montezuma and Eddie Constantine. She also acted with Dutch rocker Herman Brood and singer Lene Lovich in the Dutch film Cha Cha (Herbert Curiel, 1979). Brood and Hagen would have a long romantic relationship that would end when Hagen could no longer tolerate Brood's drug abuse. She would refer to Brood as her ‘soulmate’ long after Brood committed suicide in 2001. In late 1980, Hagen discovered she was pregnant, broke up with the father-to-be the Dutch guitarist Ferdinand Karmelk, who died in 1988, and she moved to Los Angeles. Her daughter, Cosma Shiva Hagen, was born in Santa Monica in 1981. In 1982, Hagen signed a new contract with CBS and released her debut solo album NunSexMonkRock, a dissonant mix of punk, funk, reggae, and opera. Her first English-language album became also her first record to chart in the United States. She then went on a world tour with the No Problem Orchestra. Her next album the Giorgio Moroder-produced Fearless (1983), generated two major club hits in America, Zarah (a cover of the Zarah Leander song Ich weiss, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen) and the disco/punk/opera song, New York New York, which reached no. 9 in the USA dance charts. She followed this with one more album, Nina Hagen in Ekstasy (1985), which featured a 1979 recording of her hardcore punk take on Paul Anka's My Way. The album fared less well and her contract with CBS expired in 1986 and was not renewed. Hagen's public appearances became stranger and frequently included discussions of God, UFOs, her social and political beliefs, animal rights and vivisection, and claims of alien sightings. In 1987 she released the Punk Wedding EP independently, a celebration of her marriage to a 18-year-old punk South African nicknamed 'Iroquois'.

 

In 1989, Nina Hagen was offered a record deal from Mercury Records. She released three albums on the label: Nina Hagen (1989), Street (1991), and Revolution Ballroom (1993). However, none of the albums achieved notable commercial success. In 1989 she had a relationship with Frank Chevallier from France, with whom she has a son, Otis Chevallier-Hagen (b. 1990). In 1992 Hagen became the host of a TV show on RTLplus. She also collaborated with Adamski on the single Get Your Body (1992). In the 1990s, Hagen lived in Paris with her daughter Cosma Shiva and son Otis. In 1996, she married David Lynn, who is fifteen years younger, but divorced him in the beginning of 2000. In 1999, Hagen became the host of Sci-Fright, a weekly science fiction show on the British Sci-Fi Channel. In 1999, she played the role of Celia Peachum in The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, alongside Max Raabe. She also appeared as a witch in the German-Russian fairy-tale film Vasilisa (Elena Shatalova, 2000). At IMDb, Howard Roarschawks writes: “I saw this eye-popping film at the 2001 Sarasota Film Festival. I entered the theater without expectations, having chosen the film randomly. From shot one, my jaw dropped slack and my eyes waxed wide. Vasilisa is a gorgeously filmed, brilliantly scripted, boldly acted, confidently directed, lushly designed masterpiece of unseen cinema.” Hagen made her musical comeback with the release of her album Return of the Mother (2000). In 2001 she collaborated with Rosenstolz and Marc Almond on the single Total eclipse/Die schwarze Witwe that reached no. 22 in Germany. Later albums include Big Band Explosion (2003), in which she sang numerous swing covers with her then husband, Danish singer and performer, Lucas Alexander. This was followed by Heiß, a greatest hits album. The following album, Journey to the Snow Queen, is more of an audio book — she reads the Snow Queen fairy tale with Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker in the background. Besides her musical career, Hagen is also a voice-over actress. She dubbed the voice of Sally in Der Albtraum vor Weihnachten, the German release of Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas (1993), and she has also done voice work on the German animation film Hot Dogs: Wau - wir sind reich!/Millionaire Dogs (Michael Schoemann, 1999). She appeared as the Queen opposite Otto Waalkes and her daughter Cosma Shiva Hagen as Snowwhite in the comedy7 Zwerge – Männer allein im Wald/7 Dwarves – Men Alone in the Wood (Sven Unterwaldt Jr., 2004) which follows the fairytale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the second most popular film in German cinemas in 2004, reaching an audience of almost 7 million. She returned in the sequel 7 Zwerge – Der Wald ist nicht genug/Seven Dwarves - The Forest Is Not Enough (Sven Unterwaldt, 2006). She wrote three autobiographies: Ich bin ein Berliner (1988), Nina Hagen: That's Why the Lady Is a Punk (2003), and Bekenntnisse (2010). She is also noted for her human and animal rights activism. After a four-year lapse Nina Hagen released the album Personal Jesus in 2010. William Ruhlmann at AllMusic: “Personal Jesus, which featured 13 faith-based tracks that dutifully blend rock, blues, soul, and gospel into a sound that’s distinctly hers.” It was followed by Volksbeat (2011). Her latest films are Desire Will Set You Free (Yony Leyser, 2015) with Amber Benson and Rosa von Praunheim and Gutterdämmerung (Bjorn Tagemose, 2016) with Henry Rollins, Grace Jones and Iggy Pop.

 

Sources: William Ruhlmann (AllMusic), Wikipedia and IMDb.

German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 112/3. Photo: Atelier Schmoll, Berlin / Henny Porten-Film Produktion. Henny Porten in Mutterliebe/A Mother's Love (Georg Jacoby, 1929).

 

Plot: After a big delusion (she cannot have children), Maria Immermann leaves her husband (Gustav Diessl) and goes to Berlin. Under her maiden name, she becomes a nanny in the house of director Vogt (Ernst Stahl-Nachbauer). Soon she becomes the favorite of Vogt's daughter Mädi (Inge Landgut) and vice versa. Yet, Mrs. Vogt (Elisabeth Pinajeff), who cares little for her child, hates Maria and finds a ruse to get rid of her. Maria leaves but suffers from the separation of the child. One day, she meets her in a playground, and takes the child with her, surprised she is arrested for child theft. After she is acquitted, Vogt hires her back, as meanwhile, he has divorced his wife.

 

Mutterliebe was shot in June-July 1929, censured in August 1929, and premiered on 20 August 1929 at the Berlin Atrium, on the occasion of its reopening. Nero-Film distributed the film. The script was by Friedrich Raff and Julius Urgiss, after an idea by Henny Porten. Sets were by Gustav A. Knauer and Willy Sciller, and cinematography was by Karl Puth. Interiors were shot at Staaken, exteriors in Pommern.

 

Paul Marcus praised in the Neue Berliner Zeitung the genuine performance by Porten and Landgut and also thought the concept was realistic. He complained though that Jacoby and the scriptwriters should have reduced the theatricality of the film. Leo Hirsch in Berliner Tageblatt thought the same: the performances were genuine and realistic, especially the silent grandeur of Porten, but Jacoby's over-accentuation by close-ups of Porten's tears was unnecessary. A moderate size of tragedy would increase the feeling of tragedy, Hirsch concluded.

 

Sources: IMDB, Filmportal, Gero Gandert, Der Film der Weimarer Republik: 1929, I.

 

Sturdy and blond Henny Porten (1890-1960) was one of Germany's most important and popular film actresses of the silent cinema. She became the quintessence of German womanhood, ladylike yet kindhearted and a not a little petit bourgeois. She was also the producer of many of her own films.

Austrian film and stage actor Gustav Diessl (1899-1948) was the hero of the first Mountain film, Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929). This film and others by prolific director G.W. Pabst made him at the time an unusual sex symbol: the mature, quiet, somewhat difficult man who attracts women almost against his will. Under the Nazi regime he was often cast as an exotic villain or a mysterious foreigner.

Italian postcard for one of Pina Menichelli's last films La biondina (Amleto Palermi 1923), based on a book by Marco Praga on the tragedy of a woman whose husband kills her in the end. It seems that Italian censorship forced the scriptwriter to add morality to the film, so Praga's tragedy is framed within a story about a modest, conventional wife who, encouraged by her friend, dreams of breaking out, but then reads Praga's book and decides to remain honest and loyal. G.B. Falci, Milano, No. 259.

 

Fascinating and enigmatic Pina Menichelli (1890-1984) was the most bizarre Italian diva of the silent era. With her contorted postures and disdainful expression, she impersonated the striking femme fatale. See also filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com/2008/09/pina-menichelli.html

German press photo by Tele Bunk tv, Berlin. Issued for the broadcasting by the ZDF on 8 January 1998. Jean-Pierre Léaud in Les quatre cents coups/The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959).

 

French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud (1944) is best known for playing Antoine Doinel in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959) and François Truffaut's following series of films about that character. He also worked several times with Jean-Luc Godard, and is one of the icons of the French New Wave. He is also known for his staccato diction.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud was born in Paris in 1944. He was the son of an assistant scriptwriter, Pierre Léaud, and the actress Jacqueline Pierreux. Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959). To cast the two adolescents, Truffaut published an announcement in France-Soir and auditioned several hundred children in September and October 1958. Jean Domarchi, a critic at Cahiers du cinéma, recommended Léaud. Truffaut was immediately captivated by the fourteen-year-old adolescent, who had already appeared with Jean Marais in the Swashbuckler La Tour, prends garde !/The Tower, watch out! (Georges Lampin, 1958). Jean-Pierre Léaud, then in the eighth grade at a private school in Pontigny, was a far from ideal student. He often ran away with the older students on their nights out, but could also be brilliant, generous, and affectionate. During and following the filming of Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959), Truffaut's concern for Léaud extended beyond the film set. He took charge of the difficult adolescent's upbringing after Léaud was expelled from school and kicked out of the home of the retired couple taking care of him. Truffaut subsequently rented a studio apartment for Léaud. Truffaut also hired him for assistant work on La peau douce/The Soft Skin (1964) and Mata Hari, Agent H21 (1964). After the short-film Antoine et Colette (1962), a segment of the anthology L'amour à vingt ans (1962), Léaud starred in four more Truffaut films depicting the life of Doinel, spanning a period of 20 years. Those films are Baisers volés/Stolen Kisses (1968), Domicile conjugal/Bed and Board (1970) and L'amour en fuite/Love on the Run (1979), all with Claude Jade. He also collaborated with Truffaut on non-Antoine Doinel films like Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent/Two English Girls (1971) and La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973) and became the actor most commonly affiliated with him. Although Antoine Doinel is his most familiar character, he often found his performances in other films to be compared to his Doinel character whether there were legitimate similarities or not.

 

Jean-Pierre Léaud is one of the most visible and well-known actors to be associated with the French New Wave film movement and, aside from his work with Truffaut, collaborated with Jean-Luc Godard on nine films, Jean Eustache, Jacques Rivette and Agnès Varda. In 1966, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for his role in Masculin Féminin (Jean Luc Godard, 1966). He was in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile/Pigsty (1968), in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Dialog 20-40-60/Dialogue 20-40-60 (1968), Brazilian Carlos Diegues' Os herdeiros/The Heirs (1970) and Glauber Rocha's Der Leone have sept cabeças/The Lion Has Seven Heads (1971). The early 1970s was perhaps the peak of his professional career when he had three critically acclaimed films released: Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo tango a Parigi/Last Tango in Paris (1972), Truffaut's La Nuit américaine/Day for Night (1973), and Jean Eustache's La Maman et la Putain/The Mother and the Whore (1973) with Bernadette Lafont. In the Bertolucci film, Léaud appeared in the same film as a hero of his, Marlon Brando, although the two men never met, since all of Léaud's scenes were shot on Saturdays and Brando refused to work on Saturdays. In 1988, he was nominated for a César Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 for the comedy Les Keufs/Lady Cops (Josiane Balasko, 1987) and was awarded an Honorary César for lifetime achievement in 2000. He made an exciting comeback in the nineties when several ‘new New Wave’ directors hired Léaud to pay homage to their elders. Among them French film makers such as Olivier Assayas, Danièle Dubroux , Serge Le Péron or Bertrand Bonello and foreigners like Finnish Aki Käurismäki and Taiwanese Tsai Ming-Liang. In 2016, Léaud received the Honorary Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and in 2017, he won the Lumières Award for Best Actor for his role in the historical drama La Mort de Louis XIV/The Death of Louis XIV (Albert Serra, 2017). Jean-Pierre Léaud is married to the French actress Brigitte Duvivier.

 

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Italian postcard.Fotocolore, Torino.

 

Alberto Capozzi (1886-1945) was an Italian actor who had an enormous career in Italian cinema in the 1910s and early 1920s, performing at the Ambrosio and Pasquali studios of Turin. Afterwards he pursued a career in stage acting and worked as sound dubber in France. He returned to film acting in Italian cinema in the early 1940s.

 

Alberto Capozzi was born Alberto Angelo Capozzi on 8 July 1886 in Genova, Italy, as the son of ship-owner Pietro Capozzi and of Emanuela Causa. He spent his childhood in Sestri Ponente, and at the behest of his father he attended seminary, but wasn’t very convinced of this imposed vocation. Meanwhile, he discovered the existence of dramatic societies, like so many others, began to play, fell in love with the craft, and demanded his parents to fall in love with it as well. At sixteen, he manages to get enlisted by comedian Novelli Vidali, and felt like being in heaven. When he informed his father, the latter did not even comment on it, but went up to the comedian and broke up the enlisting and the stage future of his son. But Alberto didn’t give up and so, at seventeen he entered a dramatic company managed by a certain Musella, which he soon left for the more prestigious Talli-Borelli company, run by Virginio Talli, Lyda Borelli and Emma Gramatica. One day, when reading the newspaper ads in Il piccolo Faust, his eyes were drawn to the announcement: "Wanted: major film actor." This was in 1909, a time when major actors were searched by insertions. Capozzi immediately wrote to Arturo Ambrosio, the man of the ad, and got an invitation to come to Turin. Ambrosio received him together with Luigi Maggi, artistic director of the company, and they made him try a tragic death; at the time, the screen-test had not been born yet, so directors judged by the eye. When the test was over, while Alberto was adjusting his hair and his tie, Maggi and Ambrosio whispered to each other in a corner. In the end, Ambrosio approached the actor: “It looks to me we can go ahead; if you want to work with us, we can offer you contract at 300 lire a month.” Alberto accepted with evident enthusiasm.

 

A few days later he acted in his first film, the historical film Spergiura! (Luigi Maggi, 1909), in which he played a hussar, who courts a married lady and is walled up in a room. The film was a liberal adaptation of La Grande Bretêche by Balzac and was a big international success. It was the first of the so-called Serie d’Oro (Golden Series), a series of prestigious historical productions by Ambrosio, which often starred Capozzi and his female co-star from Spergiura!: Mary Cleo Tarlarini. After Spergiura!, Alberto acted in countless movies, such as the epic Nerone (Maggi, 1909) with Capozzi in the title role, Didone abbondanata (Maggi, 1910) with Capozzi as Enea, Lo schiavo di Cartagine (Maggi et.al., 1910) – which clearly precedes the plot of the epic Cabiria - , La vergine di Babilonia (Maggi, 1910), the western La cintura d’oro (1911), Il convegno supremo (Maggi, 1911), the Napoleonic films Il debito dell’Imperatore (Maggi, 1911) and Il granatiere Roland (Maggi, 1911), Salambò (Maggi, 1911), Sisto V (Maggi, 1911), Le tentazioni di Sant’Antonio (1911), L’ultimo dei Frontignac aka Il romanzo di un giovane povero (1911), and the Risorgimento set drama Nozze d’oro (Maggi, 1911). All were part of the Serie d’Oro. Nozze d’oro even won first prize at the Turin International Film Contest in 1911. Ambrosio seemed satisfied, raising Capozzi’s salary first to 500, then 800 lire a month.

 

In addition to these prestige films, Capozzi also acted in several more modest modern short dramas: Amore e patria (Maggi, 1909), Alibi atroce (1910), L’Ave Maria di Gounod (1910), Chi ha l’uccisa (1910), Il più forte (1910), Il segreto della fidanzata (1910), La sirena (1910), Vendetta fatale (Maggi, 1910), Il brutto sogno di una sartina (1911), Il cane accusatore (1911), Un errore telefonico (1911), Natale tragico (1911), Nella camorra (1911), Il Quartiermastro (1911), La tigre (Maggi, 1911), historical shorts: L’ostaggio (Maggi, 1909), Un brutto sogno (1910), Il corriere dell’imperatore, 1910), Ero e Leandro (1910). La fucina (Maggi, 1910), Il guanto (Maggi, 1910), Pauli (1910), Il pianoforte silenzioso (Maggi, 1910), Il pozzo che parla (1910), Gulnara (1911), La pena del taglione (1911), and even sometimes romantic comedies as well, such as Stratagemma d’amore (1910) with Gigetta Morano, and Il tramezzo (1911) with Tarlarini.

 

In 1911, the film company Pasquali grabbed Alberto away from Ambrosio, raising his salary to 1200 lire a month. Students stopped Capozzi on the street: “Is it true that you gain 1200 lire a month?” In 1911 the long feature broke through, and while Capozzi already had acted in early features at Ambrosio such as L’ultimo dei Frontignac, he continued to do even more so at Pasquali in L’amore dello chauffeur (1911), Sui gradini del trono (Ubaldo Maria Del Colle 1912), Il carabiniere (Del Colle 1913, which co-starred Umberto Paradisi, Bianco contro negro (Del Colle 1912) – which despite IMDB has nothing to do with Othello but with a white and a black boxer, I due sergenti (Eugenio Perego, 1913) with again Paradisi, and La campana muta (Luigi Mele, 1914). In 1914 Capozzi move towards adventure and action features, often with co-stars like Cristina Ruspoli: Il supplizio dei leoni (Luigi Mele or Eugenio Perego, 1914), La vita per il Re (Mele, 1914), Zirka (Mele, 1914), and La maschera che sanguina (Pier Angelo Mazzolotti, 1914). In addition to these features, Capozzi acted in many shorts at Pasquali, mainly in the years 1912-1913. Capozzi’s name and face became well-known all over the globe. Meanwhile he continued at Ambrosio in 1912 but now as co-writer of the comedy Santarellina (Mario Caserini, 1912) starring Gigetta Morano, and the historical films Parsifal (Caserini, 1912) and Siegfried (Caserini, 1912).

 

From America and France to Russia, Poland and Africa, Alberto Capozzi was recognized as a famous movie star, having millions of loyal admirers and swooning female fans. His films made crazy grosses, with the gains of only one of them, La rosa rossa (Maggi, 1912), Ernesto Maria Pasquali supposedly could build his new studios. Alberto ignored all this, didn’t know how to be famous; he lived in Turin, where everyone knew him, but then again it was easy to be known at that time in Turin. He received hundreds of letters from fans which he didn’t read, but passed on to director Nino Oxilia, who responded to the thousands. Meanwhile Gaumont called him to Paris and offered him a contract for 60.000 lires per year. Capozzi looked stunned, convinced that he had to do with a madman. “But first I would like to see ...” – “As you wish, I give you the signed contract: when you decide you will sign.” So Capozzi returned to Turin, with the wonderful piece of paper in his pocket. He didn’t believe this figure, but wanted to speak about it to Pasquali: “You know, I've been to Paris, to Gaumont. It's crazy, he offered me 60.000 a year. Look, here is the contract.” Pasquali was silent, twisting his lips, as was his habit when thinking intensely. He got up, shoved his hands in his pockets: “Listen, if that’s the case, I’ll give you that 60.000 myself.”Pasquali is getting crazy as well, Capozzi thought, believing he was dreaming, but instead it was all very real. He continued to work for that salary, considering himself a man favoured by the gods.

 

Meanwhile, the First World War broke out. Italy remained neutral at the start, so Capozzi continued at Pasquali in films like Amore e cospirazione (1915). In the same year, however, he must have gone back to Ambrosio, where he had his own ‘Capozzi series’. While several were judged insufficient action and adventure films, such as Il Tesoro della cattedrale (Arturo Ambrosio, 1915), the press praised the veristic and well-performed Gli emigranti (Gino Zaccaria, 1915), which co-starred Nilde Bruno, Capozzi’s regular female co-star in those years. The Emigrants might have been a sign, as Capozzi was offered the possibility to form a dramatic company to tour South America. The company started with a contract for three months, but, according to the site In Penombra, was so successful that they stayed overseas for a year. In Argentina everyone knew Capozzi, huge crowds waited for him with music. In Santos, from the steamer, Capozzi saw the immensity of people, the fanfare, the flags. He knew that aboard the ship was the new archbishop who came to take over the diocese, and believed that the celebrations are for him. “That must be very satisfying for the archbishop to be received with such enthusiasm”, Alberto said to his secretary. And then hear hundreds of voices shouted his own name, while a delegation came aboard to pay homage on behalf of the crowd. Capozzi took advantage of his success to make an intense propaganda for Italy. It is not exactly known when and how long Capozzi stayed abroad, as he made several films in 1916 in Italy as well. With Diana Karenne he played in the Pasquali production Oltre la vita, oltre la morte (Ernesto Maria Pasquali, 1916), with Gigetta Morano and Elena Makowska he acted in the Ambrosio film Straccetto (Filippo Costamagna, 1916), and he played also in the Gladiator production Le rovine di un sogno (Ugo De Simone, 1916).

 

In 1917 Capozzi played one of his most memorable parts in the Ambrosio production Fiacre No. 13, which he co-directed himself with Gero Zambuto and which was based on Xavier de Montépin’s classic story. Count George de Latour (Vasco Creti), a spendthrift and gambler, decides to kill his brother and nephew in order to inherit their money. He is helped by his lover Berta Varny (Elena Makowska) and the apache Gian Giovedi (Capozzi). The apache cannot kill the infant, so he hides it in an empty carriage, Fiacre No. 13. George and Berta enjoy their wealthy life until the boy has grown up and revenge takes place, with the help of Gian Giovedi. Berta is unmasked by the latter during a tableau vivant which reconstructs the fateful events. She kills herself, while George goes mad. The nephew is returned in possession of his riches stolen from him. While the first of the four episodes of the film was forbidden by the Italian censors, only the last episode remains, in a tinted version at the Cineteca Italiana. It was restored and presented at the Cinema Ritrovato Festival in 2001.

 

In 1917 Capozzi also acted in three films starring Diana Karenne, and all three directed by herself: La damina di Porcellana, Justice de femme, and Il romanzo di Maud. In 1918 he acted opposite Lyda Borelli and Livio Pavanelli in Borelli’s last film Il dramma di una notte aka Una notte a Calcutta (Mario Caserini, 1918). That year he also starred in a film directed by himself: La parabola di una vita (1918). It is clear however, that in the late 1910s Capozzi’s performances were drastically reduced in number. In 1919-1922 he continued to act in films, but just a few roles per year. He often was the male counterpart of female stars: subsequently Mina D’Orvella, Bianca Stagno Bellincioni, Lucy Di San Germano aka Lucy Sangermano, and the Hungarian actress Maria Corda (then known as Antonia Korda). The films with Sangermano and Corda were directed by Alfredo De Antoni, who co-acted as the younger man in these films, opposite Capozzi as the by now older man. Scriptwriter for these films was the future director Nunzio Malasomma.

 

In 1920 Capozzi starred opposite Marie Doro in La principessa misteriosa by the Irish-American director Herbert Brenon. Possibly attracted by Corda, Capozzi went to Austria in 1922 to act with Corda in Eine Versunkene Welt/Die Tragödie eines verschollenen Fürstensohnes/ S.A. Il principe rosso/A Vanished World (Alexander Korda 1922). Capozzi played opposite Corda and Victor Varconi as a Habsburg archduke who enlists as an ordinary seaman. The film, based on the novel Serpoletto by Lajos Bíró, was shown at the 2009 Pordenone Silent Film Festival. In 1922 Capozzi acted in only one other film, but what a film! In La casa sotto la neve (Gennaro Righelli 1922) Capozzi is a doctor, Giorgio Salviati, who falls in love with Maria, though she has a little daughter Grazia and is waiting for her lover Roberto to get married. The jealous Salviati steals Grazia to get Maria to an isolated cabin in the mountains, where he menaces the poor woman. During a snowstorm Roberto is just in time to save her. Already the incomplete print I saw of the film was very impressing. In 1924 Capozzi did his last silent film, Profanazione, directed by Eugenio Perego, and starring Leda Gys; the film was only released in 1926 after several cuts and had scarce distribution.

 

In the mid-1920s Italian cinema was in crisis and in 1923 the UCI (Unione Cinematografica Italiana, a merger of former major companies like Ambrosio)) went bankrupt, so Capozzi entered the theatre company of Tatiana Pavlova, which marked the "professional" stage debut by Vittorio De Sica. Capozzi was first actor in the company of Pavlova, who experimented in Italy with bold conceptions of staging (the Ukrainian filmmaker would find only later actors and set designers who could determine a continuous relationship between action and staging, between internal and external movements of the characters and the environment, which was always at the root of her shows). Capozzi appeared as a faded actor, both as comic actor - Miss Hobbs by JK Jerome, at the Teatro Filodrammatici of Milan, 17 November 1923, Capozzi in the part of Wolfe King - and as a dramatic actor - as in Romanzo by E. Sheldon, at the same theater, November 22, 1923, where Capozzi played the Prior Armstrong, whose notes of simplicity, however, were kindly appreciated as inseparable from his personality as an actor. The following year, after having left Pavlova, Capozzi personified the Redeemer, chanting nobly the gentle words of the Gospel, in The Passion of the Christ by A. Colantuoni, first at the Palazzo dello Sport in Milan (May 31), then at the Teatro Adriano in Rome, where the costly show was sold out. In 1927 he joined the Borelli-Bertrame company and, once again, aroused interest in the theater audience (N. Leonelli said that his diction, though he strove to purify it, was affected by his roots of Genoa).

 

During the early years of sound cinema (1929-1931), American films were forbidden to be shown in Italy with English spoken dialogue. So scenes were added in which Italian actors, including Capozzi, said what had been said by the Americans up till then. Paramount invited him to Paris to do so in various films in 1929-1932. Then Korda lead him to London, where Capozzi could have had a lot of work, but the political atmosphere became ever more tense, so he returned to Italy shortly before the war. In the early 1940s Capozzi was highly active in Italian sound cinema, and in quite substantial parts, as in Marco Visconti (1941), La cena delle beffe (Alessandro Blasetti 1942), Colpi di timone (Righelli 1942), and Nessuna torna indietro (Blasetti 1943). Capozzi’s last part was in Alberto Lattuada’s La freccia nel fianco, starring Mariella Lotti. Shooting halted in September 1943, and was finished by Mario Costa after the liberation of Rome in 1944. The film was released after the death of Alberto Capozzi, who died in Rome on March 17 (other sources say 27 June), 1945. All in all he acted in over 130 films between 1909 and 1945.

 

Sources: Aldo Bernardini/ Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, 1905-1931, IMDB, Italian Wikipedia, sempreinpenombra.com/2009/09/30/alberto-capozzi-alle-gior..., www.treccani.it.

 

Artist, poet, scriptwriter, singer Russ Ralph of Bred Pudding / Bred Pudding Collective and A&R director of New Reality Records pictured in Leicester on a Friday night after visiting Two Queens for an art show private view.

 

#leicester #art #NewRealityRecords

VIDEO: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvqLlcCle_s

 

••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••

 

MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!

 

JIMMY NEUTRON…

 

…VS…

 

…How about you cut it there, and do as Aaron Carter put it:

Jimmy Neutron:

Leave it up to me to show the world just how I beat this carrot-topped kid,

With the hyper-stunted growth and accent screaming "I'm adopted!"

While you live behind a front, what I present is far from feigning,

And I'll show it sevenfold here, no one crying Fowl nor complaining!

3D's rising to preeminence saw me play an essential role,

While it's being generous to even call you two-dimensional;

My words will haunt your dreams 'til you can't speak but to repeat them,

While as for eggs from afar, I over-easily defeat them!

You're a lifelong Ego-Tripper, like Sheen's brain gone ultra-bloated,

With a dumb ass full of hot air; best believe that I'll explode it:

Push your buttons, and I'll make you pay, like Dee Dee's sub-in bitch.

I'll hit a home run with your noggin; call me T.V. Puppet Mitch!

Your Koos is cooked; try and attack with some alleged brilliant plan,

And get the axe still harder than your missiles visiting Japan!

A six-year-old got hired by your management to pen an ep?

Your typical scriptwriters might as well have handed them the rest.

I gaze upon your works, and scoff with triple-to-quintuple "HA!"s;

Lay down trash-talk as heinous as your little Rude-Removal was,

So like the man behind your wack doujinshi tales, prepare to Bleed,

But you can spare Einstein your moping: failure here was guaranteed!

 

I've heard your I.Q.'s off the charts, but have they checked your mental state;

Addressing people who aren't present? I mean, I, for one, relate,

But if this bout being with a Cartoon Network kid was your impression,

You're on some kind of narcotic, and so hear out my confession:

Dexter Morgan:

Your inventiveness-effectiveness extends not to perceptiveness;

The evidence: you entered this and went expecting tepidness,

Instead of which, you'll fend against this vigilante nemesis!

The title, to be fair, was vague; dare I say: ambiDexterous.

You'll find no monkey business with this scourge on vile men,

For my forte's an altogether other cause to Dial M.

Consider this a warning, Jimbo: you should go into this knowing

That the Nick logo will be far from the only splatter showing.

Think you'll know no harsher hazards than your baddest clone's dimension?

My world holds still-darker matters; enter at your own discretion.

For those I delete, retrieval simply isn't in the question,

Though the errors that earn my ire exceed just any imperfection.

Get back where you need to be, like timeline-truant Thomas Edison,

Before I slap you silly as your student body president;

Your metal mutt should know: my measured methods of malevolence

Are honed to extreme altitudes of evil-ending excellence.

 

Jimmy Neutron:

Though I've perhaps miscalculated, my mistake's no stumping one;

Don't give me flak for targeting the wrong guy here and jumping guns:

Because you'd know well all about that from your model-killer case,

Plus from the shot Deb should have fired off, full-throttle, in your face!

You hid in plain sight from the Double-M.P.D.; evaded crews of men?

Get Dave Caruso on the force, and see if they'll get fooled again.

I'd spell out why it isn't right to kill another man,

But clearly, there's no point explaining: psychos just don't understand!

 

Dexter Morgan:

Shitloads of sheeting set the stages for my killings' consummations,

But I've never seen plasticity quite like your animation's!

You're a sitting duck out here, and though your dad could lend protection,

Other such birds have been deemed as worthier of his attention!

A dark passenger's stowed up in your amusement park armada,

As fixated on rein-taking as your best friend on his llamas,

Not to mention on your mama! I'm this track's true driving force:

A bloody boss at cruelly cutting creeps and stacking slides in scores!

You're packing filler raps, bereft of charge; guess that explains the name,

But this verse won't be butchered by the baddies of Bay Harbor's bane.

Their lot fought not; got caught with shots of knockout medicine to necks,

But when it comes to battles' beats, adrenaline's what I inject!

 

Jimmy Neutron:

The comic you inspired got you fantasizing hero-scenes,

But here's a verse you couldn't defend from if you tried in your own dreams:

Prepare to eat your scary words; I'm not intimidated, mister!

They'll prove bitterer to swallow than "I will not kill my sister",

While as far as pulling plugs go, you've my personal assurance

That once you're in the electric chair, there'll be no such occurrence:

Currents surging while you curse my name; a showing truly shocking,

With the only sponge involved among my Nicktoon homies, watching!

 

Dexter Morgan:

I'm not buying your salesbots, Wrong Trousers and space-transmission toasters;

Watch me dice and ice them all, though I'm the way less vicious Moser,

Who'll command genuine genius in the name of Harry; knock a poser!

Yours falls flat as your own graphics in a Fairly Odd crossover,

Where your wish of winning this would still elude attaining!

Claiming my Doomsday is nigh? You're blatantly hallucinating:

While my psyche holds a presence people see as quite demonic,

Yours is on some other planet even Sheen would find moronic!

 

Jimmy Neutron:

If you're in the logging business now, then note this in your records:

Jimmy's jabs could fill a novel; Diligently Dissing Dexter.

Your delivery's off-key enough to turn a Twonkie peaceful;

Straying as far from proper rhythm as Showtime from Lindsay's sequels!

Your disastrous endgame saw you abscond off on your boat;

Calamitous could finish up a series on a stronger note,

As when the viewing public's tears gave way to smiles one week later,

And I'll break you even worse still, leaving half your face a crater!

 

Dexter Morgan:

What a fitting reference, seeing as it's apparent you're on meth;

Your love interest's a C.G. Helga, sans developmental depth!

Like when the P.T.C. got pissed and pushed for prudish editing,

I'll set more triggers off with this than your Bond bootleg's wedding ring:

You think your disses deeply-cutting? I don't feel the slightest twinging;

Mine will shatter all you know in spite of Hugh's space-opera-binging,

For at flesh and flows alike, I peak-perform precise stab takings,

As perfected in the practice as the "candy" your lab's baking.

 

Jimmy Neutron:

My sick spitting's like the written form of pi: it's endless, man;

The worst besmirching of your image since your real-life biggest fan!

I'll leave you Six Feet Under; torn asunder, making fatal wounds,

And spilling sodium chloride into them by the tablespoon!

You've run on more than long enough; it's high time science cut you down,

And as with barrels of sea monkeys, there'll be silence once you drown!

A crackpot code can curb compulsions, but the truth is that you ought to

Follow daddy's lead from when he saw the fruits of what he'd taught you.

 

Dexter Morgan:

On suspicion he's a huffer of perfumed megalomania,

My mission's making this brat suffer; cue Megalovania.

I'll show you how a truly bad time looks seen way up-close:

So zoomed-in as to render routines that start every day off gross!

It hardly takes brain surgery to pick apart just what your mind holds,

Blinded to the fact your "science" is inclined to backfire fivefold,

While my tried, true tactics show my skill within the spilling-blood trade,

Taking out the competition like McSpanky's with your upgrades,

And you'll thank me one day soon, when, notwithstanding your shenanigans,

Your town's left slightly safer, with its kids' preferred establishment

Under new management, although the time for that comes later,

So for now, doc, stick to fear and keep your calmness at a nadir.

 

Jimmy Neutron:

For my future-forays' flaming, you're in no position here

When the best thing you ever did for those you love was disappear!

While my screenwriting venture was a total bust, to state the obvious,

That you won't see this battle's Final Cut is my hypothesis:

I'll not let yours be put to practice; fuck you up preemptively,

The way you wish you'd done in that sick schmuck who struck in sets of three!

Just ask my other foes about the cost of crossing me, Dex,

Once I blast you all the way back to the era of the T. rex!

This foul ogre won't upstage me: it's no first-time animation Oscar!

Think I can't be mercilessly spiteful? See "Hall Monster".

Watch me scorch him like the scapegoat of his worst crimes by his crazy sponsor;

Shrink-ray-zap the worth of iffy Michael C. Hall monsters.

 

Dexter Morgan:

This last round's the round it happens, and I'll not say this again:

This rocket-boy'd best run away, avoiding witnessing a slaughter.

Stay and watch, and I'll take up your wack remote, play it again,

And keep until my point's acknowledged, and yours left dead in the water

With the local piece of human garbage I'll likewise be taking out;

A freakish, putrid arse of which you'll recognize the face, no doubt!

Jimmy Neutron: Who in my life could be deemed to deserve such dreadful killing?!

Dexter Morgan: It turns out the candy man can, 'cause he murdered several children,

So don't make me say this thrice, fat fuck: come to and face the music!

Sam: Ugh… I'm pressing charges; yeah!

Dexter Morgan: Forget a courtroom case; just sue this! (*STAB!*)

Jimmy Neutron: I'm gonna puke…

Dexter Morgan: Its usage leaves you traumatized, my knife,

But that's just one more normal day for me; another Slice of Life!

Sci-fi defines yours, with spoofs on The Fly, like hamster body-swaps,

So take an icon's word on why this fight's unwise: ask Robocop!

You're messing with aggression darker than your cheesiest of horror stories;

Simply put: you've gotta blast off out of my laboratory.

 

WHO WON?

 

WHO'S NEXT?

 

I DECIDE!

 

MOLEMAN'S…

 

James Doakes: April Fools', motherfucker!

 

…EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!

French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 55. Photo: C.C.F.C. (Compagnie Commerciale Française Cinématographique). Publicity still for Bagarres/Wench (Henri Calef, 1948).

 

French actor Roger Pigaut (1919–1989) appeared in 40 films between 1943 and 1978. He also worked as a film director and scriptwriter.

 

Roger Pigaut was born Roger Paul Louis Pigot in Vincennes, France, in 1919. In 1938, Pigaut attended the theatre courses of Raymond Rouleau and the following year he was admitted to the Conservatoire. But because of the war, he left to the South of France. From 1943, he played in more than forty films. One of his first films was the romantic drama Douce/Love Story (Claude Autant-Lara, 1943) with Odette Joyeux. He co-starred with Madeleine Robinson in the crime drama Sortilèges/The Bellman (Christian-Jaque, 1945). D.B. Dumontiel at IMDb: “Robinson and Pigaut had already teamed up in Claude Autant-Lara's classic Douce and the scenes where they are together (particularly the ball) take the film out on a level of stratospheric intensity that simply rises above the rest.” Pigaut’s most prominent roles were as Antoine in the comedy Antoine et Antoinette (Jacques Becker, 1947) with Claire Mafféi as Antoinette, and as Pierre Bouquinquant in Les frères Bouquinquant/The brothers Bouquinquant (Louis Daquin, 1948). D.B. Dumontiel agaqin: “Antoine and Antoinette retains its pristine charm. It's very well acted, and Becker's camera is fluid, his sympathy for his characters is glaring. Qualities which will emerge again in such works as Rendez-vous de Juillet and his towering achievement Casque D'Or.” Pigaut then portrayed the eighteenth century adventurer Louis Dominique Bourguignon known as Cartouche in the historical film Cartouche, roi de Paris/Cartouche (Guillaume Radot, 1950).

 

In Italy, Roger Pigaut played a supporting part in the Italian Peplum Teodora, imperatrice di Bisanzio/Theodora, Slave Empress (Riccardo Freda, 1954) about Theodora (Gianna Maria Canale), a former slave who married Justinian I, emperor of Byzantium in AD 527–565. He also appeared as Le Marquis d'Escrainville in two parts of the popular Angélique series featuring Michèle Mercier, Indomptable Angélique/Untamable Angelique (Bernard Borderie, 1967) and Angélique et le sultan/Angelique and the Sultan (Bernard Borderie, 1968). Other historical films in which Pigaut appeared were the Italian-French J'ai tué Raspoutine/I Killed Rasputin (Robert Hossein, 1967) with Gert Fröbe as Grigori Rasputin, and the romantic tragedy Mayerling (Terence Young, 1968) starring Omar Sharif as Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and Catherine Deneuve as his mistress Baroness Maria Vetsera. His last film was Une Histoire simple/A Simple Story (Claude Sautet, 1978), starring Romy Schneider, which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Roger Pigaut also directed six films, and played in the theatre. For five years, he was the companion of actress Betsy Blair from the late-1950s to the early-1960s (in between her marriages to Gene Kelly and Karel Reisz). Together with Serge Reggiani, they founded the production company Garance Films, with which they produced such films as Cerf-volant du bout du monde/The Magic of the Kite (Roger Pigaut, 1958) and the caper Trois milliards sans ascenseur/3000 Million Without an Elevator (Roger Pigaut, 1972) with Reggiani, and Dany Carrel. Later he was married to French actress Joëlle Bernard. Roger Pigaut passed away in 1989 in Paris. He was 70.

 

Sources: D.B. Dumonteil (IMDb), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.

Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia.[1] The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief.

 

A prominent biennial event in British popular culture, Comic Relief is one of the two high-profile telethon events held in the United Kingdom, the other being Children in Need, held annually in November.

Spanish postcard. Photo: Evans, Los Angeles.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

British postcard by Cinema Chat. Photo: Paramount.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again, working for e.g. Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

Dutch collectors card by Monty, no. 72, 1970. Photo: Gerard Soeteman. Rutger Hauer in the TV series Floris (Paul Verhoeven, 1969).

 

The Dutch TV series Floris (1969) was the start of the successful careers of director Paul Verhoeven, scriptwriter Gerard Soeteman and of course actor Rutger Hauer. Hauer played the exiled knight Floris. With his Indian friend Sindala (Jos Bergman), he tries to get his birth right papers back from Maarten van Rossem (Hans Culeman), an evil lord. During their quest they get help from Wolter van Oldenstein (Ton Vos), a noble man who offers them a place in his castle. They also meet the pirate Lange Pier (Hans Boskamp).

 

Source: IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch collectors card by Monty, no. 36, 1970. Photo: Gerard Soeteman. Bert Dijkstra in the TV series Floris (Paul Verhoeven, 1969).

 

The Dutch TV series Floris (1969) was the start of the successful careers of director Paul Verhoeven, scriptwriter Gerard Soeteman and of course actor Rutger Hauer. Hauer played the exiled knight Floris. With his Indian friend Sindala (Jos Bergman), he tries to get his birth right papers back from Maarten van Rossem (Hans Culeman), an evil lord. During their quest they get help from Wolter van Oldenstein (Ton Vos), a noble man who offers them a place in his castle. They also meet the pirate Lange Pier (Hans Boskamp).

 

Source: IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Barilla, Italian food products maker, held a four-day campaign called Meal for a Meal in New York City. Of course we didn't know anything about it, but we just found the group of people, and asked someone about this situation. Yeah, we got a pasta dinner kit which includes a box of Barilla pasta, sauce, and salad green!!

 

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nycitymama.com

 

Dutch postcard. Photo: Loet C. Barnstijn Film. Johan Kaart in Malle gevallen/Silly Situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934).

 

Johan Kaart and Louis de Bree starred in the Dutch romantic comedy Malle gevallen/Silly situations (Jaap Speyer, 1934), produced by the Dutch mogul Loet C. Barnstijn.

 

Malle gevallen/Silly situations (1934) was one of the dozens of Dutch sound films, made after the success of the musical De Jantjes/The Tars (Jaap Speyer, 1933). The producer of De Jantjes, film distributor and former cinema operator Loet C. Barnstijn, engaged director Jaap Speyer, who had worked for years in the silent film industry in Berlin and who had directed De Jantjes. In 1929, Barnstijn had Philips develop the ‘Loetafoon’, his own projection system for sound films. In the few years that followed, he imported sound-film cameras, and was the first person in the Netherlands to produce a short sound film. Malle gevallen is a romantic comedy written by Hans Martin and Simon Koster based on Martin's 1913 novel. The plot is about three students (Roland Varno, Louis Borel and Johan Kaart Jr.) who are in love with three girls (Enny Meunier, Annie van Duyn and Jopie Koopman). At the time, Roland Varno (1908-1996) was already known for his role as one of the gymnasiasts in Josef von Sternberg's Der blaue Engel/The Blue Angel (1930). He later worked in Hollywood as a character actor, mainly in B-pictures. Louis Borel (1905-1973) appeared in films in the Netherlands, in Great Britain and in Hollywood. He also adapted, translated, directed and starred in many stage plays. At the end of his career he became a popular TV star. Johan Kaart Jr. (1897-1976) starred in seven Dutch films between 1934 and 1937. After the war he played in several other Dutch films. He also worked often for radio and TV, but his main stage was the theatre.

 

Malle gevallen/Silly situations (1934) was intended as a light romantic comedy, but it was made into a musical with songs by orchestra leader Max Tak. Although scriptwriters Martin and Koster wanted to make something sophisticated, the final result was a farce. The famous film critic L.J. Jordaan complained about the "coarseness and bad taste" in the film. Nevertheless, the film was a commercial success. The film was regularly shown in the Dutch cinemas until it was banned in 1942 by the Nazis. Why the Nazis forbade the film is still unknown. In 1935, Loet C. Barnstijn released De familie van mijn vrouw/The family of my wife (Jaap Speyer, 1935) with Sylvain Poons. That same year he bought the Oosterbeek Estate near Wassenaar and built two film studios. He called this Filmstad (Film City). It consisted of an office, a storage film, a recording studio and a technical workshop. This studio produced the successful film Merijntje Gijzen's jeugd/Merijntje Gijzen's youth, based on the novels by A.M. de Jong. When World War II broke out, Barnstijn stayed in the United States because of his Jewish background. The film studios of Oosterbeek were confiscated by the German film company Ufa and were later destroyed during an air raid. Barnstijn died in the USA in 1953. In 2007, the Dutch Filmmuseum presented a DVD of Malle gevallen.

 

Sources: Eye (Dutch), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Italian postcard.

 

Eleuterio Rodolfi (1876-1933) was an Italian actor, director, and scriptwriter, who was highly active in Italian silent cinema. For Ambrosio, Rodolfi acted in some 95 films of which some 80 were directed and scripted by himself. Many of these were comedies interpreted by Rodolfi together with actress Gigetta Morano, with the two acting and becoming known as ‘Gigetta’ and ‘Rodolfi’. In contrast to the previous anarchist farces by Cretinetti and others focused on speed and havoc, entitled as ‘comiche’ in Italian, the comedies with Gigetta and Rodolfi were true ‘commedie’, so more situational, boulevardier, less speedy, and often hinting at forbidden fruits and voyeurism.

 

Eleuterio Rodolfi aka Rodolfo Rodolfi was born in Bologna on 28 January 1876. He was the son of Giuseppe Rodolfi (1827-1885), a famous stage actor in the 19th century. He debuted on stage as "generico giovane" (generic young actor) with the company of Francesco Garzes. He then moved to other important theatre companies, such as the one of Ermete Novelli. There he met Adele Mosso, who worked as "seconda donna" (second woman) in the company. They married in 1895. In 1911 he moved over to the cinema and was hired by the Ambrosio film company of Turin, where he became both actor and director. For Ambrosio, Rodolfi acted in some 95 films of which some 80 were directed and scripted by himself. Many of these were comedies interpreted by Rodolfi together with actress Gigetta Morano, with the two acting and becoming known as ‘Gigetta’ and ‘Rodolfi’. In contrast to the previous anarchist farces by Cretinetti and others focused on speed and havoc, entitled as ‘comiche’ in Italian, the comedies with Gigetta and Rodolfi were true ‘commedie’, so more situational, boulevardier, less speedy, and often hinting at forbidden fruits and voyeurism. In the risqué comedy Acqua miracolosa (1914) Gigetta’s husband deplores that in their flat he hears children everywhere (the set is built up like a doll’s house) but he cannot get any. The family doctor (Rodolfi) has a secret affair with Gigetta. He advises the wife to go the wondrous wells – where she meets no other than the doctor. In the end, everybody is happy: the husband has become the father of twins, and the wife lifts a glass in which see a little doctor. Often in their comedies Morano and Rodolfi played together with a third actor, the portly little bourgeois Camillo De Riso, who frequently played Morano’s father, as in Un successo diplomatico (1913) and L’oca alla Colbert (1913).

 

Rodolfi also acted in and directed historical films, such as Ambrosio's super-production Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1913), based on Bulwer-Lytton’s famous novel and a worldwide success. The film starred Fernanda Negri Pouget as the blind girl Nydia, Ubaldo Stefani as Glaucus and Antonio Crisanti as Arbaces. NB despite what IMDB tells, Mario Caserini had nothing to do with the film. The Turinese company Pasquali made a competing version at the same time, so competition was fierce. Moreover, in recent times the Ambrosio version is often confused with the later silent version of 1926, directed by Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi, and starring Victor Varconi, Maria Corda, and Bernhard Goetzke, as Glaucus, Nydia and Arbaces. Among his films in the mid-1910s for Ambrosio were a few with the Polish actress turned Italian diva Elena/ Helena Makowska, such as Val d'Olivi (1916), Eva nemica (1916), and the D’Annunzio adaptations La Gioconda (1916) and La fiaccola sotto il moggio (1916).

 

In 1916 Rodolfi also started at Jupiter Film, where he shot some seven dramas – of which just one survives: Ah! Le donne! (1916), with Rodolfi. Armand Pouget and Mercedes Brignone. In 1917 he founded his own film company Rodolfi Film, with which he made films like the Shakespeare adaptation Amleto (1917), starring Ruggero Ruggeri, ‘monstre sacré’ of the Italian Belle Epoque, and also with Makowska as Ofelia, Pouget as the King, and Brignone as the Queen. In the early 1920s Rodolfi did various films with Mercedes Brignone, Lola Visconti Brignone, and Pouget. Rodolfi’s company ceased activity around 1922, after which he did one last production for the Fert Pittaluga company: Maciste e il nipote d’America, a film in a completely different genre, and starring Bartolomeo Pagano and Diomira Jacobini, plus Pauline Polaire, Alberto Collo, Oreste Bilancia, and Mercedes Brignone. After that he withdrew from the set he returned to the stage. In the late 1920s he withdrew from the stage as well. The last years of his life Rodolfi spent in the city of Brescia, where on 19 December 1933 he committed suicide and died.

 

Sources: Italian Wikipedia; IMDB; Aldo Bernardini/Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano; Mariann Lewinsky/Chiara Caranti, ‘Rodolfi e Gigetta: coppia in commedia’, www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemaritrovato2009/ev/sezioni/r....

Spanish collector's card. Escenas selectas de cinematografía. Chocolates Guillèn, Barcelona, Series A, No. 8. Charles Ray and Viola Dana (?) in Mirando la luna, unknown which film this is. It was shown in Madrid, Spain in November-December 1925.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again. He worked for Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.

Vintage Austrian postcard. Iris Verlag 5445. Defina. DEFU. Verleih Philipp & Co.

 

Wilhelm Dieterle aka William Dieterle was a German actor and director who started out in Weimar cinema, before becoming a well-known Hollywood director.

 

Wilhelm Dieterle (later on: William Dieterle) (1893-1972), born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein and of humble descendant, took acting lessons at a young age, and began his career as a stage actor in 1911 at the theatre in Arnsberg, which also included work as extra, singer, dancer and stagehand; hence his white gloves, which he continued to wear in Hollywood. In 1912-1914 he worked at theatres in Heilbronn, Plauen and Bad Dürkheim, in 1914-1917 in Mainz (under the direction of future film director Ludwig Berger). In 1917-1918 he played in Zürich, in 1918-1919 in Berlin and 1919-1920 in Munich. His breakthrough he had in 1920-1923 with Max Reinhardt’s Deutschen Theater in Berlin. In this era he mainly worked there, next to sidesteps with the companies of Leopold Jessner, Viktor Barnowsky and Karlheinz Martin. In 1924 Dieterle had his own theatre company, but it was short-lived.

 

After an incidental film performance in the Schiller adaptation Fiesko (Phil Jutzi 1913), Dieterle’s acting became numerous from 1919 on, all through the 1920s. Dieterle appeared in major films of the Weimar era. He was Henny Porten’s ill-fated fiancé and Fritz Kortner’s rival in love in Leopold Jessner’s classic Kammerspiel Hintertreppe/ Backstairs (1921). Actually, in those years Dieterle was often paired with Porten, before Hintertreppe in Die Geier-Wally (E.A. Dupont 1921), and afterwards in Frauenopfer (Karl Grune 1921). Dieterle also was the poet, and the Persian baker and Russian prince in the Harun al Raschid and Iwan the Terrible sequences, in Paul Leni’s Wachsfigurenkabinett/ Waxworks (1923/1924). He was Henny Porten’s young husband in the internationally popular Mutter und Kind (Carl Froehlich 1924). And he was Gretchen’s brother Valentin in F.W. Murnau’s Faust (1926), killed by Mephisto.

 

From 1923 on, Dieterle directed his first films, in which he always had the lead; starting with the Heimat-film Der Mensch am Wege (1923), in which Marlene Dietrich had one of her first roles. The major example of his own output was Geschlecht in Fesseln/ Sex in Chains (1928), one of the films produced by his own company Charha (1927), which he ran with his wife, scriptwriter and actress Charlotte Hagenbruch. A man (Dieterle) accidentally kills another who tried to harass his wife (Mary Johnson) and ends in jail, where he is seduced by an inmate, while his wife gives in to another man as well. After his liberation, the couple feel guilt and commit suicide. In particular between 1928 and 1930, Dieterle directed many films for his own company, in which he starred and for which his wife signed the script, such as the melodrama Die Heilige und ihr Narr (1928), with Lien Deyers and Gina Manès, and the mountain film Das Schweigen im Walde (1929).

 

Dieterle’s work in Germany was internationally so successful, that he was offered a contract by Warner Bros. in 1930 to make German versions of American sounds films for the German department of Warner’s subsidiary First National, Deutsche First National Pictures GmbH (Defina). An example is Die heilige Flamme (1930/31), co-directed with Berthold Viertel and starring Salka Viertel. In the States Dieterle stopped acting and focused on directing. As Dieterle was Jewish, he was lucky to get away from the slowly worsening situation in Germany; three years Hitler would take over and ban all Jews from the film industry. In the US, Dieterle quickly adapted and was permitted to start directing hs own films. With Michael Curtiz, Dieterle soon became the regular Warner film director, working in every possible genre, such as comedies with Kay Francis and the melodrama The Crash with Ruth Chatterton. Together with Max Reinhardt, with whom Dieterle had played in Germany, he adapted Midsummer Night’s Dream for cinema, but the result failed to convince the critics. In the early 1930s Dieterle was highly productive with Warner, turning out 6 films per year in 1933 and 1934. He probably had to: in 1933 he had received a seven-year contract from Warner. From the mid-1930s on Dieterle became well-known for his bio-pics. The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) won him an Oscar nomination while The Life of Emile Zola (1937) got him the Oscar; in both films Paul Muni played the lead. Other memorable titles were the Mark Twain adaptation The Prince and the Pauper (1937) with Errol Flynn, Juarez (1939) with Bette Davis as the empress Carlotta, and The Hunchback of the Notre Dame (1939) with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. In 1937 Warner offered Dieterle, by now an American citizen, the opportunity to study Russian production methods during four months at Lenfilm in Moscow. In 1938-1940 he taught theatre lessons at the Max Reinhardt Workshop of Stage, Screen and Radio, and in 1939 he co-founded the antifascist cultural magazine The Hollywood Tribune and the English spoken exile theatre company The Continental Players, directed by Jessner.

 

After his contract with Warner expired, Dieterle broke with them and tried his own film company at RKO. When that failed, he mainly made films with MGM, Selznick and Paramount. During the 1940s, Dieterle focused on romantic, lush melodramas such as the Technicolor exotic tale Kismet (1944) with Ronald Colman and Marlene Dietrich, and Love Letters (1945) and Portrait of Jennie (1948), both with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones. Love Letters became an enormous success and earned Jones an Oscar. In the 1950s, Dieterle’s career declined because of McCarthyism. In 1950 he went to Italy to shoot Vulcano, the rival to Rossellini’s Stromboli. When Anna Magnani knew that her former lover planned to make a film with his new girlfriend Ingrid Bergman on an Italian island near Sicily, Magnani pushed a Sicilian producer to make a rivalling film which had to come out before Rossellini’s. The affair was known as ‘la guerra dei vulcani’, also referring to Magnani’s tempestuous character. Around the same time, Dieterle also shot in Italy the highly romantic September Affair (1950), with Joseph Cotten and Joan Fontaine, about a married man and a woman who start an affair in Naples and Capri. After they decide to split, they are believed to have been killed in a plane crash and start a second life, but responsibility calls.

 

Returned to Hollywood, Dieterle made crime films like Dark City (1950) with Charlton Heston, Boots Malone (1952) and The Turning Point (1952), both with William Holden. but also epic melodramas such as Salome (1953), starring Rita Hayworth and partly shot in Jerusalem, and Omar Khayyam (1956), starring Cornel Wilde and shot in the Bronson Canyon. In 1958 Dieterle returned to Germany and worked till his death as stage director for various companies in Germany, Switzerland and Austria; he also worked for German (Sender Freies Berlin) and Austrian television and (co-) directed two features: a remake of Joe May’s classic Herrin der Welt (1959/60) and Die Fastnachtsbeichte (1960). From 1961 to 1965, he was manager of the theatre at Bad Hersfeld. After his failed attempt to make a comeback in Hollywood with The Confession (1964), Dieterle’s last film direction, he remained in Germany, working at the stage. Wilhelm Dieterle died in 1972 and was buried in Munich.

 

From 1921 on, Dieterle was married to Charlotte Hagenbruch; after she died in 1968, his second wife was Elisabeth Daum.

 

Sources: Wikipedia (En/Du), filmportal.de, Cinegraph, IMDB

 

French postcard by Viny, no. 92. Photo: Milo Films. Collection: Didier Hanson.

 

Was Austrian-born Erich von Stroheim (1885 – 1957) a Hollywood movie star or a European film star? (Who cares!) As the sadistic, monocled Prussian officer in both American and French films, he became ‘The Man You Love to Hate’. But maybe he is best known as one of the greatest and influential directors of the silent era, known for his extravaganza and the uncompromising accuracy of detail in his monumental films.

 

Erich von Stroheim's most recent biographers, such as Richard Koszarski, say that he was born in Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1885 as Erich Oswald Stroheim. He was the son of Benno Stroheim, a middle-class hat-maker, and Johanna Bondy, both of whom were practicing Jews. Stroheim emigrated to America at the end of 1909. On arrival at Ellis Island, he claimed to be Count Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim und Nordenwall, the son of Austrian nobility like the characters he later played in his films. However, both Billy Wilder and Stroheim's agent Paul Kohner claimed that he spoke with a decidedly lower-class Austrian accent. In 1912 while working at a tavern he met his first wife, Margaret Knox, and moved in with her. Knox acted as a sort of mentor to von Stroheim, teaching him language and literature and encouraging him to write. Under Knox's tutelage, he wrote a novella entitled In the Morning, with themes that anticipated his films: corrupt aristocracy and innocence debased. The couple married in 1913, but money woes drove von Stroheim to deep depressions and terrible temper tantrums, and in 1914 Knox filed for divorce. By then he was working in Hollywood. He began his cinema career in bit-parts and as a consultant on German culture and fashion. His first film was The Country Boy (1915, Frederick A. Thomson) in which he was an uncredited diner in a restaurant. His first credited role came in Old Heidelberg (1915, John Emerson) starring Wallace Reed and Dorothy Gish. He began working with D. W. Griffith, taking uncredited roles in Intolerance (1916). Additionally, Von Stroheim acted as one of the many assistant directors on Intolerance, a film remembered in part for its huge cast of extras. Later, he played the sneering German with the short Prussian military hairstyle in such films as Sylvia of the Secret Service (1917, George Fitzmaurice) and The Hun Within (1918, Chester Whitey) with Dorothy Gish. In the war drama The Heart of Humanity (1918, Allen Holubar), he tore the buttons from a nurse's uniform with his teeth, and when disturbed by a crying baby, threw it out of a window. Following the end of World War I, Von Stroheim turned to writing.

 

In 1919, Erich von Stroheim directed his own script for Blind Husbands (1919), and also starred in the film. As a director, Stroheim was known to be dictatorial and demanding, often antagonizing his actors. He is considered one of the greatest directors of the silent era, with both cynical and romantic views of human nature. His next directorial efforts were the lost film The Devil's Pass Key (1919) and Foolish Wives (1922), in which he also starred. Studio publicity for Foolish Wives claimed that it was the first film to cost one million dollars. ‘Von’ translated sexual subjects in a witty and ostentatious manner, and his first films for Universal are among the most acclaimed sophisticated films of the silent era. In 1923, Stroheim began work on Merry-Go-Round. He cast the American actor Norman Kerry in a part written for himself 'Count Franz Maximilian Von Hohenegg' and newcomer Mary Philbin in the lead actress role. However, studio executive Irving Thalberg fired Von Stroheim during filming and replaced him with director Rupert Julian. He left Universal for Goldwyn Films to make Greed (1924). This monumental film is now one of Stroheim's best-remembered works as a director. It is a detailed film of Frank Norris’ novel McTeague, about the power of money to corrupt. The original print ran for an astonishing 10 hours. Knowing this version was far too long, Stroheim cut out almost half the footage, reducing it to a six-hour version to be shown over two nights. It was still deemed too long, so Stroheim and director Rex Ingram edited it into a four-hour version that could be shown in two parts. However, in the midst of filming, Goldwyn was bought by Marcus Loew and merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After rejecting Stroheim's attempts to cut it to less than three hours, MGM removed Greed from his control and gave it to head scriptwriter June Mathis, with orders to cut it down to a manageable length. Mathis gave the print to a routine cutter, who reduced it to 2.5 hours. In what is considered one of the greatest losses in cinema history, a janitor destroyed the cut footage. The shortened release version was a box-office failure and was angrily disowned by Von Stroheim. He followed with his most commercially successful film The Merry Widow (1925), the more personal The Wedding March (1928) and the now-lost The Honeymoon. Stroheim's unwillingness or inability to modify his artistic principles for the commercial cinema, his extreme attention to detail, his insistence on near-total artistic freedom, and the resulting costs of his films led to fights with the studios. As time went on he received fewer directing opportunities. In 1929, Stroheim was dismissed as the director of the film Queen Kelly after disagreements with star Gloria Swanson and producer and financier Joseph P. Kennedy over the mounting costs of the film and Stroheim's introduction of indecent subject matter into the film's scenario. It was followed by Walking Down Broadway, another project from which Stroheim was dismissed.

 

After the introduction of sound film, Erich von Stroheim returned to working principally as an actor, in both American and French films. One of his most famous roles is the prison-camp commandant Von Rauffenstein in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion/Grand Illusion (1937) with Jean Gabin. It is a classic anti-war film about friendship, comradeship, and human relations. Working in France on the eve of World War II, Stroheim was prepared to direct the film La dame blanche from his own story and screenplay. Jean Renoir wrote the dialogue, Jacques Becker was to be assistant director, and Stroheim himself, Louis Jouvet, and Jean-Louis Barrault were to be the featured actors. The production was prevented by the outbreak of the war on 1 September 1939, and Stroheim returned to the United States. There he appeared in Five Graves to Cairo (1943, Billy Wilder). He is perhaps best known as an actor for his role as Max von Mayerling in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950, Billy Wilder), co-starring Gloria Swanson. For this role, Von Stroheim was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His character states in the film that he used to be one of the three great directors of the silent era, along with D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, and he and Swanson watch excerpts from Queen Kelly in the film. Their characters in Sunset Boulevard thus had an autobiographical basis and reflected the humiliations Von Stroheim suffered through his career. Erich von Stroheim was married three times. His second wife was Mae Jones. Their son Erich Jr. became an assistant director. With his third wife, actress Valerie Germonprez, he had another son, Joseph Erich von Stroheim, who eventually became a sound editor. From 1939 until his death, he lived with actress Denise Vernac. She had worked for him as his secretary since 1938 and starred with him in several films. Von Stroheim spent the last part of his life in France where his silent film work was much admired by artists in the French film industry. In France, he acted in films, wrote several novels that were published in French, and worked on various unrealized film projects. Erich von Stroheim was awarded the French Légion d'honneur shortly before his death in 1957 in Maurepas, France at the age of 71.

 

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

《A GAMBLING WORLD 大世界娛樂場》script book / step out 足跡 / book design / May 2013

 

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MOP$68／NTD240

 

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DATA：24 ~ 26/5 (8pm), 26/5 (3pm)

LOCATION：Court Building

 

Producer: Winter Chiang

Production Manager: Lou Chong Neng

Playwright and Director: Koh Choon Eiow (Malaysia)

Co-Playwright: Mok Sio Chong

Lighting Designer: Lau Ming Hang (Hong Kong)

Set Designer: Wu Hsiu Ho (Taiwan)

Music Designer: Kandala Records (Taiwan)

Costume Designers and Stylists: Lou Chong Neng and Mok Kuan Chong

Performers: Cheng Yin Chen (Taiwan), Lam Wai Tong, Ip Ka Man, Mok Sio Chong, Wang Chao Yang (Taiwan), Lao Nga Man, Mok Kuan Chong and Cheong Peng Hou

 

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Established in 2001, Step Out cannot be narrowly defined as either a theatrical or a dance company. Their multidisciplinary works are characterised by the skilful use of poetic and aesthetic dramatic language to compose contemporary fables about the urban city.

 

The talented Malaysian playwright and director Koh Choon Eiow and a group of experienced Macao scriptwriters, directors and actors are joined by strong teams from Taiwan and Hong Kong to create A Gambling World, a new experience in Chinese theatre, presenting audiences with a provocative show about money, desire and dreams in the “Las Vegas of the East”.

 

「問題不在輸錢，而在贏錢。我們在贏錢中一點一滴地輸掉。」 一場有關下注與被下注的遊戲， 一場有關慾望驅使的不等價交換， 一場有關城市擴張的蔓延與移居生活的變動， 一場有關夢想競逐的跨世紀大寓言。 此一時，彼一時， 從大大小小的博彩娛樂場， 我們逐步窺視及逼近 「大世界娛樂場」這一座巨大的當代城市隱喻。 「就讓我們盡地一鋪，娛樂眾生。」

 

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somethingmoon.com/post/51610710197/agamblingworld

www.icm.gov.mo/fam/24/en/events/detail.aspx?id=4445

German card by Ross Verlag, no. 3225/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Defu (Deutsche Film-Union).

 

French actress Gina Manès (1893 - 1989) starred in some 90 films between 1916 and 1966. She is best known for Coeur fidèle (Jean Epstein 1923) and Thérèse Raquin (Jacques Feyder 1928) .

 

Gina Manès, originally Blanche Moulin, was born in Paris in 1893 as the daughter of a furniture salesman. After small roles at the Théâtre du Palais Royal and other theatres, and dancer in the revues by Rip, she was discovered by actor René Navarre, who considered her photogenic and introduced her to director Louis Feuillade. Changing her name to Gina Manès, she debuted in film in Les Six Petits Coeurs des Six Petites Filles (Edouard-Emile Viollet, 1916). After further years on the stage, her real filmic career started with L’Homme sans visage (1919) by Feuillade. She became a well-known film actress thanks to her role as the innkeeper’s daughter in L’Auberge Rouge (1923) by Jean Epstein, who subsequently gave her the lead in his Coeur fidèle (1923). In this film Manès is a woman married to a drunken brute from whom she does not dare to separate, although she dreams of running off with a sympathetic dockworker.

 

Next Manès played in films by a.o. Germaine Dulac (Ame d’artiste, 1924) and Alberto Cavalcanti (Le train sans yeux, 1926). Because of her troubling beauty, her heavy and poisonous look and her feline walk, she soon became type-casted as seductress and femme fatale. Her nicknames became The Vamp with the Emerald Eyes, and The Athena with the Green Look. In 1927 Abel Gance casted her as Joséphine de Beauharnais in his epic production Napoléon. Gance asked her to do a screen-test in the studio dressed only in a nightgown and jewels, Directoire styled. ‘I had to hum a cheerful song, then a complaining song, after which he decided that I was the perfect character for the role, as I had the historic Creole mood.’ In the following year Jacques Feyder directed Manès in what is considered her best role, the title character in Thérèse Raquin (1928), after the novel by Zola. The film was a Franco-German production, involving German scriptwriters, a German production manager, art direction by a Russian and a German, cinematography by a Dane and a German, and both French and German actors (including Hans Adalbert Schlettow and La Jana). The story deals with a truck driver (Schlettow)who kills the husband of a woman (Manès) he loves, but a blackmailer threatens to reveal the murder. Unfortunately no copy of the film remains. NB After the Second World War another memorable adaptation of Zola’s novel would be made with Simone Signoret in the lead (dir. Marcel Carné 1953).

 

In the late 1920s, foreign studios called, so Manès acted in Germany and Sweden in Die Heilige und ihr Narr (1928) by William Dieterle, Looping the loop (1928) by Arthur Robison and Rauch (1928) and Synd (1928), both by Gustav Molander. Manès married her partner in Naples au baiser du feu (Serge Dadejdine 1925) and Le trains sans yeux, Georges Charlia, and was often coupled with him in films. The arrival of sound cinema did not change her status and she continued to be a star; she had a big commercial success in 1931 as – again – a vamp in Une belle garce (Marco de Gastyne 1930). At the apex of her career, Manès quitted it all and with Charlia she went to Morocco to open a bar on a road 100 km from Marrakech. When she returned after two years, the film business considered her too old for being a star – she was 40 by now. Younger actresses such as Ginette Leclerc, Mireille Ballin and Viviane Romance had taken over her cast as femme fatale. Manès had to satisfy with secondary roles as older women still in love but neglected, such as the plotting demi-mondaine Marinka in Mayerling (Anatole Litvak 1935). And in Les caves du Majestic (Richard Pottier 1944) she even became the female equivalent of Emil Jannings in The Last Laugh, that is: a toilet cleaner. More and more attracted to the circus, she started an act with tigers at the Cirque du Hiver and the Médrano. But in November 1942 she was severely wounded by a wild animal and had to retire. After the war, while in Morocco for the shooting of La Danseuse du Marrakech (Léon Mathot 1949), Manès stayed there and opened up a drama course in Rabat. She acted in two shorts, but disappointed she returned to France in 1954. Almost forgotten, she had to satisfy with bit parts in French cinema – which she did frequently in the mid-1950s though - and turned towards the stage with the Grenier de Toulouse, where she could play parts fit to her age. After two memorable roles in Bonheur est pour demain (1960) by Henri Fabiani and Pas de panique (1966) by Sergio Gobbi, Gina Manès ended her career. She moved to a home where she died in 1972, age 96.

 

Sources: English/French Wikipedia, IMDB. NB this card was issued for Manès' lead in Die Heilige und ihr Narr, the only film she made for Defu. She plays an envious stepmother who wants to destroy the happy marriage of her stepchild (Lien Deyers) with the young neighbour (William Dieterle).

 

For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards

Shanghai Ballet: Echoes of Eternity

 

Shanghai Ballet presents 'Echoes of Eternity ' at the London Coliseum, choreographed by Patrick de Bana and inspired by the ancient Chinese poem ‘Song of Everlasting Sorrow. 7-21 August 2016.

 

Choreographer: Patrick de Bana

Set designer: Jaya Ibrahim

Costume designer: Agnes Letestu

Light designer: James Angot

Scriptwriter: Jean Francois Vazelle

Literature Consultant: Sifu TANG

 

Dancers:

Emperor: WU Husheng

Lady Yang: QI Bingxue

Moon Fairy: ZHAO Hanbing

Gao Lishi: ZHANG Yao

Chen Xuanli: WU Bin

An Lushan: ZHANG Wenjun

 

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I think I may have been her subject (in my dreams).

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Paparazzi tend to be independent contractors, unaffiliated with mainstream media organizations, and photos taken are usually done so by taking advantage of opportunities when they have sightings of high-profile people they're tracking. Some experts have described the behavior of paparazzi as synonymous with stalking, and anti-stalking bills in many countries address the issue by reducing harassment of public figures and celebrities, especially with their minor children. Some public figures and celebrities have expressed concern at the extent to which paparazzi go to invade their personal space. The filing and receiving of judicial support for restraining orders against paparazzi has increased, as have lawsuits with judgements against them.

 

A news photographer named Paparazzo (played by Walter Santesso in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita directed by Federico Fellini) is the eponym of the word "paparazzi". In his book Word and Phrase, Robert Hendrickson writes that Fellini took the name from an Italian dialect word that describes a particularly annoying noise, that of a buzzing mosquito. As Fellini said in his interview to Time magazine, "Paparazzo ... suggests to me a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging." Those versions of the word's origin are confirmed by Treccani, the most authoritative Italian encyclopaedia, but sometimes contested. For example, in the Abruzzi dialect spoken by Ennio Flaiano, co-scriptwriter of La Dolce Vita, the term "paparazzo" refers to the local clam (Venerupis decussata), and is also used as a metaphor for the shutter of a camera lens.

 

Due to the reputation of paparazzi as a nuisance, some states and countries restrict their activities by passing laws and curfews, and by staging events in which paparazzi are specifically not allowed to take photographs. In the United States, celebrity news organizations are protected by the First Amendment.

 

To protect the children of celebrities, California passed a new bill in September 2013. The purpose of the new bill is to stop paparazzi from taking pictures of children in a harassing manner, regardless of who their parents are. This new law increased the penalty on harassment and the penalty for harassment of children.

 

In 1972, paparazzo photographer Ron Galella sued Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis after the former First Lady ordered her Secret Service agents to destroy Galella's camera and film following an encounter in New York City's Central Park. Kennedy counter-sued claiming harassment. The trial lasted three weeks and became a groundbreaking case regarding photojournalism and the role of paparazzi. In Galella v. Onassis, Kennedy obtained a restraining order to keep Galella 150 feet (46 m) away from her and her children. The restriction later was dropped to 25 feet (7.6 m). The trial is a focal point in Smash His Camera, a 2010 documentary film by director Leon Gast.

 

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 79. Photo: not indicated but could be made by Evans.

 

Charles Ray (1891-1943) was an American actor, scriptwriter, and director of the silent screen, who knew a parabole from rags to riches and back again, working for e.g. Paramount, his own company, United Artists and MGM. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, he was a very popular actor and one of Hollywood's best-paid stars.