Henri Rollan in Les Trois Mousquetaires (1932)
French postcard by A.N., Paris no. 853. Photo: Film H. Diamant-Berger. Henri Rollan as Athos in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1932).
Henri Rollan (1888-1967) was a French actor and stage director. In addition to rich career on stage he also acted in many French silent and sound films, such as René Clair’s debut Paris qui dort (1923-1925) and the silent and the sound versions of Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921 and 1932).
Henri Rollan, real name Henri Martine, was born in Paris in 1888. In 1906 he started his acting career with the great André Antoine at the Theatre de l’Odeon, where he would remain until 1909, playing in classics such as Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In 1910 Rollan debuted in film, perhaps attracted by previous film contributions by renowned stage actors such as Charles Le Bargy. His first film was probably the Film d’Art production L’Héritière (1910), directed by Henri Pouctal and André Calmettes and starring Paul Mounet of the Comédie française. In the same year Rollan played in the Pathé film L’Amour et le temps (Michel Carré, 1910), a mythological tale starring young Raymonde Dupré as Cupid and thespian Henry Krauss as grumpy old Father Time. Several more Pathé films followed, such as L’Absent (Albert Capellani 1913), in which Henri Étievant played the lead as a Dutch farmer whose son and mother-in-law (Jeanne Grumbach) refuse his second wife (Germaine Dermoz) and her daughter. Six years after the whole family reconciles when first the mother-in-law recognizes the virtues of the second wife and then the farmer blesses the love between his son (Rollan) and his stepdaughter (Dupré). In Jeanne la Maudite (1913) Rolan is the ruthless murder of his uncle, while an innocent lumberjack is imprisoned for the murder. Jeanne, the innocent’s daughter becomes the punch-bag of the village.
In 1914 Rollan played Maurice Lindey in the long running Pathé serial Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, adapted from Alexandre Dumas, directed by Albert Capellani and with Paul Escoffier as the Chevalier and Marie-Louise Derval as Geneviève Dixmer. Rollan played the lead here as a young Republican who unknowingly implicates himself in a plot to rescue Queen Marie-Antoinette during the Reign of Terror. The serial had 6 parts, each split up in 10 episodes. In 1918, Rollan played in another film serial, this time in 8 episodes: Le baron mystère, directed by Maurice Chaillot and starring Pierre Alcover. In 1921 he starred in the SCAGL production Les Trois masques, directed by Henry Krauss, a story about family feuds and deadly revenge.
In the same year 1921, Henri Rollan performed Athos in Henri Diamant-Berger’s Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers, a prestigious production by Pathé, with lavish sets and many extras. The super-production rivaled Douglas Fairbanks contemporary Three Musketeers of 1921. Together with Charles Martinelli (Porthos), Pierre de Guingand (Aramis) en Aimé Simon-Girard (D’Artagnan) Rollin became a national star. The success of the film urged Pathé to make the sequel Vingt ans après (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922) in which Martinelli, Guingand and Rollan remained but Jean Yonnel replaced Simon-Girard. Other films with Rollin in those years were Mimi Trottin (Henri Andréani, 1922), Le Sang d’Allah (Luitz Morat, 1922) and L’Emprise (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1923).
Henri Rollan's last silent film is probably his most famous one, Paris qui dort (René Clair, 1923, but released in 1925), in which he starred as Albert, the guardsman of the Eiffel Tower. Together with a group who just flew into Paris, he is the only one to have survived a scientist’s experiment to freeze the whole of Paris. His former buddy from Les Trois Mousquetaires, Charles Martinelli, played the scientist, while Albert Préjean was the pilot. The startling images of the actors on top of the Eiffel Tower and their reckless behavior still impress today. Incredible this was the debut film of young René Clair, even if the film was publicly released after Clair’s next film Entr’acte (1924). Paris qui dort was produced by Henri Diamant-Berger’s company Films Diamant. After that, Rollin took a break in film acting, but kept playing on stage, performing at various Parisian theatres – in the mid-1920s mainly at the Théàtre de Paris and late 1920s at the Théàtre de Port Saint-Martin.
When sound cinema set in in France, Henri Diamant-Berger called back his ‘musketeer’ to act in Sola (1931), starring Damia; in Clair de lune (1932), starring Blanche Montel and Claude Dauphin; and in the sound version of Les Trois Mousquetaires (1932), this time set up as a two-episode film instead of a long serial. Ten years after the silent version Rollan again played Athos, now with Thomy Bourdelle as Porthos, Jean-Louis Allibert as Aramis, Rollan’s buddy from the silent version Simon-Girard once more as D’Artagnan, and Blanche Montel as Constance. During the 1930s Rollan remained very active in French films, playing in some twenty films, performing opposite actors such as Madeleine Renaud, Gaby Morlay, Michel Simon, Victor Francen, Madeleine Ozeray, Suzy Vernon, Mireille Balin, Marcelle Chantal, Marie Bell, Gina Manès, Florelle and Huguette Duflos. While most of his directors are forgotten names now, some might ring a bell such as Marcel L’Herbier and the Italian directors Augusto Genina and Mario Bonnard. During the war Rollan acted in just a few films, while it took until the late 1940s to have his film acting career revived. During the first half of the 1950s, though, Rollan, had memorable parts as the incompetent Maréchal d'Estrée in Christian-Jaque’s Fanfan la Tulipe (1951) and a French politician in Jacques Becker's Les Aventures d'Arsène Lupin (1956). Rollan’s last film part was in 121 Rue Blanche à Paris (Quinto Albicocco 1961) which starred stage and film actress Berthe Bovy, who just like Rollan had started out in film at the days of film d’art.
While Henri Rollan had acted on stage in the 1930s as well, it was in particular from the mid-1940s on that this intensified. Between the late 1940s and early 1950s he must have been constantly working either on stage or on a film set, despite his age. Moreover, from 1945 on, he also directed various stage plays and would do so until his death. From 1948 on, Rollan almost exclusively played at the Comédie française, and would do so until 1965. Henri Rollan died in Paris on 23 June 1967. As Guy Bellinger writes on IMDb: “He was always a great professional and his performances (most often as a tough, stiff, humorless character endowed with authority) are excellent whatever the film he is in. Of course where he really shone was on stage, as an actor first, later as a renowned director. He was also a much loved and respected drama teacher who guided among others the first steps of Jean Claudio, Jacques Fabbri, Raymond Devos, Anna Gaylor, Annie Girardot, Marie Dubois and Jacques Lorcey. None of these persons ever forgot Henri Rollan, a passionate man who had the gift to transmit his genuine passion to other young passionates.”
Sources: , CineArtistes, Fondation Jerome Seydoux, Cineressources, Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Henri Rollan in Les Trois Mousquetaires (1932)
French postcard by A.N., Paris no. 853. Photo: Film H. Diamant-Berger. Henri Rollan as Athos in Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1932).
Henri Rollan (1888-1967) was a French actor and stage director. In addition to rich career on stage he also acted in many French silent and sound films, such as René Clair’s debut Paris qui dort (1923-1925) and the silent and the sound versions of Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1921 and 1932).
Henri Rollan, real name Henri Martine, was born in Paris in 1888. In 1906 he started his acting career with the great André Antoine at the Theatre de l’Odeon, where he would remain until 1909, playing in classics such as Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. In 1910 Rollan debuted in film, perhaps attracted by previous film contributions by renowned stage actors such as Charles Le Bargy. His first film was probably the Film d’Art production L’Héritière (1910), directed by Henri Pouctal and André Calmettes and starring Paul Mounet of the Comédie française. In the same year Rollan played in the Pathé film L’Amour et le temps (Michel Carré, 1910), a mythological tale starring young Raymonde Dupré as Cupid and thespian Henry Krauss as grumpy old Father Time. Several more Pathé films followed, such as L’Absent (Albert Capellani 1913), in which Henri Étievant played the lead as a Dutch farmer whose son and mother-in-law (Jeanne Grumbach) refuse his second wife (Germaine Dermoz) and her daughter. Six years after the whole family reconciles when first the mother-in-law recognizes the virtues of the second wife and then the farmer blesses the love between his son (Rollan) and his stepdaughter (Dupré). In Jeanne la Maudite (1913) Rolan is the ruthless murder of his uncle, while an innocent lumberjack is imprisoned for the murder. Jeanne, the innocent’s daughter becomes the punch-bag of the village.
In 1914 Rollan played Maurice Lindey in the long running Pathé serial Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge, adapted from Alexandre Dumas, directed by Albert Capellani and with Paul Escoffier as the Chevalier and Marie-Louise Derval as Geneviève Dixmer. Rollan played the lead here as a young Republican who unknowingly implicates himself in a plot to rescue Queen Marie-Antoinette during the Reign of Terror. The serial had 6 parts, each split up in 10 episodes. In 1918, Rollan played in another film serial, this time in 8 episodes: Le baron mystère, directed by Maurice Chaillot and starring Pierre Alcover. In 1921 he starred in the SCAGL production Les Trois masques, directed by Henry Krauss, a story about family feuds and deadly revenge.
In the same year 1921, Henri Rollan performed Athos in Henri Diamant-Berger’s Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers, a prestigious production by Pathé, with lavish sets and many extras. The super-production rivaled Douglas Fairbanks contemporary Three Musketeers of 1921. Together with Charles Martinelli (Porthos), Pierre de Guingand (Aramis) en Aimé Simon-Girard (D’Artagnan) Rollin became a national star. The success of the film urged Pathé to make the sequel Vingt ans après (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1922) in which Martinelli, Guingand and Rollan remained but Jean Yonnel replaced Simon-Girard. Other films with Rollin in those years were Mimi Trottin (Henri Andréani, 1922), Le Sang d’Allah (Luitz Morat, 1922) and L’Emprise (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1923).
Henri Rollan's last silent film is probably his most famous one, Paris qui dort (René Clair, 1923, but released in 1925), in which he starred as Albert, the guardsman of the Eiffel Tower. Together with a group who just flew into Paris, he is the only one to have survived a scientist’s experiment to freeze the whole of Paris. His former buddy from Les Trois Mousquetaires, Charles Martinelli, played the scientist, while Albert Préjean was the pilot. The startling images of the actors on top of the Eiffel Tower and their reckless behavior still impress today. Incredible this was the debut film of young René Clair, even if the film was publicly released after Clair’s next film Entr’acte (1924). Paris qui dort was produced by Henri Diamant-Berger’s company Films Diamant. After that, Rollin took a break in film acting, but kept playing on stage, performing at various Parisian theatres – in the mid-1920s mainly at the Théàtre de Paris and late 1920s at the Théàtre de Port Saint-Martin.
When sound cinema set in in France, Henri Diamant-Berger called back his ‘musketeer’ to act in Sola (1931), starring Damia; in Clair de lune (1932), starring Blanche Montel and Claude Dauphin; and in the sound version of Les Trois Mousquetaires (1932), this time set up as a two-episode film instead of a long serial. Ten years after the silent version Rollan again played Athos, now with Thomy Bourdelle as Porthos, Jean-Louis Allibert as Aramis, Rollan’s buddy from the silent version Simon-Girard once more as D’Artagnan, and Blanche Montel as Constance. During the 1930s Rollan remained very active in French films, playing in some twenty films, performing opposite actors such as Madeleine Renaud, Gaby Morlay, Michel Simon, Victor Francen, Madeleine Ozeray, Suzy Vernon, Mireille Balin, Marcelle Chantal, Marie Bell, Gina Manès, Florelle and Huguette Duflos. While most of his directors are forgotten names now, some might ring a bell such as Marcel L’Herbier and the Italian directors Augusto Genina and Mario Bonnard. During the war Rollan acted in just a few films, while it took until the late 1940s to have his film acting career revived. During the first half of the 1950s, though, Rollan, had memorable parts as the incompetent Maréchal d'Estrée in Christian-Jaque’s Fanfan la Tulipe (1951) and a French politician in Jacques Becker's Les Aventures d'Arsène Lupin (1956). Rollan’s last film part was in 121 Rue Blanche à Paris (Quinto Albicocco 1961) which starred stage and film actress Berthe Bovy, who just like Rollan had started out in film at the days of film d’art.
While Henri Rollan had acted on stage in the 1930s as well, it was in particular from the mid-1940s on that this intensified. Between the late 1940s and early 1950s he must have been constantly working either on stage or on a film set, despite his age. Moreover, from 1945 on, he also directed various stage plays and would do so until his death. From 1948 on, Rollan almost exclusively played at the Comédie française, and would do so until 1965. Henri Rollan died in Paris on 23 June 1967. As Guy Bellinger writes on IMDb: “He was always a great professional and his performances (most often as a tough, stiff, humorless character endowed with authority) are excellent whatever the film he is in. Of course where he really shone was on stage, as an actor first, later as a renowned director. He was also a much loved and respected drama teacher who guided among others the first steps of Jean Claudio, Jacques Fabbri, Raymond Devos, Anna Gaylor, Annie Girardot, Marie Dubois and Jacques Lorcey. None of these persons ever forgot Henri Rollan, a passionate man who had the gift to transmit his genuine passion to other young passionates.”
Sources: , CineArtistes, Fondation Jerome Seydoux, Cineressources, Wikipedia (French) and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.