Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...
- 2/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
When the British Film Institute was just getting started releasing DVDs, it was a surprise to come across La kermesse héroïque (a.k.a. The Heroic Surrender, a.k.a. Carnival in Flanders, 1935), a good, odd film probably not on many people's must-have lists, or at least not until it became possible for them to have it. Happily, the BFI has gone on digging up curios from the past, notably with its Flipside series of obscure British films from the 60s.
Jacques Feyder's film, based on a story by top scenarist Charles Spaak, tells of a Dutch town in 1616, on the even of its carnival celebrations, discovering itself threatened by invasion from the Spanish. The Burgomaster (André Alerme) and the town's most prominent citizens are aghast at the carnage likely to be wrought, and after they describe the rape and baby-slaying in detail, Feyder cuts to a fantasy insert depicting,...
Jacques Feyder's film, based on a story by top scenarist Charles Spaak, tells of a Dutch town in 1616, on the even of its carnival celebrations, discovering itself threatened by invasion from the Spanish. The Burgomaster (André Alerme) and the town's most prominent citizens are aghast at the carnage likely to be wrought, and after they describe the rape and baby-slaying in detail, Feyder cuts to a fantasy insert depicting,...
- 2/10/2012
- MUBI
Stupéfiants (1932) is interesting in itself, to a moderate degree. It's even more interesting for the lives around it, but more of that later.
Yes, the title literally means "stupefiers," and it's a drug drama, a French-German co-production delivering German thriller entertainment with a Gallic lightness of touch. The hero, Jean Murat, is the kind of energetic superman beloved of the German cinema of the era, with some of the agility that distinguished Roland Toutain in L'Herbier's crime romances of the period—one moment where he swings from a crane adds a welcome dash of Doug Fairbanks excitement to the proceedings: one watches keenly for the rest of the movie in case he repeats it, but sadly he doesn't.
Murat's sister has become addicted to drugs, and Murat embarks on his adventures first to save her, then to avenge her. Along the way, the movie delivers some surprisingly accurate behavior from the addict,...
Yes, the title literally means "stupefiers," and it's a drug drama, a French-German co-production delivering German thriller entertainment with a Gallic lightness of touch. The hero, Jean Murat, is the kind of energetic superman beloved of the German cinema of the era, with some of the agility that distinguished Roland Toutain in L'Herbier's crime romances of the period—one moment where he swings from a crane adds a welcome dash of Doug Fairbanks excitement to the proceedings: one watches keenly for the rest of the movie in case he repeats it, but sadly he doesn't.
Murat's sister has become addicted to drugs, and Murat embarks on his adventures first to save her, then to avenge her. Along the way, the movie delivers some surprisingly accurate behavior from the addict,...
- 1/5/2012
- MUBI
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