Hold Back the Dawn is a 1941 American romantic drama film directed by Mitchell Leisen, in which a Romanian gigolo marries an American woman in Mexico in order to gain entry to the United States, but winds up falling in love with her. It stars Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, and an uncredited Veronica Lake.
Napoléon is a 1927 French silent epic historical film, produced and directed by Abel Gance, that tells the story of Napoleon's early years.
Abel Gance was a French film director, producer, writer and actor. A pioneer in the theory and practice of montage, he is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse (1919), La Roue (1923), and Napoléon (1927).
Suzanne Bianchetti was a film actress.
Nicolas Camille Flammarion FRAS was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction novels, and works on psychical research and related topics. He also published the magazine L'Astronomie, starting in 1882. He maintained a private observatory at Juvisy-sur-Orge, France.
The Lady of the Camellias, sometimes called Camille in English, is a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. First published in 1848 and subsequently adapted by Dumas for the stage, the play premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France, on February 2, 1852. It was an instant success. Shortly thereafter, Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi set about putting the story to music in the 1853 opera La traviata, with female protagonist Marguerite Gautier renamed Violetta Valéry.
Victor Francen was a Belgian-born actor with a long career in French cinema and in Hollywood.
J'accuse is a 1919 French silent film directed by Abel Gance. It juxtaposes a romantic drama with the background of the horrors of World War I, and it is sometimes described as a pacifist or anti-war film. Work on the film began in 1918, and some scenes were filmed on real battlefields. The film's powerful depiction of wartime suffering, particularly its climactic sequence of the "return of the dead", made it an international success and confirmed Gance as one of the most important directors in Europe.
J'accuse! is a 1938 French war film directed by Abel Gance and starring Victor Francen. It is a remake of the 1919 film of the same name, which was also directed by Gance.
Gaston Modot was a French actor. For more than 50 years he performed for the cinema working with a number of great French directors.
Omega: The Last Days of the World is a science fiction novel published in 1894 by Camille Flammarion.
Les Gaz mortels is a 1916 silent French film directed by Abel Gance.
Comets have appeared in works of fiction since at least the 1830s. They primarily appear in science fiction as literal objects, but also make occasional symbolical appearances in other genres. In keeping with their traditional cultural associations as omens, they often threaten destruction to Earth. This commonly comes in the form of looming impact events, and occasionally through more novel means such as affecting Earth's atmosphere in different ways. In other stories, humans seek out and visit comets for purposes of research or resource extraction. Comets are inhabited by various forms of life ranging from microbes to vampires in different depictions, and are themselves living beings in some stories.
Captain Fracasse is a 1961 French-Italian historical adventure film written and directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit and starring Jean Marais, Geneviève Grad and Gérard Barray. The scenario was based on the 1863 novel Captain Fracasse by Théophile Gautier. It was shot at the Epinay Studios in Paris and on location in the Forest of Rambouillet and the Château de Maintenon.
Open Letter is a 1953 French comedy film directed by Alex Joffé and starring Robert Lamoureux, Geneviève Page and Jean-Marc Thibault. The film's sets were designed by the art director Robert Clavel. Location shooting took place around Paris.
Nelly Kaplan was an Argentine-born French writer and film director who focused on the arts, film, and filmmakers. She studied economics at the University of Buenos Aires. Passionate about cinema, she abruptly put her studies on hold to go to Paris to represent the new Argentine film archive at an international convention and later became a correspondent for different Argentine newspapers. She met Abel Gance in 1954, who gave her the opportunity to work on the film La tour de Nesle.
Captain Fracasse is a 1943 French-Italian historical adventure film directed by Abel Gance and starring Fernand Gravey, Assia Noris and Alice Tissot. It is an adaptation of the novel Captain Fracasse by Théophile Gautier. The scenario and dialogue is by Abel Gance and Claude Vermorel and the music composed by Arthur Honegger. Honegger's score for the film consists of around 50 minutes of music for chorus and large orchestra.
Jules Kruger (1891–1959) was a French cinematographer. He is known particularly for films which he photographed in the 1920s and 1930s for Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Raymond Bernard, and Julien Duvivier. He also worked in Great Britain and in Spain.
The Sticky Side of Baklava is a Quebec film recounting the story of a clash between Lebanese and Quebec cultures, as played out in the relationship between two sisters. It features Jean-Nicolas Verreault, Claudia Ferri, Raïa Haïdar and Geneviève Brouillette.
The Spirit of Sidi-Brahim is a 1939 French spy drama film directed by Marc Didier and starring René Dary, Colette Darfeuil and Abel Jacquin. It was shot at the Cité Elgé Studios in Paris and on location around Savoy. The film's sets were designed by the art director Aimé Bazin. It premiered in Nice in December 1939 but wasn't given a Paris premiere and nationwide release until 1945 following the Liberation and is often dated by that year. The title is a reference to the 1845 Battle of Sidi Brahim in which the French light infantry distinguished themselves. It is also known by the alternative titles Sidi-Brahim or Les diables bleus.
