La Grande Illusion is a 1937 French war drama film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. The story concerns class relationships among a small group of French officers who are German prisoners of war during World War I and are plotting an escape.
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made. He was ranked by the BFI's Sight & Sound poll of critics in 2002 as the fourth greatest director of all time. Among numerous honours accrued during his lifetime, he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1975 for his contribution to the motion picture industry. Renoir was the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the uncle of the cinematographer Claude Renoir. He was one of the first filmmakers to be known as an auteur.
The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French satirical comedy-drama film directed by Jean Renoir. The ensemble cast includes Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Gaston Modot, Pierre Magnier and Renoir.
The Lower Depths is a play by Russian dramatist Maxim Gorky written in 1902 and produced by the Moscow Arts Theatre on December 18, 1902 under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski. It became his first major success, and a hallmark of Russian social realism. The play depicts a group of impoverished Russians living in a shelter near the Volga.
Jean Gabin was a French actor and singer. Considered a key figure in French cinema, he starred in several classic films including Pépé le Moko (1937), La grande illusion (1937), Le Quai des brumes (1938), La bête humaine (1938), Le jour se lève (1939), and Le plaisir (1952). During his career he twice won both the Silver Bear for Best Actor from the Berlin International Film Festival and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor from the Venice Film Festival respectively. Gabin was made a member of the Légion d'honneur in recognition of the important role he played in French cinema.
Pierre Renoir was a French stage and film actor. He was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and elder brother of the film director Jean Renoir. He is also noted for being the first actor to play Georges Simenon's character Inspector Jules Maigret in Night at the Crossroads, directed by his brother.
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s. More a tendency than a movement, poetic realism is not strongly unified like Soviet montage or French Impressionism but were individuals who created this lyrical style. Its leading filmmakers were Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carné, and, perhaps the movement's most significant director, Jean Renoir. Renoir made a wide variety of films some influenced by the leftist Popular Front group and even a lyrical short feature film. Frequent stars of these films were Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Simone Signoret, and Michèle Morgan.
Julien Duvivier was a French film director and screenwriter. He was prominent in French cinema in the years 1930–1960. Amongst his most original films, chiefly notable are La Bandera, Pépé le Moko, Little World of Don Camillo, Panic (Panique), Deadlier Than the Male and Marianne de ma jeunesse.
Pépé le Moko is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier starring Jean Gabin, based on a novel of the same name by Henri La Barthe and with sets by Jacques Krauss. An example of the 1930s French movement known as poetic realism, it recounts the trapping of a gangster on the run in Algiers, who believes that he is safe from arrest in the Casbah.
French Cancan is a 1955 French-Italian musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and Francoise Arnoul. Where Renoir's previous film Le Carosse d’or had celebrated the 18th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, this work is a homage to the Parisian café-concert of the 19th century with its popular singers and dancers. Visually, the film evokes the paintings of Edgar Degas and the Impressionists, including his own father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It also marked his return to France and to French cinema after an exile that began in 1940.
Toni is a 1935 French drama film directed by Jean Renoir and starring Charles Blavette, Celia Montalván and Édouard Delmont. The credits mention no writers other than the story writer Jacques Levert, but the script was later confirmed to be authored by Renoir and Carl Einstein. It is an early example of the casting of non-professional actors and on-location shooting - both of which would influence the Left Bank of the French New Wave movement. Examining the romantic interactions between a group of immigrants working around a quarry and a farm in Provence, it is also generally considered a major precursor to the Italian neorealist movement, for its concerns on the working class, use of non-professional actors and on-location shooting.
La Bête Humaine is a 1938 French film directed by Jean Renoir, with cinematography by Curt Courant. The picture features Jean Gabin and Simone Simon, and is loosely based on the 1890 novel La Bête humaine by Émile Zola.
Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? is a 1978 black comedy mystery film directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Morley. It is based on the 1976 novel Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe by Nan and Ivan Lyons.
Bizarre, Bizarre is a 1937 French comedy film directed by Marcel Carné. It is based on the 1912 novel His First Offence by J. Storer Clouston.
Is He Dead? is a play by Mark Twain based on his earlier 1893 short story. The play, written by Twain in 1898, was first published in print in 2003 after Mark Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin read the manuscript in the archives of the Mark Twain Papers at the University of California at Berkeley. The play was long known to scholars but never attracted much attention until Fishkin arranged to have it published in book form. She later played a primary role in getting the play produced on Broadway. Contemporary American playwright David Ives adapted the play for the modern stage before its inaugural performance in 2007. Is He Dead? is now published and licensed for theatrical use by Playscripts, Inc.
Hôtel du Nord is a 1938 French drama film directed by Marcel Carné that stars Arletty, Louis Jouvet, Annabella, and Jean-Pierre Aumont. It tells the story of two couples in Paris, one being a prostitute and her pimp and the other two young lovers without regular jobs. A work of poetic realism, cinematography, music, and dialogue add a poetic dimension to the lives and surroundings of working-class people.
Josephine and Men is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Glynis Johns, Jack Buchanan, Donald Sinden and Peter Finch. Produced by the Boulting Brothers it was shot at Shepperton Studios and distributed by British Lion Films.
Coral Reefs is a 1939 French-language adventure film made in Germany. Directed by Maurice Gleize, the screenplay was written by Charles Spaak, based on a novel by Jean Martet. The film stars Jean Gabin, Michèle Morgan, and Pierre Renoir. It tells the story of a wanderer in Australia who kills a man in a fight and goes on the run. He meets a girl who is hiding in the wilds and the two fall in love, but they are pursued by a determined police detective.
Maigret Sets a Trap is a 1958 French-Italian crime film directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Jean Gabin, Annie Girardot and Olivier Hussenot. It is an adaptation of the novel Maigret Sets a Trap by Belgian writer Georges Simenon featuring his fictional detective Jules Maigret.
Ronald Bergan was a South African-born British writer and historian. He was contributor to The Guardian and lecturer on film and other subjects as well as the author of several books including biographies.
