In CÉCILE IS DEAD! (1944) Santa Relli (Jour de Fête) plays a young woman named Cécile, who keeps coming to Quai des Orfèvres to see Inspector Maigret about disturbing events in her household. The esteemed detective and his colleagues are annoyed…until Cécile winds up dead. Maigret must crack the mystery in this stylish film noir from director Maurice Tourneur (Lorna Doone).Read More »
On the eve of the French Revolution, two orphan girls, Henriette and Louise, make their way to Paris…
There are so many unforgettable scenes:
– Louise singing in the streets, Henriette and the Countess trying to reach her.
The police and the Count stopping them. Countess’ silent despair and Henriette’s screams.
– All the sequences with Pierre and Louise.
– The Marquis’ costume orgy, masterfully filmed.
– And, above all, Yvette Guilbert cradling her son with a song… an immense moment of cinema.
Paul Vecchiali – L’encinéclopédie – cinéastes français des années 1930 et leur oeuvreRead More »
Quote:
Gwen’s family is rich, but her parents ignore her and most of the servants push her around, so she is lonely and unhappy. Her father is concerned only with making money, and her mother cares only about her social position. But one day a servant’s irresponsibility creates a crisis that causes everyone to rethink what is important to them.Read More »
Quote:
Wildly inventive and effortlessly enchanting, Maurice Tourneur’s legendary 1918 fantasy The Blue Bird combines spectacular costumes, lavish sets, ingenious camera effects and disarmingly naturalistic performances in a wholly original American silent film masterpiece. Tourneur’s extravagant vision anticipates the spellbinding German Expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, made the following year, while affectionately evoking the whimsical theatricality of Georges Méliès’s pioneering cinematic genius.Read More »
AMG wrote:
According to film historian William K. Everson, to offer a fully detailed synopsis of Maurice Tourneur’s delightful period piece The Wishing Ring “would do a disservice to its charm.” Suffice to say that the film’s wide-eyed heroine Vivian Martin comes into possession of a ring which she believes to have magical powers. Armed with this belief alone, the girl is able to change the course of her entire life.Read More »
A man arrives at an isolated mountain inn clutching a small box. The man is panic-struck when, during a sudden blackout, the box disappears. To the assembled guests at the inn he tells his tragic story. The man, Roland Brissot, was once a penniless artist who, one day, bought a talisman from the owner of a restaurant for one franc. The talisman, a severed hand in a box, immediately transformed Brissot’s life and he became a hugely successful artist. Then, one day, he receives a visit from a small man in a suit who tells him that in buying the talisman, he has sold his soul to the Devil…Read More »