Vintage French postcard. Yvonne Sergyl in the French silent film Le Miracle des Loups/ The Miracle of the Wolves (Raymond Bernard, 1924).

Tags:   Yvonne Sergyl Le Miracle des Loups 1924 Raymond Bernard 1920s French France Français Française Historical film Historical Costume wolves snow music Ansichtskarte ACtress Actrice Attrice Darstellerin Schauspielerin Cinema Film Film Star Movies Movie Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Stummfilm Sergyl

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Spanish leaflet by Films Selectos, Suplemento Artistico, unnumbered. Edith Jéhanne as the princess Tarakanova in Tarakanova (Raymond Bernard, 1930).

Édith Jéhanne (born 1902, date of death unknown, real name as well) was discovered by French director Raymond Bernard in 1920 during the shooting of Le secret de Rose Lambert, when Edith visited the set to see her sister Sylvia Grey. She debuted in Raymond Bernard's sentimental comedy Triplepatte (1922) based on a play by Bernard's father Tristan Bernard. Next, she performed in the adventure serial Rouletabille chez les bohemiens (Henri Fescourt 1923), opposite Gabriel de Gravone, Romuald Joubé and Joe Hamman. In 1924 she had a small part in Raymond Bernard's historical drama Le miracle des loups, an epic film about he struggle between Louis XI and Charles le Téméraire.

In 1927 Jéhanne was given the lead in two major films. First in G.W. Pabst's Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney, based on a story by Ilya Ehrenberg. Jeanne Ney is a woman tormented by the political upheavals of post World War One. Bolchevik Andreas (Uno Henning), Jeanne's lover, kills her father during the Civil War because of his political betrayal. He sends Jeanne to her family in Paris but he is preceded by the perfidious Khalibiev (Fritz Rasp), who murders Jeanne's uncle and proposes to marry Jeanne's blind cousin (Brigitte Helm). Andreas is accused of the murder... Pabst mingled straightforward American-style filming with echoes of Soviet montage style and German expressionism. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C62q_hVcV4

Secondly, Jehanne played the lead, together with Pierre Blanchar, in Le joueur d'échecs (Raymond Bernard 1927), about 19th-century Poland striving for independence. Polish free fighter Boleslas (Blanchar) loves Sophie, while they are both in the independence movement, but she becomes attracted to Oblonoff (Pierre Batcheff), a young officer in charge of the Russian forces in Poland. When Boleslas is wounded during an insurrection at Vilmo, Sophie stays at his side. He is hidden in a chess-player mannequin that ends up at the court of the Russian czarina Catherine II. He plays against her... The film was a grand spectacle, using 35 decors including an enormous set for the Winter Palace. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck3ldWe_l3M for a beautiful clip of the restored version of the film.

However, after these major works, Jéhanne only made three more films. In two she had the female lead: Le perroquet vert (Jean Milva 1928) with Max Maxudian, and the late silent Tarakanova (1930) with Olaf Fjord, on a female impostor who claims to be heir to the Russian throne. When the czarina (Paule Andral) sends her best aid (Fjord) to capture the girl, he falls in love with her. It was Raymond Bernard's last silent film, shot in 1929, but held back to be sonorized in 1930. Bernard considered it his best film, but no copy of the film ever showed up so we can judge for ourselves. After that, Jéhanne only had a minor part in the early sound film Quand nous étions deux (Léonce Perret 1929), starring Alice Roberts and André Roanne.

Raymond Bernard remembered Jéhanne died soon after the coming of the talkies. Did sound cinema kill her career? Might have been. She was a very dear actress to Bernard.

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German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4299/1, 1929-1930. Photo: D.L.S-Rosenfeld-Film. Olaf Fjord as Count Orlof in Tarakanova (Raymond Bernard, 1930).

Olaf Fjord (1897 – 1945) was an Austrian film actor, director, and producer. He appeared in numerous Austrian, German, French, and Czech silent films.

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Belgian collectors card, which promotes the screening of the film at Majestic, Gand. Photo: Pathé-Natan. Josseline Gael as Cosette and Jean Servais as Marius in Les Misérables (Raymond Bernard, 1934). Caption: Liberté, liberté, chérie.

French actress Josseline Gaël (1917-1995) started her career already as a child actor in the silent cinema. In front of the cameras, she matured into a beautiful young woman and became one of the most sought-after actresses of the French cinema in the late 1930s. During the war, she met her fate.

Jean Servais (1910-1976) was a Belgian leading man of French films of the 1930s who reverted to melancholy-looking character parts in the 1950s.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Les Misérables 1934 Josseline Gaël Josseline Gaël French Actress Actrice Jean Servais Jean Servais Actor Acteur Charles Vanel Charles Vanel European Film Star Vedette Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Collectors Card Sammelkarte Verzamelkaart Pathé-Natan

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Belgian collectors card, which promotes the screening of the film at Majestic, Gand. Photo: Pathé-Natan. Harry Baur as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (Raymond Bernard, 1934). Caption: Une tempête sous un crane.

Harry Baur (1880-1943) was a famous French film and stage actor. Directed by directors as wide-ranging as Julien Duvivier, Raymond Bernard, Abel Gance, Marcel L'Herbier, Pierre Chenal, Robert Siodmak and Maurice Tourneur, he switched just as easily from père Lepic of Poil de carotte, to commissaire Maigret, Jean Valjean from Les Misérables, judge Porphyre from Crime et chatiment, Hérode, Tarass Boulba, Beethoven, captain Mollenard, czar Paul I, Rasputin, and Volpone.

Henri-Marie Rodolphe Baur, better known as Harry Baur, was born on 12 April 1880 in Paris. His parents were catholic people from the Alsace, his father from Mulhouse, his mother from Bitche en Moselle. They were ruined after theft and had to move to ever more modest dwellings. Baur’s father died when Harry was 10, so his mother and his sister Blanche raised him. He first did college at Saint-Nazaire. To escape the religious education his family wanted him to take, he fled to Marseille and joined the rugby team of the XVth Olympic Games in Marseille. Here he started studies at the École d'Hydrographie and enrolled in various odd jobs such as peddler, carter, braider of funeral wreaths, etc. Slowly he managed to start a career as a stage actor. As he was refused at the Conservatoire in Paris, he took private lessons. He first enlisted at the Comédie Mondaine in Le Filleul du 31, then received first awards for tragedy in Le Cid and for comedy with L'Avare at the Conservatoire in Marseille, while he did military service in Le Mans. He became secretary of the famous actor-director Mounet-Sully. From 1904 on, he played in numerous Parisian theatres: Comédie Mondaine, Grand Guignol, Palais-Royal, Mathurins; later he also played with Gémier and Antoine. Because of a beginning facial paralysis, he didn’t have to do service when war broke out in 1914, so he continued to play at the Gaîté-Lyrique, the Ambigu, the Porte Saint-Martin, the Gymnase, the Édouard VII, the Variétés, etc. Baur also collaborated as a film reviewer for Crapouillot, under the pseudonym of Orido de Fhair. By the early 1910s, Baur had become not only a man of substance in the diversity of his career but also physically. Between 1909 and 1914, Harry Baur performed in almost 30 silent films. He started at Eclair with Beethoven (1908) by Victorin Jasset, but worked at Pathé as well from 1909, a.o. in the Vidoq films (1909-1911), and film d’art films such as L’Assommoir (Albert Capellani 1909) after Zola. At Eclair he worked a.o. with director Maurice Tourneur in Monsieur Lecoq (1914). With Mistinguett Baur played in Fleur de Paris (André Hugon 1916) and Chignon d’or (Hugon 1916), with Albert Dieudonné in Sous la griffe (Diedonné 1921), and in La voyante (Leon Abrams, Louis Mercaton 1923) he played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. Between 1924 and the arrival of French sound film Baur was away from the screen and focused on the stage. In 1910 Baur married actress Rose Cremer, known as Rose Grane, and they had three children. In 1931 Rose Grande died during a trip in Algeria. Baur then married Rika Radifé, a stage actress as well, and of Turkish origin (her real name was Rebecca Behar).

In late 1931 Baur started a triumph with his interpretation of César in Marcel Pagnol’s play Fanny, the sequel to his Marius. Baur had substituted the great actor Raimu in this role and would become a fierce competitor to Raimu all through the 1930s, both on stage and on the silver screen. Earlier that year 1931 one of Baur’s first sound films had been released: David Golder, directed by Julien Duvivier, who supposedly had brought Baur back to the screen – Duvivier was Baur’s most important director in the 1930s. The timing of David Golder is not entirely clear, as in 1931 Baur also went to London to act in an early French talkie shot there at British International Pictures: Le cap perdu by E.A. Dupont, a multilingual. While Le cap perdu remains forgotten, David Golder, about a Jewish banker betrayed, was a huge success in France at the time. And this even when it was almost shot like a silent film, at the Basque Coast. It was a clever streak for Duvivier to relaunch Baur with this topic as Harry Baur had already been successful in a stage version of it at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris. In March 1931, the moment David Golder was released in France, Baur started production for Jean Kemm’s Le juif polonais (1931), about a man who is haunted by his murder; the film was all created for Baur to excel but it wasn’t as lucrative as David Golder. After this followed Criminel (1932) by Jack Forrester, in which Baur was a prison warden, while a debuting Jean Servais played an innocently condemned young man who is involved in a crime within the prison.

After this, Baur played in three films by Julien Duvivier. The first was Les cinq gentlemen maudits (1932) with René Lefèvre and Robert Le Vigan. Parallel Duvivier shot a German version with Adolf Wohlbruck, Camilla Horn, and Jack Trevor. Exteriors were shot at Fez, Marrakech and Moulay-Idriss. The press praised Duvivier’s taste for atmosphere, the picturesque and exoticism. Next was the adaptation of Jules Renard’s novel Poil de Carotte, with Harry Baur as the unforgettable Monsieur Lepic next to the young Robert Lynen (they shared the same destiny, as Lynen was a member of the Resistance in the war, was imprisoned in 1943 and executed by the Germans in 1944). For his sound version of Poil de Carotte Duvivier borrowed from other works of Renard as well, such as La Bigote. In 1926 Duvivier had already made a silent version with André Heuzé as Poil de Carotte and Henry Krauss as M. Lepic. Harry Baur had a very precise idea of how to play Lepic and was a perfectionist in his creation. Poil de Carotte had a prosperous release in Paris in November 1932, with praise for Harry Baur. Not wanting to let go of his star Duvivier had Baur play commissaire Maigret in La tête d’un homme (1932). While Simenon thought Baur was too old for the part, too tragic, the film is considered one of the best adaptations.

In 1932 Baur played Monsieur de Tréville, captain of the King’s guards in the very flourishing sound version of Les trois mousquetaires (1932) shot by the same Henri Diamant-Berger, who had done a silent version a decade before; then a serial in 12 episodes, now a two-part sound version, entitled Les ferrets de la reine and Milady. Baur was coupled with Pierre Blanchar in Cette vieille canaille (Anatole Litvak 1933) and again in Crime et chatiment (1935) by Pierre Chenal. While Baur did not convince as a clochard who is a distant relative of the Rotchild family in Rotchild (Marco de Gastyne 1933), he came back full fling as Jean Valjean in Raymond Bernard’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Misérables, shot in 1933. For six months shooting took place in Paris and the South of France. Costars were Charles Vanel as Javert and Josseline Gael as Cosette. Because of its length, the film was released in two parts. It became Baur’s best-performed film performance and some say the best film interpretation of Hugo’s famous character. Because of the European success, Baur received Hollywood offers but declined; he didn’t want to leave Paris.

After two lesser films, Un homme en or by Jean Dréville, and Le greluchon delicat by Jean Choux, Baur was more going places with Les nuits moscovites (Alexis Granowski 1934), based on a novel by Pierre Benoit, and marking the debut of Neapolitan singer-actor Tino Rossi. Harry Baur played a course, rich Russian wheat trader, opposite Annabella and Pierre-Richard Wilm. The success of the film caused producers to offer Baur one ‘Russian’ film after another. At the time films shot by and with fled White Russians were popular in France. After that it is time to play Herod in Duvivier’s Golgotha (1935), co-starring Jean Gabin as Pontius Pilate, Robert le Vigan as Jesus and Edwige Feuillère as Claudia Procula. General Production offered Baur in 1935 the part of judge Porphyre in Pierre Chenal’s Crime et chatiment, based on Dostoievski’s novel. The confrontation between Baur and Pierre Blanchar was the climax in this thriving film, which launched the career of Chenal in the 1930s. Blanchar obtained an award in Venice for his part, while the sets were highly stylized, inspired by German Expressionism. This might have inspired Duvivier to do a remake of the Expressionist classic Der Golem by Paul Wegener: Le Golem (1935), with Baur playing Emperor Rudolph and with shooting at studios in Prague, where the story takes place. Baur then went to London for an English version of Nuits moscovites, Moscow Nights (1935), shot by Anthony Asquith. In 1935 Maurice Tourneur, with whom Baur had worked together in the 1910s, shot Samson (released in France in 1936), a modern drama based on a play by Henry Bernstein that already had been adapted for silent cinema before and involved adultery and the power of money. Gaby Morlay and Baur were the central couple whose silences were as telling as their words. Costars were André Luguet, Gabrielle Dorziat, André Lefaur, and Suzy Prim. Then it was imperial Russia time again with Les yeux noirs (Viktor Tourjansky 1936) with Baur and Simone Simon, before moving over to the Hungarian steppes for Alexis Granowsky’s direction of Tarass Boulba (1936), based on Gogol’s novel and adapted by French author Pierre Benoît. It was both critically and commercially Baur’s biggest success since Les Misérables. The wild and intense portrait of Boulba by Baur impressed audiences; the role matched him perfectly.

For Les hommes nouveaux (1936), director Marcel L’Herbier shot a first documentary part on the pacification of Morocco with actor Gabriel Signoret made up as marshal Lyautey, whom all though had a striking resemblance. Baur had a supporting part as Maurice de Tolly, inspector general. While the film was a clear colonial product, L’Herbier most important drive was to ignite the fire of national patriotism in the light of the growing German military force. While a young Jean Marais had one of his first roles here, main co-stars were Nathalie Paley and Signoret. While the film Paris (Jean Choux 1936) disappointed audiences as a too old-fashioned melodrama about a taxi driver who despairs when a young well-to-do abandons his child. Instead, Abel Gance gave Baur a great part in the title role of Un grand amour de Beethoven (1936), a character Baur had played in his first film. In 1936 Jacques de Baroncelli did a remake of his own Nitchevo (1926), a silent film about a submarine, then with Vanel as the commander, now with Baur. After a break in Italy, Duvivier asked Baur to play a man turned Dominican monk in his well-known bitter film Un carnet de bal (1937). In the film, a young widow (Marie Bell) revisits the dancers from her old booklet, but they are all disappointments. The film was a worldwide success and was awarded the Coppa Mussolini for thew best foreign film in Venice. Next Baur took the boat to Algeria for the shooting of Sarati le Terrible by André Hugon, in which Baur played a sordid brute, who rules the underworld of the docks in Algiers. He remained within the exotic with his part of an Arabian sheik in West-Africa in Les secrets de la Mer Rouge (Richard Pottier 1937). In 1937 two more films followed, which were both released the year after: first another old Russian story, Nostalgie (1938) by again Tourjansky, and Mollenard (1938) by Robert Siodmak, a Shanghai set film but shot at Dunkerque, with the help of set designer Alexandre Trauner. Mollenard was one of the finest films of the era and meant a memorable part for Baur. Young Robert Lynen again played his son. Siodmak faced many problems during the making of this film: he lost good money over the competition with Duvivier on the adaptation rights, he had trouble finding producers, and at the start of shooting Baur had a heart attack, though without consequences. A third film that started in 1937 but released in 1938 was L’Herbier’s production La tragédie impériale (1938), on the life of Rasputin and his power during the reign of the last czar Nicolas II. Baur had made a considerable study of his character; he also wore false high heels in his shoes and lost considerable weight to look more like his character.

While during the mid-1930s Baur had been extremely active, in 1938 he did less, perhaps warned by his attack. That year he completed his cycle of ‘Russian’ films with Maurice Tourneur’s remake of The Patriot (1938), about the last days of the mad czar Paul I. In 1928 Ernst Lubitsch had done a silent version with Emil Jannings in the lead, it won an Academy Award for the best scenario. In March-April 1939 the exteriors were shot for Jacques de Baroncelli’s film L’homme du Niger were shot in Sudan, under great difficulty. The film was selected for the first Cannes Film Festival of 1939, but because of the war that never took place. Baur left Sudan to go to Casablanca where Jean Dréville waited for him to perform in Le président Haudecoeur (1940). After that interiors were shot at the studios of Marcel Pagnol. The film came out on French screens on 11 April 1940. When France entered the world war most film shootings stopped temporarily. Many actors were mobilised but not all, and so work could be done on the film Volpone (1940), directed by Tourneur, based on Ben Jonson’s classic text and released in Paris on 10 May 1941. The German army occupied Paris in June 1940. Film activities were slowed down but theatres reopened, so Baur went to the Théâtre du Gymnase for a reprisal of Jazz, directed by Pagnol. During a large orchestrated campaign late 1940-early 1941, Harry Baur was heavily criticized by the right-wing anti-semitic press, accusing him of being a Jew and a freemason. As much as he could Baur explained his Christian roots. The first film produced by Continental Films, the German film company active in France during the war, was L’assassinat du père Noël (Christian Jaque 1941). Hidden intentions were discovered in the dialogues written by Charles Spaak. Harry Baur had a grand part in the film as père Cornusse, maker of maps of the world. His co-stars were Raymond Rouleau and Renée Faure. In 1941 Tourneur asked Baur the last time for his film Pechés de jeunesse. Then things go wrong when Baur goes to Germany to play the male lead in a German production, Symphonie eines Leben (Heinz Bertram 1942), costarring Henny Porten and Gisela Uhlen. The shootings took place from February to May 1942. In the meantime, the French slander of Baur being a Jew reaches Goebbels as well and in May 1942 Baur and his second wife are arrested. Baur is questioned, tortured and imprisoned. In September 1942 he is released, weighing just 40 kilos instead of around 100. He never recovers from his tortures and dies on 8 April 1943 in Paris. NB French Wikipedia states he was only released just before his death, to die at his home. This is also what Hal Erickson writes; Erickson also writes the couple was arrested during the shooting in Berlin; first Rika as she was Jewish, then Harry trying to defend her. Cinememorial instead claims they were arrested in Paris by the Gestapo. Baur’s funeral took place at the church of St. Philippe du Roule and attracted the Tout-Paris of screen and stage. He was buried at the cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre, where his tomb still attracts visitors. Baur’s wife Rika survived the German maltreatment. In 1953 she took over the Theatre des Maturins in Paris and ran it for decades.

PS Strangely enough, English Wikipedia apparently still pursues the nazi rumour that Baur was Jewish, while all other sources deny this. English Wikipedia also claims he was tortured to death, which is not exactly true as well. French and German Wikipedia mix up dates: they state that Symphonie eines Lebens, once finished in September 1942, did not stop Baur to play, while a little lower they also state that in May 1942 Baur was arrested and was released September 1942 as a total wreck. Filmportal indicates the dates for the shooting of Symphonie eines Lebens, while German Wikipedia also writes that director Bertram was expelled from the Reichskulturkammer that year. Finally German IMDB states the film had its German premiere on 21 April 1943, just a few days after Baur died, so he never saw the film finished.

Sources: French, German and English Wikipedia, IMDB, www.filmportal.de, cinememorial.com/acteur_HARRY_BAUR_738.html, CineTom (www.cinetom.fr/archives/2009/10/21/15518685.html): ‘Harry Baur’. CineTom has the most extensive biography, based on Hervé le Boterf’s published biography Harry Baur.

For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Tags:   Les Misérables 1934 Harry Baur Harry Baur French Actor Acteur European Film Star Vedette Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Collectors Card Sammelkarte Verzamelkaart Pathé-Natan

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