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N 7 B 3.7K C 0 E Sep 6, 2024 F Sep 6, 2024
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Vintage British postcard. Boltons-Mutual Star. Bolton's Mutual was a British renting company, active in the later 1910s. It later became Wardour Films (1919), founded by John Maxwell.

Helen Holmes (1892 or 1893-1950) was an American silent film actress, producer, director, screenwriter, and stuntwoman. She is most notable as the strong-willed, independent, and resourceful heroine of The Hazards of Helen (1914-1915) for the Kalem Studios and other serials of the mid-teens and early 1920s.

Helen Holmes was born in 1892 or 1893 (the sources differ), in Illinois. While there is uncertainty about her place of birth, Holmes stated in an interview that she was born on a farm in South Bend, Indiana, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. A 1917 article indicates Holmes was born on her father's private railroad car, "Estevan". Holmes was the daughter of Norwegian immigrant Louis A. Holmes, a railroad clerk employed by the Illinois Central Railroad, and his wife Sophia. She was the sister of Frank O. Holmes and Florence Holmes. Holmes was educated in St Mary's Convent in South Bend, Indiana. She began working as a photographer's model but turned to acting, performing in live theatre and making her Broadway debut in 1909. She became friends with film star Mabel Normand. Due to tuberculosis in the family, about 1910 Holmes and her widowed mother and siblings moved to California Valley, a few miles east of Shoshone in Death Valley, California. There they lost their life savings in a real estate swindle buying a property by the Colorado River. Meanwhile, Mabel Normand moved to Hollywood in 1912 to work at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, and she encouraged Holmes, after her brother had died, to try the film business in the balmier climes of the West Coast. Holmes began her film career in 1912 with Keystone Studios in a bit part arranged by Mabel Normand. She made only a few more appearances in Keystone films and, although attractive, her lack of glamorous beauty relegated her to secondary roles. In 1913, she signed with the Kalem Company's new Hollywood studio. Helen Holmes' first film at Kalem was directed by J.P. McGowan, with whom she would develop a relationship and soon marry. In her first two years with Kalem Studios, Holmes appeared in more than thirty film shorts during which time her athletic ability to do physically demanding stunts led to her big break. In 1914, at a time when the women's suffrage movement was much in the news, Kalem Studios' competitor Pathé Frères released an adventure film serial titled The Perils of Pauline. Pearl White starred as a bold and daring heroine. The Pathé serial became an enormous box-office success. As a result, Kalem Studios jumped on the bandwagon and in November 1914 released their own adventure series called The Hazards of Helen. Cast as the series star, during the twenty-six "thrill-a-minute" episodes in which Helen Holmes performed, she did almost all of her own stunts. Playing an independent, quick-thinking and inventive heroine, as part of her dangerous exploits Helen did such things as leap onto runaway trains or treacherously chase after the film's villainous train robbers. While occasionally the plot called for Helen to be rescued by a handsome male hero, in most episodes it was the dauntless Helen herself who found an ingenious way out of her dire predicament and single-handedly collared the bad guys, bringing them to justice.

The Hazards of Helen made Helen Holmes a major star. While working on the serial, she began a relationship with her director, J.P McGowan, that led to marriage. The couple decided to capitalise on her fame and after 26 episodes they left Kalem to work for Thomas H. Ince Productions and Universal Pictures. After a few films, Holmes and McGowan formed Signal Film Productions to make their own adventure films. Between late 1915 and early 1917, they made a dozen films together that met with reasonable success. By 1919, though, Mutual Films, the company that distributed their films, had gone under. Without Mutual's financial backing the budgets on their films shrank precipitously, and not being able to afford to make railroad serials anymore, Helen was now turned into a newspaperwoman. This switch did not sit well with her fans. In 1919 and 1920 she made only one film each year and only two in each of the next three years. During those years she not only starred in but also produced, a serial for Warner Brothers called The Tiger Band (1920). Between 1924 and 1926 Helen Holmes made eighteen more short adventure films, but her popularity began to wane in a market over-saturated with female cliffhanger films. Holmes made several Westerns opposite actor and rodeo performer Jack Hoxie in the mid-1920s. Throughout her career, Helen Holmes occasionally returned to performing in the theatre, and with the end of her marriage in 1925, she returned to the stage, making her last appearance on Broadway in 1935. Basically retired from the screen in 1926, she made a few appearances in small film parts over the next 20 years. She eventually married film stuntman Lloyd A. Saunders and as a result of the popularity of the Rin Tin Tin films, the two began training animals for use in films. After retiring from the film industry, Helen ran a small antique business in her San Fernando home. She had an extensive collection of rare dolls. Lloyd died in 1946, and Helen died in 1950 at her home in Burbank, California, as a result of heart failure. She had been ill for five years with a heart condition. She was 58 years old. She was interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Helen Holmes British Mutual Boltons-Mutual 1910s AMerican USA Hollywood Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Portrait Cinema Cine Carte Cartolina Carte Postale Celebrity hat Hut chapeau cappello serial serial queen Film Film Star Movies Movie Star Muet Muto Screen Star Silent Schauspielerin Stummfilm Darstellerin Ansichtskarte ACtress Actrice Attrice Helen Holmes Bolton's-Mutual Star

N 6 B 10.5K C 0 E Mar 29, 2022 F Mar 28, 2022
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French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 126. John Barrymore in Sherlock Holmes (Albert Parker, 1922).

John Barrymore (1882-1942) was an American stage and screen actor whose rise to superstardom and subsequent decline is one of the legendary tragedies of Hollywood. A member of the most famous generation of the most famous theatrical family in America, he was also its most acclaimed star. He excelled in high drama, in productions of 'Justice' (1916), 'Richard III' (1920) and 'Hamlet' (1922). After a success as Hamlet in London in 1925, Barrymore left the stage for 14 years and instead focused entirely on films.

John Barrymore was born John Sidney Blyth in 1882 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was Maurice Blyth (or Blythe; family spellings vary), a stage success under the name Maurice Barrymore. His mother, Georgie Drew, was the daughter of actor John Drew. Although well known in the theatre, Maurice and Georgie were eclipsed by their three children, John, Lionel Barrymore, and Ethel Barrymore, each of whom became legendary stars. John was handsome and roguish. He made his stage debut at age 18 in one of his father's productions but was much more interested in becoming an artist. Briefly educated at King's College, Wimbledon, and at New York's Art Students League, Barrymore worked as a freelance artist and for a while sketched for the New York Evening Journal. Gradually, though, the draw of his family's profession ensnared him, and by 1905, he had given up professional drawing and was touring the country in plays. He survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in 1909, became a major Broadway star in 'The Fortune Hunter'. In 1922, Barrymore became his generation's most acclaimed 'Hamlet', in New York and London. But by this time, he had become a frequent player in films. His screen debut supposedly came in An American Citizen (J. Searle Dawley, 1914), though records of several lost films indicate he may have made appearances as far back as 1912. During the silent film era, he was well received in such pictures as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (John S. Robertson, 1920), Sherlock Holmes (Albert Parker, 1922) with Roland Young as Dr. John Watson, and The Sea Beast (Millard Webb, 1926), the first adaptation of the novel Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Barrymore became every bit the star of films that he was on stage, eclipsing his siblings in both arenas.

Though his striking matinee-idol looks had garnered him the nickname "The Great Profile", John Barrymore often buried them under makeup or distortion in order to create memorable characters of degradation or horror. He was a romantic leading man into the early days of talkies. His stage-trained voice proved an asset when sound films was introduced. The three Barrymore siblings appeared in only one film together: Rasputin and the Empress (Richard Boleslawski, 1932). Lionel and John appeared without Ethel in Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932), Arsène Lupin (Jack Conway, 1932), Night Flight (Clarence Brown, 1933), and Dinner at Eight (George Cukor, 1933). His other big successes were the screwball comedies Twentieth Century (Howard Hawks, 1934) with Carole Lombard, and Midnight (Mitchell Leisen, 1939) with Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche. John's heavy drinking since boyhood began to take a toll, and he degenerated quickly into a man old before his time. He made a number of memorable appearances in character roles, but these became over time more memorable for the humiliation of a once-great star than for his gifts. His last few films were broad and distasteful caricatures of himself, though, in even the worst, such as Playmates (David Butler, 1941) with Kay Kyser and Lupe Velez, he could rouse himself to a moving soliloquy from 'Hamlet'. John Barrymore died in 1942 in Los Angeles, mourned as much for the loss of his life as for the loss of grace, wit, and brilliance which had characterised his career at its height. Barrymore married and divorced four times. His wives were Katherine Corri Harris (1910-1917), Blanche Oelrichs (1920-1928), Dolores Costello (1928-1935), and Elaine Barrie (1936-1940). He was the father of John Drew Barrymore and Diana Barrymore, and the grandfather of Drew Barrymore.

Sources: Jim Beaver (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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

Tags:   John Barrymore John Barrymore American Actor Hollywood Movie Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Screen Picture Movie Movies Vintage Postcard Postkarte Postkaart Carte Postale Carte Cartolina Tarjet Postal Tarjet Briefkaart Briefkarte Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes Sherlock Pipe Smoker Sherlock Holmes 1922 Cinémagazine-Edition

N 2 B 5.6K C 0 E Dec 9, 2021 F Dec 9, 2021
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American postcard by Disney Enterprises / Pixar Animation Studios, 2005. Image: Pixar Animation Studios. Concept art by Mark Holmes for A Bug's Life (John Lasseter, 1998). From 'The Art of Pixar: 100 Collectible Postcards', published by Chronicle Books.

A Bug's Life (John Lasseter, 1998) is an American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Buena Vista Distribution. It was the second film by Disney and Pixar. Written by Andrew Stanton, the film involves a misfit ant, Flik, who is looking for 'tough warriors' to save his colony from a protection racket run by Hopper's gang of grasshoppers. Unfortunately, the 'warriors' he brings back turn out to be an inept troupe of Circus Bugs.

An ant colony on an island is suppressed by a group of locusts, led by Hopper. Each year, they claim a part of the food supply. One of the ants is Flip, an outsider who prefers to work alone and is constantly trying to come up with new inventions. He is seen as an eccentric. On the day the locusts come again, Flip causes all the food he has collected to literally fall into the water. The locusts think that, because of the lack of food, the ants are trying to revolt. Hopper demands that the ants deliver a double supply of food before the end of autumn. Then he and his gang leave. While Flip is on trial for what he has done, he suggests going to town to find larger insects that can drive the locusts away. The ant council agrees as they would like to get rid of Flip. Flip reaches the insect city, a metropolis built of old boxes and other rubbish. In the same city, there is a circus. The artists of this circus are fired by their boss, P.T. Vlo, after a performance degenerated into chaos. Flip finds the fired insects and thinks they are the warriors he needs. The Bugs, in turn, think that Flip wants to hire them for their act. He takes them to the colony. On the island, the performers soon make themselves popular when they rescue the young ant Dot from a bird. The attack gives Flip the idea of chasing off the grasshoppers with a fake bird. On his instructions, the ants build this bird.

A Bug's Life was initially inspired by Aesop's fable 'The Ant and the Grasshopper'. The storyline originated from a lunchtime conversation between John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Joe Ranft, the studio's head story team; other films such as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo and WALL-E were also conceived at this lunch. Lasseter and his story team had already been drawn to the idea of insects serving as characters. Like toys, insects were within the reach of computer animation back then, due to their relatively simple surfaces. Production began shortly after the release of Toy Story (1995). The screenplay was penned by Stanton and comedy writers Donald McEnery and Bob Shaw from a story by Lasseter, Stanton, and Ranft. The ants in the film were redesigned to be more appealing, and Pixar's animation unit employed technical innovations in computer animation. Randy Newman composed the music for the film. During the production of A Bug's Life, a public feud erupted between DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Pixar's Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. Katzenberg, former chairman of Disney's film division, had left the company in a bitter feud with CEO Michael Eisner. In response, he formed DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen and planned to rival Disney in animation. After DreamWorks' acquisition of Pacific Data Images (PDI)—long Pixar's contemporary in computer animation—Lasseter and others at Pixar were dismayed to learn from the trade papers that PDI's first project at DreamWorks would be another ant film, to be called Antz. By this time, Pixar's project was well known within the animation community. Both Antz and A Bug's Life center on a young male ant, a drone with oddball tendencies that struggles to win a princess's hand by saving their society. Whereas A Bug's Life relied chiefly on visual gags, Antz was more verbal and revolved more around satire. The script of Antz was also heavy with adult references, whereas Pixar's film was more accessible to children. It was clear that Lasseter and Jobs believed that the idea was stolen by Katzenberg. Katzenberg had stayed in touch with Lasseter after the acrimonious Disney split, often calling to check up. In October 1995, when Katzenberg asked what they were doing next, Lasseter described what would become A Bug's Life in detail. When the trades indicated production on Antz, Lasseter, feeling betrayed, called Katzenberg and asked him bluntly if it were true, who in turn asked him where he had heard the rumor. Lasseter asked again, and Katzenberg admitted it was true. Lasseter raised his voice and would not believe Katzenberg's story that a development director had pitched him the idea long ago. Katzenberg claimed Antz came from a 1991 story pitch by Tim Johnson that was related to Katzenberg in October 1994. Lasseter grimly relayed the news to Pixar employees but kept morale high. Katzenberg moved the opening of Antz from spring 1999 to October 1998 to compete with Pixar's release. The film grossed $363.3 million worldwide, surpassing DreamWorks' Antz. Despite the successful box office performance of both Antz and A Bug's Life, tensions would remain high between Jobs and Katzenberg for many years.

A Bug's Life won in 1999 the Academy Award for Best Music and received positive reviews. Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "Lasseter and Pixar broke new technical and aesthetic ground in the animation field with Toy Story, and here they surpass it in both scope and complexity of movement while telling a story that overlaps Antz in numerous ways." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "I enjoyed too the use of animation to visualize a world that could not be seen in live-action and could not be created with special effects. Animation contains enormous promise for a new kind of storytelling, freed from reality and gravity, but although the Japanese have exploited that freedom, too many American feature cartoons follow the Disney formula of plucky young heroes and heroines and comic sidekicks. It's a formula that has produced wonderful movies. But the Pixar computer animation studio, a Disney co-producer, broke new ground with "Toy Story" in 1995, and now with "A Bug's Life," it runs free. The story, about an ant colony that frees itself from slavery to grasshoppers, is similar in some ways to the autumn's other big animated release, "Antz," but it's aimed at a broader audience and lacks the in-jokes." And at AllMovie, Matthew Doberman wrote: "A Bug's Life is a high point in animated family fare. It's the kind of film adults enjoy as much as, if not more than, their preschool offspring. Even the fake "outtakes" following the film are hilarious: like much of the film's humor, they aim for a surprising level of sophistication. The creators use animation not just to put a child-friendly face on some normally creepy critters, but to go where live-action can't, creating a world of shapes, colors, and sounds that couldn't be accomplished otherwise."

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Matthew Doberman (AllMovie), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

December is Pixar month at EFSP!

Tags:   A Bug's Life 1998 Pixar Animation Film Hollywood Movie Star Film Star Cinema Kino Cine Picture Screen Movie Movies Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Cartolina Postkarte Tarjet Postal Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Disney Concept art Mark Holmes Mark Holmes

N 3 B 5.9K C 0 E Jan 14, 2021 F Feb 11, 2021
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American Octochrome postcard published by Commercial Colortype Company, Chicago. Photo: Kalem. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Helen Holmes (1892 or 1893-1950) was an American silent film actress, producer, director, screenwriter, and stuntwoman. She is most notable as the strong-willed, independent, and resourceful heroine of The Hazards of Helen (1914-1915) for the Kalem Studios and other serials of the mid-teens and early 1920s.

Helen Holmes was born in 1892 or 1893 (the sources differ), in Illinois. While there is uncertainty about her place of birth, Holmes stated in an interview that she was born on a farm in South Bend, Indiana, but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. A 1917 article indicates Holmes was born on her father's private railroad car, "Estevan". Holmes was the daughter of Norwegian immigrant Louis A. Holmes, a railroad clerk employed by the Illinois Central Railroad, and his wife Sophia. She was the sister of Frank O. Holmes and Florence Holmes. Holmes was educated in St Mary's Convent in South Bend, Indiana. She began working as a photographer's model but turned to acting, performing in live theatre and making her Broadway debut in 1909. She became friends with film star Mabel Normand. Due to tuberculosis in the family, about 1910 Holmes and her widowed mother and siblings moved to California Valley, a few miles east of Shoshone in Death Valley, California. There they lost their life savings in a real estate swindle buying a property by the Colorado River. Meanwhile, Mabel Normand moved to Hollywood in 1912 to work at Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, and she encouraged Holmes, after her brother had died, to try the film business in the balmier climes of the West Coast. Holmes began her film career in 1912 with Keystone Studios in a bit part arranged by Mabel Normand. She made only a few more appearances in Keystone films and, although attractive, her lack of glamorous beauty relegated her to secondary roles. In 1913, she signed with the Kalem Company's new Hollywood studio. Helen Holmes' first film at Kalem was directed by J.P. McGowan, with whom she would develop a relationship and soon marry. In her first two years with Kalem Studios, Holmes appeared in more than thirty film shorts during which time her athletic ability to do physically demanding stunts led to her big break. In 1914, at a time when the women's suffrage movement was much in the news, Kalem Studios' competitor Pathé Frères released an adventure film serial titled The Perils of Pauline. Pearl White starred as a bold and daring heroine. The Pathé serial became an enormous box-office success. As a result, Kalem Studios jumped on the bandwagon and in November 1914 released their own adventure series called The Hazards of Helen. Cast as the series star, during the twenty-six "thrill-a-minute" episodes in which Helen Holmes performed, she did almost all of her own stunts. Playing an independent, quick-thinking and inventive heroine, as part of her dangerous exploits Helen did such things as leap onto runaway trains or treacherously chase after the film's villainous train robbers. While occasionally the plot called for Helen to be rescued by a handsome male hero, in most episodes it was the dauntless Helen herself who found an ingenious way out of her dire predicament and single-handedly collared the bad guys, bringing them to justice.

The Hazards of Helen made Helen Holmes a major star. While working on the serial, she began a relationship with her director, J.P McGowan, that led to marriage. The couple decided to capitalise on her fame and after 26 episodes they left Kalem to work for Thomas H. Ince Productions and Universal Pictures. After a few films, Holmes and McGowan formed Signal Film Productions to make their own adventure films. Between late 1915 and early 1917, they made a dozen films together that met with reasonable success. By 1919, though, Mutual Films, the company that distributed their films, had gone under. Without Mutual's financial backing the budgets on their films shrank precipitously, and not being able to afford to make railroad serials anymore, Helen was now turned into a newspaperwoman. This switch did not sit well with her fans. In 1919 and 1920 she made only one film each year and only two in each of the next three years. During those years she not only starred in but also produced, a serial for Warner Brothers called The Tiger Band (1920). Between 1924 and 1926 Helen Holmes made eighteen more short adventure films, but her popularity began to wane in a market over-saturated with female cliffhanger films. Holmes made several Westerns opposite actor and rodeo performer Jack Hoxie in the mid-1920s. Throughout her career, Helen Holmes occasionally returned to performing in the theatre, and with the end of her marriage in 1925, she returned to the stage, making her last appearance on Broadway in 1935. Basically retired from the screen in 1926, she made a few appearances in small film parts over the next 20 years. She eventually married film stuntman Lloyd A. Saunders and as a result of the popularity of the Rin Tin Tin films, the two began training animals for use in films. After retiring from the film industry, Helen ran a small antique business in her San Fernando home. She had an extensive collection of rare dolls. Lloyd died in 1946, and Helen died in 1950 at her home in Burbank, California, as a result of heart failure. She had been ill for five years with a heart condition. She was 58 years old. She was interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Helen Holmes Helen Holmes American Actress Hollywood Movie Star Film Star Film Cine Kino Cinema Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Carte Postale Carte Cartolina Tarjet Postal Theatre Postkarte Postkaart Briefkarte Briefkaart Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Kalem Commercial Colortype Company

N 1 B 4.1K C 0 E May 21, 2020 F May 21, 2020
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French postcard in the Collection Théâtrale du P. P. P. Firmin Gémier in the play 'Sherlock Holmes' at the Théâtre Antoine, Paris. Caption: 4th Act - Moriarty - At no cost, I do not want this lamp! .... The play 'Sherlock Holmes' (1899) by William Gillette and based on the famous stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, was first performed in a French version by Pierre Decourcelle, at the Théâtre Antoine in Paris in 1907.

Firmin Gémier (1869-1933) was actor, director and theatre manager at the French stage, promotor of the Théâtre Populaire and founder of the first Théâtre National Populaire in Paris in 1920. He also acted in the French silent and sound cinema of the 1910s to the 1930s.

Firmin Gémier was born as Firmin Tonnerre in Aubervilliers, France, in 1869. His father was a tanner, his mother came from a family of carpenters. Living in the Parisian worker's quartier of Belleville, he was able to go to the upper primary school Turgot thanks to a scholarship. Twice refused to study at the Conservatory, he studied acting in neighbourhood theatres, including the Théâtre de Belleville and that of Bouffes du Nord. In 1892 (some sources say 1891), he entered the famous Théâtre Libre of André Antoine, where he worked as an actor and as a stage manager. While working for Antoine, Firmin Gémier discovered his desire to offer quality theatre at a cheap price. His debut role was that Ubu in the first performance of 'Ubu Roi' by Alfred Jarry, at the Nouveau-Théâtre. He then left Antoine with some other members of the troupe and played at the Théâtre du Gymnase for one season. Then he directed the Théâtre de la Renaissance, where he tried out popular theatre for the first time with the staging of 'Quatorze Juillet' by Romain Rolland in 1902. Many plays at the Renaissance followed that year. In order to pay for the contractual debts at the Renaissance, he became an actor in 1903. He associated with Camille de Sainte-Croix in order to create a popular Parisian theatre, which was backed by the committee of the Chambre des Députés (House of Commons) in 1906, but refused by the Paris City Council. At the Odéon, he also staged La Rabouilleuse after Honoré de Balzac, in which he played Philippe Bridau.

Between 1906 and 1919, Firmin Gémier was the head of the Théâtre Antoine. He alternated popular hits with new authors to balance the revenues. Influenced by Romain Rolland and his ‘théâtre pour le peuple’ (theatre for the people) and by the Théâtre du Peuple at Bussang, Gémier created the Théâtre National Ambulant (1911-1912), with the help of Joseph Paul-Boncour. This was a removable auditorium with seating for 1650 persons. With several trucks for the transport of the auditorium, he travelled across France to present the pieces he had staged with the Théâtre Antoine in Paris, such as 'Anna Karenina', 'La Rabouilleuse' and 'Les Gaîtés de l'escadron'. Despite its big popular success, the revenues of the Théâtre National Ambulant were insufficient, and the experience was quickly abandoned. In 1917 Gémier founded the Société Shakespeare and created 'The Merchant of Venice'. Like Antoine, Gémier sought to renew the mise-en-scène: he made the auditorium part of the stage, used the effects of crowds, continued Antoine’s work on light by removing the ramp, and worked with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze to integrate music in the representation. Gémier founded the Théâtre National Populaire in 1920 in Paris at the Palais de Chaillot. According to critic Régis Messac, Firmin Gémier found ‘the exact formula of the Popular Theatre. [...] Gémier has thought of offering the people sights that are beautiful, emotional, artistic - and aristocratic. He presents old and new masterpieces of our drama, with the best actors. [...] Excellent orchestras play Beethoven or Mozart. [...] The people press to these magnificent performances. People with taste expressed to be enchanted and delighted." Gémier also simultaneously ran one of France's national theatres, the Théâtre de l'Odéon (1921-1929, some sources say 1922-1930). In 1924, he organised the ceremonial transfer of the remains of French Socialist leader Jean Jaures to the Panthéon, the secular mausoleum in Paris containing the remains of distinguished French citizens.

Incidentally, Firmin Gémier was also a film actor and director. His cinema debut was for Pathé Frères in L'Homme qui assassina/The man who murdered (Henri Andréani, 1913). Earlier he had directed a short film for Pathé, Le père Milon/Father Milon (Firmin Gémier, Henry Houry, 1909), an adaptation of a story by Guy de Maupassant about the Franco-Prussian War. In 1917 he played Emile Berliac, one of the leads in Abel Gance’s Mater Dolorosa/Sorrowful Mother/The Torture of Silence, opposite Emmy Lynn as Manon Berliac and Armand Tallier as François Rolland. In the 1920s he acted in La Branche morte/The dead branch (Giuseppe Guarino, 1926) with Dolly Davis, and played Dr. Porhoet in Rex Ingram’s The Magician (1926), an MGM production shot in Paris and Nice and based on a novel by Somerset Maugham. The Magician starred Alice Terry as a female sculptor who has an affair with a surgeon (Iván Petrovich) who saves her. However, another doctor and hypnotist (Paul Wegener) is doing experiments for which he needs female blood… In the 1930s, Gémier acted in a few sound films. First, he was Heinrich Martin in Un homme sans nom/A man without a name (Roger Le Bon, Gustav Ucicky, 1932), based on Balzac’s Le Colonel Chabert. Gémier had the lead as a German industrial who 15 years after the war returns to Germany but cannot cope with his identity as he is officially declared dead. He changes his name, leaves his wife to his assistant who also has taken over the direction of the firm, and starts a new life. A simultaneously made German version of the film, Mensch ohne Nahmen, had Werner Krauss in the lead. Gémier also had the lead in the only film he directed himself, Le Simoun (Firmin Gémier, 1933). Originally Rex Ingram would have filmed Le Simoun, with exteriors in North Africa and interiors in his studio in Nice. After the flop of Ingram's film Baroud, his loss of control at the Nice studio, and his old crew leaving him alone, Rex Ingram quitted the project and film making at all. Le Simoun was released four weeks after Gémier’s death. It was not a financial success. Then Gémier had his last film part as in La Fusée/Grandeur and Decadence (Jacques Natanson, 1933). Gémier played Etienne Girbal, a factory owner who loses his wife (Marcelle Géniat) and is ruined because of the crisis, so he has to start all over again. In 2004, Nathalie Coutelet stated in the French film historical journal 1895: "Gémier exemplifies the transition made by most theatre artists to the cinema at the beginning of the 20th century. He participated in silent films, then talkies… taking up certain of his former roles with success. An emblematic figure in adapting theatre acting to the cinema, he turned to his usual creative techniques: sincerity, emotion, interiority, naturalness. The close relationship between the cinema and theatre was evident for Gémier. Yet, he conceived of cinematographic interpretation as a potential means for modernising acting and actor training, as well as a means for artistic polyvalence and international collaboration." Firmin Gémier died of heart failure in 1933 in Paris. An ardent admirer of Shakespeare, at the time of his death he was in the process of adapting The Merchant of Venice to the cinema. As an homage, the Théâtre Firmin Gémier was founded in 1967 in Ville d'Antony in the region Île-de-France.

Sources: Nathalie Coutelet (1895 - French), Leonhard Gmür (Rex Ingram: Hollywood's Rebel of the Silver Screen), Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.

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

Tags:   Firmin Gémier Firmin Gémier French Stage Theatre Theater Actor Acteur Schauspieler Darsteller European Film Star Film Cinema Cine Kino Picture Screen Movie Movies Filmster Star Vintage Postcard Postkarte Carte Postale Cartolina Tarjet Postal Tarjet Postal Postkaart Briefkaart Briefkarte Ansichtskarte Ansichtkaart Imprimerie Darjeanne Darjeanne Paul Berger Paul Berger Sherlock Holmes Sherlock Holmes 1907 Théâtre Antoine


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