Jacques Feyder
1885 - 1948Born Jacques Léon Louis Frédérix in Ixelles, Belgium, at age twenty-five however he moved to Paris where he pursued an interest in acting, first on stage and then in film, adopting the name Jacques Feyder. He joined the Gaumont Film Company and in 1914 he became an assistant director with Gaston Ravel. He started directing films for Gaumont in 1916, but his career was interrupted by service with the Belgian army during 1917-1919.
After the end of the war, he returned to filmmaking and quickly built a reputation as one of the most innovative directors in French cinema. L'Atlantide (1921) (based on the novel by Pierre Benoit), and Crainquebille (1922) (from the novel by Anatole France) were his first major films to achieve public and critical attention. He also contributed screenplays of films for other directors. His last silent film in France was Les Nouveaux Messieurs, a topical political satire which provoked calls for it to be banned in France for "insulting the dignity of parliament and its ministers".
By this time Feyder had accepted an offer from MGM to work in Hollywood, where in 1929 his first project was directing Greta Garbo in The Kiss, her last silent film. It was in Hollywood that he made the transition to sound films; even before he had worked with sound films, Feyder declared himself to be a firm believer in their future, in contrast with some of his French contemporaries.
Disillusioned with the Hollywood system, Feyder returned to France in 1933. During the next three years he made three of his most successful films, all of them in collaboration with screenwriter Charles Spaak and featuring Françoise Rosay in a leading role. Le Grand Jeu (1934) and Pension Mimosas (1935) were both significant creations in the style of poetic realism; La Kermesse héroïque (1935) (also known as Carnival in Flanders) was a meticulously staged period film with contemporary political resonances, which earned Feyder several international awards.
Feyder went on to direct films in England and Germany prior to the outbreak of World War II. Following the Nazi occupation in 1940, which led to the banning of La Kermesse héroïque, he left France for the safety of Switzerland, and directed a last film there, Une femme disparaît (1942).
In 1917, Feyder had married Parisian-born actress Françoise Rosay (1891–1974) with whom he had three sons; she acted in many of his films and collaborated with him as writer and assistant director on Visages d'enfants.
Jacques Feyder died in 1948 at Prangins, Switzerland. A school (lycée) in Épinay-sur-Seine in the north of Paris was named in his honour in 1977; Épinay was the location of the Tobis film studios where Feyder made Le Grand Jeu and Pension Mimosas.
Die klugen Frauen
Jacques Feyder
Françoise Rosay, Will Dohm
Flanders, Hispanic Monarchy, 1616. The inhabitants of the small town of Boom are busy organizing the annual local festivities when the arrival of the Duke of Olivares, who rules the country on behalf of the King Philip III of Spain, is announced. While the male citizens cowardly surrender to panic, the brave female citizens decide to become the best hosts the Spaniards can ever meet. (German version of the French film La Kermesse héroïque, 1935.)
Carnival in Flanders
Le Spectre Vert
Jacques Feyder
André Luguet, Jetta Goudal
A group of people who knew each other years before discover that members of the group are being killed off one by one by someone who calls himself (or herself) The Green Ghost. The survivors gather at an old mansion to find out who is doing the killing and why, and discover that the murderer is a member of that very group.
The Green Specter
La Kermesse héroïque
Jacques Feyder
Françoise Rosay, Jean Murat
Flanders, Hispanic Monarchy, 1616. The inhabitants of the small town of Boom are busy organizing the annual local festivities when the arrival of the Duke of Olivares, who rules the country on behalf of the King Philip III of Spain, is announced. While the male citizens cowardly surrender to panic like rats on a sinking ship, the brave female citizens, led by the bold wife of the burgomaster, decide to become the best hosts the Spaniards can ever meet.
Carnival in Flanders
Les Vampires
Louis Feuillade
Musidora, Édouard Mathé
Paris is prey to an invisible terror against which the police can do nothing: a sinister organization that sows chaos and death. The intrepid journalist Philippe Guérande and his partner embark on a long crusade to put an end to the crimes of the Great Vampire and Irma Vep, his dangerous accomplice. (A ten episode movie serial.)
The Vampires or, The Arch Criminals of Paris
Le grand jeu
Jacques Feyder
Marie Bell, Pierre Richard-Willm
Pierre , a young lawyer, has enormous debts due to his mistress Florence and her whims of luxury life. Pierre has gone too far and put the family firm in jeopardy. They ask him to expatriate. To avoid scandal, Pierre joins the Foreign Legion. In Morocco, near the desert, Pierre goes with his comrades of the Legion to a bar-restaurant-brothel, owned by a shady character, Mr. Clement . Clement lives more or less with Ms.Blanche who is a fortune teller with cards, as a hobby. But Clement is also after his girls now and then. Pierre is still obsessed with Florence but he meets Irma , one of Clement's girls, who is the double of Florence except for hair color. Irma has had an accident and has lost part of her memory at a certain point of her recent past, and Pierre slowly persuades himself she is Florence, but cannot remember it. Advised by Ms.Blanche, Irma finally accepts to act as if she was Florence because she is falling in love with Pierre.
The Great Game
Crainquebille
Jacques Feyder
Maurice de Féraudy, Félix Oudart
Jérôme Crainquebille, is an ageing vegetable seller who has sold groceries from his cart in in Paris for over 40 years. One day, he is harassed by a policeman who insists that he moves on. When he protests, Crainquebille is arrested, supposedly for swearing at the policeman.
Crainquebille
Pension Mimosas
Jacques Feyder
Françoise Rosay, Paul Bernard
Mr. and Mrs. Noblet run a boarding house on the French Riviera. One day, they are led by circumstances to welcome a little boy Pierre, whose father is in jail, into their home. Which makes Louise Noblet all the happier as she can't have children herself. But, after a while, Pierre's father is released from prison and reclaims his son... Time passes and Pierre, now a young adult, lives in Paris more or less on the wrong side of the law. He has a mistress, Nelly, who does not say no to other men's money... Louise, who still loves Pierre as her own son, wants only one thing - to help him get by.
Pension Mimosas
Anna Christie
Jacques Feyder
Greta Garbo, Theo Shall
A young woman reunites with the father she's not seen since early childhood, also falls in love with a sailor who wishes to marry her, and eventually is forced to reveal to each man about her dark past. (NOTE: This is the German language version.)
Anna Christie
Das Bildnis
Jacques Feyder
Arlette Marchal, Malcolm Todd
3 men fall in love with a woman from a window photograph .When they find her living as a recluse in an isolated Hungarian mansion, they decide against a visit because she wouldn't live up to their idealized images of her.
The Portrait
Macadam
Jacques Feyder, Marcel Blistène
Françoise Rosay, Paul Meurisse
Madame Rose runs a seedy hotel in a suburb of Paris. Strong-minded but without the least moral scruple, she once killed her husband whose honesty was a hindrance to her business. Under a suspended sentence, she now indulges in smuggling. One day, Victor, one of her former accomplices hounded by the police, finds sanctuary with her. During a drinking spree, he has the bad idea to entrust to her a suitcase filled with bank notes, a loot with which Victor hopes to rebuild his life in South America. But Rose, lured by temptation, betrays Victor, who is arrested by the police. However, he manages to escape with only one thing in mind, to take revenge on Rose...
Back Streets of Paris
Olympia
Jacques Feyder
Nora Gregor, Theo Shall
Theodor Shall is cast as handsome Lieutenant Kovacs, the sweetheart of the lovely Princess Olympia. When the princess' snooty mother breaks up the romance, the embittered Kovacs threatens to tell the world that he has "ruined" the girl (not true!), making her unfit for marriage. To ensure his silence, the Lieutenant is promised a night alone with Olympia, just before the wedding. It is at this point that Kovacs proves he's a gentleman after all by marrying the Princess, which is what he intended to do all along.
Olympia
Knight Without Armour
Jacques Feyder
Marlene Dietrich, Robert Donat
British agent working in Russia is forced to remain longer than planned once the revolution begins. After being released from prison in Siberia he poses as a Russian Commissar. Because of his position among the revolutionaries, he is able to rescue a Russian countess from the Bolsheviks.
Knight Without Armour
