Daniel Gélin
1921 - 2002Gélin was born in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, the son of Yvonne (née Le Méner) and Alfred Ernest Joseph Gélin.
When he was ten, his family moved to Saint-Malo where Daniel went to college until he was expelled for 'uncouthness'. His father then found him a job in a shop that sold cans of salted cod. It was seeing the shooting of Marc Allégret's film Entrée des artistes that triggered his desire to go to Paris to train to be an actor. He trained at the Cours Simon in Paris before entering the Conservatoire national d'art dramatique. There he met Louis Jouvet and embarked on a theatrical career. He made his first film appearance in 1940 in Miquette and for several years was an extra or played small roles in French films. He appeared with Jean Gabin and Marlene Dietrich in Martin Roumagnac (1946).
He won his first leading role in Rendez-vous de juillet (1949). From that time, he went on to appear in more than 150 films, including Max Ophüls' films La Ronde (1950) and Le Plaisir (1952), Jacques Becker's Édouard et Caroline (1951), Sacha Guitry's films Si Versailles m'était conté (Royal Affairs in Versailles) (1954) and Napoléon (1955), Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Jean Cocteau's Le Testament d'Orphée (1960), Le souffle au cœur (Murmur of the Heart) (1971), and La Nuit de Varennes (That Night in Varennes) (1982). He also wrote and directed one film, The Long Teeth, in 1952.
Gélin was a leading man in French cinema during the 1950s, but his career declined with the coming of the New Wave. He worked in theater for several years, but later found new success on screen as a character actor. He appeared extensively in French films and television productions from the 1970s until his death, often playing cynical characters or grumpy old men.
In 1946, Gélin married actress Danièle Delorme with whom he had a son, actor, director and producer Xavier Gélin. They divorced in 1954. While still married to Delorme, he had an affair with 17 year old model Marie Christine Schneider that produced a daughter, Maria Schneider. Due to his status as a married man, Gélin could not recognize Maria as his daughter. He visited the child several times but eventually severed his relationship with her mother. Maria Schneider and Daniel Gélin reconnected when she was sixteen and came to visit him. They remained in contact, although their relationship was irregular.
Gélin was married to model Sylvie Hirsch from 1954 until their divorce in 1968. This marriage produced three children, Pascal (who died aged one year), Fiona , and Manuel, the latter two also becoming actors. In 1973, he remarried to Lydie Zaks with whom he had a daughter, Laura.
Gélin died in Paris on 29 November 2002 of kidney failure.
Source: Article "Daniel Gélin" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Le Plaisir
Max Ophüls
Claude Dauphin, Gaby Morlay
Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.
Le Plaisir
Fear City: A Family-Style Comedy
Alain Berbérian
Chantal Lauby, Alain Chabat
A second-class horror movie has to be shown at Cannes Film Festival, but, before each screening, the projectionist is killed by a mysterious fellow, with hammer and sickle, just as it happens in the film to be shown.
Fear City: A Family-Style Comedy
Murmur of the Heart
Louis Malle
Lea Massari, Benoît Ferreux
This loosely plotted coming-of-age tale follows the life of 15-year-old Laurent Chevalier as he stumbles his way over the burgeoning swell of adolescence in 1950s France. After having his first sexual experience with a prostitute and dodging the lips of a priest, Chevalier contracts a case of scarlet fever. When the fever leaves him with a heart murmur, Chevalier is placed in a sanatorium, along with his over-attentive and adulterous mother.
Murmur of the Heart
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Alfred Hitchcock
James Stewart, Doris Day
A couple vacationing in Morocco with their young son accidentally stumble upon an assassination plot. When the child is kidnapped to ensure their silence, they have to take matters into their own hands to save him.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
La Ronde
Max Ophüls
Adolf Wohlbrück, Simone Signoret
An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.
La Ronde
L'assassin habite au 21
Henri-Georges Clouzot
Pierre Fresnay, Suzy Delair
A serial killer by the name of Monsieur Durand stalks the streets of Paris. When Inspector Wens learns that the killer stays at a Paris boarding house, he gets a room there to keep watch.
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
The Sleeping Car Murder
Costa-Gavras
Jacques Perrin, Catherine Allégret
Six people travel by train overnight from Marseilles to Paris. When the train arrives at its destination, one of the passengers, a girl, is found dead in a sleeping berth. The police led by Inspector Grazzi investigate the other five passengers, suspecting that one of them was responsible. However, as the investigation is stepped up, the other passengers start turning up dead. It is then up to the last remaining two to solve the case, before they become the next victims.
The Sleeping Car Murder
