Valéry Inkijinoff
1895 - 1973Inkijinoff was born to a Christian Buryat family of a teacher in Irkutsk gubernia.
He studied at the Polytechnical Institute of Saint Petersburg and was for a time one of the resident actors of an imperial theater of this city. At the beginning of his career in Russia, he appeared first as stuntman in a few movies and then as director and as actor. His major lead role during the Russian part of his career is The Son in Storm Over Asia by Vsevolod Pudovkin in 1928, a major Soviet propaganda film about a fictional British consolidation of Mongolia.
He was also an actor in the troop of Vsevolod Meyerhold and was then appointed as director of the movie and theater school of Kiev in Ukraine.
In 1930, while in France on a European tour, he refused to return to the USSR. According to Boris Shumyatsky, the Soviet cinema boss, Stalin, when in 1934 he learned that Inkijinoff had never returned, said: "Too bad that the man escaped. Now he, probably, is dying to come back but, alas, too late." He starred in 2 movies while living in the Soviet Union, and contrary to Stalin's assumption, Inkijinoff became immensely popular in Europe, arguably the most successful Soviet actor abroad, starring in a total of 44 French, British, German, and Italian movies.
In France he frequently played the part of Asian villains. His most active period was in the thirties, when he appeared in Les Bateliers de la Volga and the G. W. Pabst film Le drame de Shanghai. He played for Fritz Lang in 1959, in Der Tiger von Eschnapur and its sequel Das indische Grabmal, in which he played the role of the high priest Yama. In 1965, Philippe de Broca cast him as Monsieur Goh, the wise but scary Chinese who guarantees to the Jean-Paul Belmondo character a certain death in Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine.
His last movie was with Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale, where he played the role of Indian chief Spitting Bull in Les pétroleuses.
He was a great friend of Charles Dullin and Louis Jouvet, and had a long career in French theater, appearing for instance in Marie Galante by Jacques Deval.
He died at his home in Brunoy, Essonne, France, aged 78.
Source: Article "Valéry Inkijinoff" from Wikipedia in english, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
La Tête d'un homme
Julien Duvivier
Harry Baur, Valéry Inkijinoff
Willy Ferrière is a gambler living beyond his means, and his mistress is as greedy as he's dead broke. One day, he says out of loud in a a Montparnasse café that he would give 100,000 francs to get rid of his wealthy aunt so he could claim his inheritance. Someone secretly lets Willy know it's a deal. The old lady is murdered, and a low-life criminal is manipulated to be the perfect suspect. But Superintendant Maigret feels something is wrong.
A Man's Neck
Потомок Чингисхана
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Valéry Inkijinoff, I. Dedintsev
In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.
Storm Over Asia
The Last Adventure
Robert Enrico
Alain Delon, Lino Ventura
Two adventurers and best friends, Roland and Manu, are the victims of a practical joke that costs Manu his pilot's license. With seeming contrition, the jokesters tell Roland and Manu about a crashed plane lying on the ocean floor off the coast of Congo stuffed with riches. The adventurers set off to find the loot.
The Last Adventure
Amok
Fyodor Otsep
Marcelle Chantal, Jean Yonnel
Dr. Holk leads an isolated and lonely existence in a small, Dutch colony in the tropics. Having fled from love and civilization, his only companions now are alcohol and his work, which takes him to villages ravaged by dirt, fever and a strange illness which turns innocent people into madmen: Amok. One day, he is called on by Helene Haviland, who asks him to abort her lover's child before her husband returns from abroad. Even though Holk is enchanted by her seductive beauty, he haughtily refuses her request. Rejected, the woman turns to a Chinese practitioner. When Holk tracks her down in a dirty dive, it's already too late for the two of them.
Amok
Maya
Raymond Bernard
Viviane Romance, Jean-Pierre Grenier
Based on a venerable Legend of the Sea, the story concerns a pliable prostitute named Bella (Romance) who is all things to all men. No matter what sort of woman her client wants, she will become that woman -- at least for the night. When a middle-aged man named Jean insists that Bella is his long-lost sweetheart, she plays along, hoping to escape her sordid lifestyle. The emotional tragedy that follows is meant to explain how Bella became "Maya," the living embodiment of Lost Souls.
Maya
Der Tiger von Eschnapur
Fritz Lang
Debra Paget, Paul Hubschmid
In Eschnapur, a German architect saves the life of the Maharajah's favorite temple dancer and becomes Maharajah's friend but their friendship is tested when the architect and the dancer fall in-love, triggering the Maharajah's vengeful ire.
The Tiger of Eschnapur
The Wife of General Ling
Ladislao Vajda
Griffith Jones, Valéry Inkijinoff
In this espionage drama, a Secret Service agent must discover who has been smuggling British arms into China. The prime suspect is a prosperous Chinese merchant-philanthropist and the agent thinks the merchant is working with the notorious Chinese guerilla warlord General Ling.
The Wife of General Ling
Le Drame de Shanghaï
G.W. Pabst
Louis Jouvet, Raymond Rouleau
A Russian emigrant sings in a Shanghai nightclub under the assumed name of Kay Murphy. All she dreams of is a peaceful life with her daughter Vera. But this is only a pipe dream as she has been forced by her former lover Ivan to work for a secret criminal organization, "The Black Dragon". Vera, who studies in a Hong Kong boarding-school, knows nothing about her mother's past. When Ivan, who is also Vera's father, resurfaces and blackmails Kay, the young woman is determined to fight back...
The Shanghai Drama
Der Arzt von Stalingrad
Géza von Radványi
O.E. Hasse, Eva Bartok
Dr. Fritz Böhler is a prisoner of war doctor in the Soviet POW camp 5110/47 near Stalingrad. Despite the harshest conditions, he tries to help his fellow prisoners with the simplest means. But when his assistant Dr. Schultheiss falls in love with the Russian doctor Alexandra Kasalinskaja, Schultheiss not only endangers his own life - because Alexandra is the lover of First Lieutenant Markow.
The Doctor of Stalingrad
Les bateliers de la Volga
Vladimir Strizhevsky
Pierre Blanchar, Véra Korène
In 1912, a Russian officer is wrongly accused of having stolen important papers. His only alibi being to have spent the night with the wife of a colonel, he allows himself to be condemned so as not to compromise the latter. He manages to escape and hides in the guise of a poor boatman. One day, the truth comes out, the colonel commits suicide and the lovers are finally reunited.
Les Bateliers de la Volga
Michel Strogoff
Carmine Gallone
Curd Jürgens, Geneviève Page
When Emir Feofar Khan, leader of the Tartar hordes, takes up arms and invades the steppes of Eastern Siberia, Czar Alexander II of Russia entrusts the brave officer Michael Strogoff with a dangerous mission.
Michael Strogoff
Friesennot
Willi Krause
Friedrich Kayssler, Helene Fehdmer
The peaceful life of a village of Frisions by the river Volga is troubled by the arrival of a troop of Red Guards led by the inhuman commissary Tschernoff.Not only content to mistreat the brave villagers led by no-nonsense young man Jürgen Wagner, he makes Mette, a girl born from a Frision man and a Russian woman, his mistress. Outraged, the villagers expel the girl who takes refuge in the marshes. The Bolsheviks are prompt to react, one of them raping a young Frision girl. The Frisions, in desperation, set fire to their village after slaughtering the "Reds" and head for a new motherland, Nazi Germany maybe...
Friesennot
