Pierre Richard-Willm

Elegant French actor Pierre Richard-Willm (1895-1983) starred in 40 films during the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. The good-looking jeune premier excelled in the foreign legion melodrama Le Grand Jeu / The Great Game (1934) and as Edmond Dantès in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo / The Count of Monte-Christo (1943).


French postcard, no. 31. Photo: publicity still for Stradivarius (Albert Valentin, Géza von Bolváry, 1935).


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 1117. Photo: Raymond Voinquel.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 609. Photo: Studio Lorelle.


French postcard by Editions Chantal, no. 31. Photo: R. Voinquel / Flora Films / Productions Max Glas.


French card. Pierre Richard Willm in Un Carnet de Bal / Dance Program (Julien Duvivier, 1937).


French postcard by EC, no. 43.


French postcard, no. 43.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2174/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Rudolph, Paris.

Charming spectators of all ages

Pierre Richard-Willm was born as Alexander Pierre Richard in south-western France in the city of Bayonne in 1895. His mother, Elisabeth-Fanny Willm, died at the age of thirty-one, and from 1905 on, he was raised by his maternal grandmother in Bordeaux.

He attended the école des Beaux-Arts in Nantes. Theatre was his passion, and in 1911, he started as an amateur at the Théâtre du Peuple de Bussang. In 1916, he joined the army and fought during World War I at Verdun. 

After the war, he became a sculptor, and in 1921, he started playing bit roles on the professional stage. From 1925 on, he worked at the Odeon in Paris in plays like 'La dame aux camélias' under the pseudonym Richard Willm, the combined name of his father and mother.

His film debut as a jeune premier came in the Paramount production Toute sa vie / Sarah and Son (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1930), followed by another film by Alberto Cavalcanti for Paramount, Les Vacances du diable / The Devil's Holiday (1931).

With his elegance and good looks, he charmed spectators of all ages. In the next years, he made dozens of films, including French versions of Ufa productions, including Autour d'une enquête / Preliminary Investigation (Pierre Chomette, Robert Siodmak, 1931) starring Annabella, and La fille du régiment / The Daughter of the Regiment (Pierre Billon, Carl Lamac, 1933) starring Anny Ondra.


French card.


French postcard by EC, no. 985. Photo: Studio Rudolph, Paris.


French postcard by Editions et Publications cinematographiques, no. 29. Photo: Forster.


French postcard by Viny, no. 81. Photo: Studio Rudolph.


French postcard by Viny, no. 84. Photo: Studio Rudolph.


French postcard by Erpé, no. 578. Photo: Raymond Voinquel. 578. Pierre Richard-Willm in Les nuits moscovites / Moscow Nights (Alexis Granowski, 1934).


French postcard, no. 31. Pierre Richard Willm in La maison dans la dune / The House on the Dune (Pierre Billon, 1934).

French promotion card by L'ermitage, Paris. Pierre Richard Willm in La route impériale / The Imperial Road (Marcel L'Herbier, 1935).


French postcard, no. 134. Photo Studio Harcourt.


French postcard by S.E.R.P., Paris, no. 134. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Count of Monte Cristo

Pierre Richard-Willm’s breakthrough was the Foreign Legion melodrama Le Grand Jeu / The Great Game (Jacques Feyder, 1934), in which he starred opposite Charles Vanel and Marie Bell.

In the following years, he often played the partner of diva Edwige Feuillère in such films as Stradivarius (Albert Valentin, Géza von Bolváry, 1935), Barcarolle (Gerhard Lamprecht, Roger Le Bon, 1935), La Dame de Malacca / Woman of Malacca (Marc Allégret, 1937) and La Duchesse de Langeais / Wicked Duchess (Jacques de Baroncelli, 1942).

Famous director Max Ophüls directed him in Yoshiwara (1937) and Werther (1938). A big hit was Un Carnet de bal / Dance Program (Julien Duvivier, 193) in which Marie Bell stars as a woman who decides to find out about the men (including Pierre Richard-Willm) who once danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life.

His most famous role was Edmond Dantès in two episodes of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo / The Count of Monte-Cristo (Robert Vernay, 1943), based on the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas père. He starred as composer Franz Liszt in Rêves d'Amour / Dreams of Love (Christian Stengel, 1942-1947), for which film he also designed the sets.

In 1946, he decided to retire from the cinema and to dedicate himself completely to his beloved Theatre Vosgien. In 1975, he published his memoirs, 'Loin des Étoiles' (Far from the stars), in which he wrote that the cinema had only been a nice intermission for him. Pierre Richard-Willm died in 1983 in Paris and is buried at the cemetery in Bussang.


French collector card by Massilia. Photo: Filmsonor. Pierre Richard Willm in La dame de Malacca / Woman of Malacca (Marc Allégret, 1937).


French collector card by L'Olympia. Pierre Richard Willm in Yoshiwara (Max Ophüls, 1937).


French card. Pierre Richard Willm in Un Carnet de Bal / Dance Program (Julien Duvivier, 1937).


Yugoslav (now Croatian) leaflet by Re-Ka-Pa, Zagreb. Suzy Prim and Pierre Richard-Willm in the Franco-Italian co-production La principessa Tarakanova / Tarakanowa / Betrayal (Fyodor Ozep, Mario Soldati, 1938), a film famous for its early use of pan-focus cinematography. In Yugoslavia, the film was presented as Kneginja Tarakanova. Russian Empress Catherine the Great (Suzy Prim) sends her dearest aide, Alexei Orloff, on a mission to unmask the throne pretender Elisabeth Tarakanova (Annie Vernay), but the story becomes a tragedy when Orloff falls in love with the young woman. The film was shot in Italy in both a French and an Italian version. The American release title was Betrayal.


French postcard by Ed. Chantal, Paris, no. 43. Photo: Discina, Paris. Pierre Richard-Willm in La loi du nord / Law of the North (Jacques Feyder, 1939).


French postcard by Ed. Chantal, Rueil, no. 43B. Photo: Roger Richebé.


French postcard, no. 633. Photo: Chromos Film.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 20. Photo: Teddy Piaz.


French postcard by O.P., Paris, no. 2. Photo: Studio Piaz.


French postcard by S.E.R.P., Paris, no. 22. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


French postcard by EPC, no. 134. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


Belgian postcard by P.E. (Photo Édition), no. 152. Photo: Studio Cayet.

Sources: Caroline Hanotte (Cineartistes - Now defunct), Franck Richard (Now defunct), Wikipedia and IMDb.

Molly Peters

Molly Peters (1939–2017) was an English glamour model and actress best known for her role as Bond girl Patricia Fearing in the James Bond film Thunderball (1965). In the wake of her 007 stint, Peters acted in a few more films and episodes of TV shows and graced the cover of Playboy. Peters had her acting career cut short after reportedly having a falling out with her agent.


British postcard by Klasik Kards, London, no. 1593. Photo: Sean Connery and Molly Peters in Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965).


Spanish postcard by Postal Oscarcolor, no. 462. Sean Connery, Luciana Paluzzi, Martine Beswick, Claudine Auger and Molly Peters in Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965).

James Bond's physiotherapist

Molly or Mollie Peters was born as Vivien Mollie Rudderham in 1939 in Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk, England. She was baptised Vivien Mollie, and Peter was her brother’s name. She never had a thought of a show business career when she left home and went to London, and after her shop girlfriends said that she should try modelling.

Voluptuous Peters started out as a pin-up and nude model and posed for men's magazines like 'Modern Man', 'Calvalcade', 'Ace', 'Parade' and 'Escapade'. She played a small part in the British historical comedy The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (Terence Young, 1965) starring Kim Novak, Richard Johnson and Angela Lansbury. The film, based on the 1722 novel 'Moll Flanders' by Daniel Defoe, ranked among the 13 most popular films in the UK in 1965. The film's director, Terence Young, spotted her on the set and offered her a screen test for his next film, the Spy film Thunderball.

The Bond producers chose her, and the natural brunette became blonde for the part. Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965) is the fourth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film follows Bond's mission to find two NATO atomic bombs stolen by SPECTRE, which holds the world ransom to the tune of £100 million in diamonds under threat of destroying an unspecified metropolis. Molly Peters played one of the Bond girls, Patricia Fearing or Pat.

Pat is a physiotherapist who cares for James Bond while he is on holiday at her health clinic. He seduces her. They make love in a steam room, and she is later massaged by Bond while she's wearing nothing but a towel. 23-year-old Peters was the first Bond girl to be seen taking her clothes off on screen in the Bond series, though she was not completely naked. The erotic scene was considered offensive at the time and was toned down at the request of the British Board of Film Classification to avoid an X rating. Peters' voice was dubbed by Barbara Jefford. To promote the film, Peters appeared in Playboy, in the November 1965 issue. Her appearance was as part of a pictorial essay titled 'James Bond's Girls', by Richard Maibaum. Released at the very height of Bondmania, Peters travelled the world promoting Thunderball, most notably in South America.

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times liked the film. He felt that Bond "has a much better sense of humor than he has shown in his previous films. And this is the secret ingredient that makes Thunderball the best of the lot. (...) Thunderball is pretty, too, and it is filled with such underwater action as would delight Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau." Thunderball was exceptionally successful: its worldwide box-office receipts of $141.2 million (equivalent to $1,442,600,000 in 2025) exceeded not only those of each of its predecessors but that of every one of the next five Bond films that followed it.


German postcard. Photo: dpa. Sean Connery and Molly Peters in Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965).


German postcard. Photo: P.A. Reuter. Sean Connery in Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965).

A dispute with her agent

After Thunderball, Molly Peters appeared in films and on television during the 1960s, but her parts were limited. She had a supporting part in the Austrian-German-Italian crime film Das Geheimnis der gelben Mönch / Target for Killing (Manfred R. Köhler, 1966) starring Stewart Granger. It was shot between Maghreb, Yugoslavia and Rome. She had a part as a secretary in the British comedy Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (Jerry Paris, 1968) starring Jerry Lewis and Terry-Thomas in swinging London. The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Even the most diehard Jerry Lewis enthusiasts would be hard put to find anything to please them in this disastrous muddle of a film."

Molly played a barmaid uncredited in the British World War I action–drama Zeppelin (Étienne Périer, 1971) in Panavision and Technicolour. The film stars Michael York, Elke Sommer and Anton Diffring. Zeppelin depicts a fictitious attempt to raid Britain in a German Zeppelin to steal the Magna Carta from its hiding place in one of Scotland's castles or destroy it. Zeppelin was well received by the public, who viewed the Zeppelin airship as the real "star", but the critical reaction was not positive. Evening Standard thought it was "funny but not intentionally."

Molly Peters' final film was the tragi-comedy Nobody Ordered Love (Robert Hartford-Davis, 1972). Ingrid Pitt, in her last starring role, played Alice Allison, the alcoholic star of a new First World War movie entitled The Somme. The film director attempts to replace her with an up-and-coming starlet when a series of tragic events begins to unfold. Director Hartford-Davis had a falling out with Rank over the lack of promotion they were giving Nobody Ordered Love and stormed off with the prints to the States. The film is now considered lost. Unclear is whether and what role Peters played in the film. On television, she only appeared in episodes of the TV shows Armchair Theatre and Baker's Half-Dozen.

What went wrong with the once promising career of Molly Peters? According to the special edition DVD of Thunderball, Peters' short film career was the result of a dispute between her and her agent. The specifics of the disagreement were not revealed, other than according to Peters, her agent at the time of Thunderball held her to her contract agreement of representation because of the mega-successful box-office hit of the fourth James Bond film in 1965. It was only many years later, when the fame, the glamour and the chaos from the release of Thunderball had faded, that her contractual agreement ended; and so had any modelling and/or film prospects.

When she was young, Molly Peters gave birth to a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption. Peters married in 1972 and lived with her husband in Ipswich, Suffolk. She and her husband had a son, Aaron, who tragically died in 2013 whilst serving in the Royal Marines. “That has shattered my life,” she admitted to Matthew Field on the James Bond site MI6. “He used to take the mickey out of me, ‘Oh My Bond,’ he would say. He was in the Royal Marine Commandos. They write letters in case they die in service. He had written one for me in case anything happened to him. In it, he said how proud he was that his mother had been in a Bond film. That brought floods of tears.” In 2011, Molly Peters suffered a mild stroke. She died in 2017, at the age of 78, at Taunton Hospital, Somerset.


French postcard by Danjaq, LLC and United Artists, 2012. Photo: Sean Connery and Molly Peters in Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965).


Dutch postcard. Photo: dpa. Sean Connery and Molly Peters in Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965).

Sopurces: Matthew Field (MI6), Woody Anders (IMDb), Bosley Crowter (New York Times), Wikipedia (English and German) and IMDb.

Published by Ed. Le Deley (ELD)

Ernest Louis Désiré Le Deley was one of the leading French postcard publishers between 1900 and 1914. His Ed. Le Deley (ELD) in Paris published many theatre and film postcards. Here's the story of Ernest Le Deley and a selection of 21 ELD postcards.


Spanish edition by ELD of the postcard series Passion et mort de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Photo: Films Pathé Frères. This was the fourth part of the French silent film La Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Maurice André Maître, Pathé Frères, 1913), with Jacques Norman playing Christ.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé. Publicity still from Les Trois Mousquetaires / The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant Berger, 1921), based on the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas père, and produced by Pathé Consortium Cinéma.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Gina Relly in L'empereur des pauvres / The Emperor of the Poor (René Leprince, 1922), an adaptation of the novel by Felicien Champsaur.

A man with a keen business sense

Ernest Louis Désiré Le Deley was born in 1859 in Mont Saint-Aignan in the Seine-Maritime department of Normandy. He was given the same first name as his father, a shoemaker. His mother was Sophie Victoire Flambart. In 1886, the 27-year-old Ernest Junior lived in Paris with Josephine Petit. The unmarried couple had two sons, Maurice Ernest and Joseph Louis. Ernest was a ‘phototypeur’ (a phototype printer). In the early 1890s, he worked for Edmond Laussedat’s factory and workshops in Châteaudun, some 130 km south of Paris, and later in Cloyes, some 12 km south of Châteaudun. In 1890, Ernest and Josephine were living in Cloyes and had a third son, Edmond Alfred, named after Edmond Laussedat.

In 1898, Ernest Le Deley took over Henri Racle’s phototype business at 73 Rue Claude Bernard in Paris. In 1886, André Quinsac had been the first to set up shop there as a ‘phototypeur’. Quinsac had a reputation as the ‘best’ phototype printer in France. He won gold medals at various international exhibitions. Following his death, Louis Rouillé and then Henri Racle took over the business and the collection. Both soon found themselves in debt and were eventually forced to sell everything.

Le Deley realised there has been a new medium in which phototype can be used: the picture postcard. In 1889, to mark the World’s Fair, 300,000 cards were printed featuring an engraving of the new Eiffel Tower. In the summer of 1891, Dominique Piazza from Marseille released the first postcard(s) featuring a photograph printed using phototype. Postcards thus became increasingly popular during the 1890s, though they were certainly not yet a craze. It was not until 1898 that the Almanach du Commerce de Paris included the ‘Cartes Postales’ section for the first time, listing only Adolph Philipp. A year later, there were already five. And that number would grow rapidly in the early 1900s. Le Deley recognised that the postcard might well become a best-selling item, and that phototype is the method of choice for printing cards with a sharp image. However, he was not primarily thinking of ‘postcards’ when he took over Racle’s business. He wanted to open a phototype printing works in Paris, like his friend Edmond Laussedat from Châteaudun, for whom he had worked for almost 10 years.

The 1899 edition of the Almanach du Commerce in Paris still lists Henri Racle at 73 Rue Claude-Bernard, but Ernest only took over the business at the end of 1898, which was already too late for the Almanach’s deadline. 1900 is therefore the first year in which he could have had an advertisement for his business placed in the Almanach. Under ‘Cartes Postales’, some 20 names can already be found, and Ernest is among them, but only with his name and address and a reference to the phototype section. There, his advertisement is considerably larger and, by a strange twist of fate and, above all, of the alphabet, he is placed directly beneath his former employer, Edmond Laussedat, who also has a studio in Paris. Ernest stated that he was the successor to Quinsac, the leading name in phototypie. Racle and Rouillé were omitted. He registered for the upcoming World Exhibition in Paris, running from 15 April to 12 November.

It soon became clear that Ernest Le Deley had a keen business sense and was determined to make a success of his enterprise. A year after taking part in the World’s Fair, he published a large-format album featuring 50 large-scale images from the exhibition. He also released the first volume in the series ‘France Pittoresque et Monumentale’. In 1902, Ernest was granted a 15-year patent for his ‘Stéromobile le merveilleux’, a device for viewing stereoscopic cards. Ernest then releases sets of 12 cards, packaged in an envelope, including a couple of lovely sets of Paris. Business is going well, and Ernest is running out of space on Rue Claude Bernard. In the course of 1902, he opened a new factory at 11–13 Rue des Arquebusiers. He now needed a shop for his postcards. The postcard craze really took off with the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. The cards could be bought in bookshops, newsagents or kiosks, and in shops selling tourist souvenirs, but soon proper ‘postcard shops’ began to open as well. Some of these shopkeepers produced their own cards, but most sold picture postcards, fantasy cards, etc., which they purchased from various publishers, including Le Deley. In 1905, Ernest took over the entire stock and the postcard shop of Charles L'Hôpital on Boulevard Sébastopol, a prime location. He named it the 'Grand Comptoir de Carte Postale Illustrée. He also had his two 'factories' in Rue Claude Bernard and Rue des Arquebusiers.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley, Paris. Gabrielle Réjane in the stage play 'Madame Sans-Gêne' by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau, performed at the Théâtre Moncey in Paris. Réjane starred as the outspoken laundress Catherine Hübscher, who later becomes the Duchess of Danzig. The play was written by Sardou and Moreau for Réjane and was first performed on 27th October 1893 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, owned by her husband, Paul Porel. This card is for a later version, again with Réjane - even if Gallica does not indicate any staging of the play at this theatre with Réjane in the lead. After the first performances in 1893, Réjane would repeat the play several times at her own Théâtre Réjane, opened in 1906.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley, Paris. Georges Dorival in 'L'Affaire des poisons', performed in 1907, by Victorien Sardou. French stage and screen actor Dorival or Georges Dorival (1871-1939) made triumphant tours as Le Coq (the coquerel) in Edmond Rostand's 'Chantecler'. He appeared in 26 films at Pathé Frères between 1909 and 1914 and was also a painter and an important art collector.


French postcard by ELD (Ernest Le Deley). Retirement home of the Association des Artistes Dramatiques in Pont-aux-Dames-Couilly (S.- and M.) M. Coquelin Ainé, Président. Benoît-Constant Coquelin (1841-1909), known as Coquelin aîné (Coquelin the Elder), was a French actor who was known as one of the greatest theatrical figures of the age.


French postcard by ELD (Ed. Le Deley). Scene from 'Chantecler' (1910) by Edmond Rostand. Act II. Les Nocturnes. Caption: Ode to the Night.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley (ELD), no. 87. Félix Galipaux in the French stage play 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand.

The peak of the postcard craze

Around 1905, ‘postcards’ were all the rage, particularly among the bourgeoisie, many of whose women and children began collecting them. Ernest Le Deley doesn’t just sell his cards in his shop. He has sales representatives who sell his cards all over France. He sends a card to the businesses he plans to visit. The heliotype printing business he took over from Henri Racle in Rue Claude-Bernard in late 1898 had grown into a large enterprise. In Rue des Arquebusiers alone, some 60 men were employed. On Sunday, 28 June 1908, a fire broke out in the workshop on Rue des Arquebusiers. There was particularly significant damage to the precision machinery and photographic equipment. Ernest stated that the 60 employees would not be left unemployed, but could work temporarily at the other factory on Rue Claude-Bernard.

A few years after opening his shop in Paris, Ernest also wanted to open branches, which he had run by a manager. An invoice from 1915 lists nine branches. The postcard craze reached its peak around 1907–1910. Between 1905 and 1910, the Bergeret company in Nancy produced between 90 and 100 million cards a year. Between 1900 and 1930, they are estimated to have printed a billion cards. No figures are available for Ernest Le Deley’s production, but he must undoubtedly have printed millions of cards as well. This was also necessary to be able to pay all his staff.

Ernest not only sells his maps to shopkeepers in France, but he also offers them the opportunity to publish postcards under their own name, which he prints. He can take all the hassle off their hands, enabling even shopkeepers in small villages to publish a series of picture postcards. Ernest does not limit himself to France in this regard; he also sends his sales representatives to Belgium. He usually publishes the postcards of the major cities himself.

On Friday 20 December 1913, another fire broke out at Ernest’s factory on Rue des Arquebusiers. This time, the damage amounted to 350,000 francs. The war did not dampen postcard sales. Publishers were able to print thousands of cards featuring photographs of soldiers, the front line, ruins, events, as well as propaganda and satirical cards. Many soldiers sent a card home from time to time. Ernest, too, produced a great many ‘war cards’. Ernest Le Deley would not live to see the end of the war. He died on 6 August 1917 at the age of 58 in his flat at 41 Rue Censier, some 700 metres from 73 Rue Claude-Bernard, where he had opened his printing business in late 1898.

With her sons serving in the army, Josephine Petit had to leave the day-to-day running of the shop and printing workshops in the hands of her staff until her sons returned. The eldest, Maurice Ernest, took over the management from April 1919. The golden age of the postcard was drawing to a close. Maurice, who had already been involved in the photographic side of the business before the war, now focused more on photography. In 1920, he had a stand at the 1st International Exhibition in Lille. He took photographs of all the stands and the surroundings, and inside his stand, he had a photo studio where visitors could have their photograph taken. A series of postcards was quickly printed in Paris from these photographs and sold at the exhibition.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley (ELD) / GPL. Photo: Bert. Mme Simone as La Faisane (The Pheasant) in 'Chantecler' (1910), written by Edmond Rostand. French actress and writer Pauline Benda (1877- 1985) was known as Madame Simone or simply Simone. She made her debut in the theatre in 1902 and acted in plays by Luigi Pirandello and Henry Bataille. In 1898, she married stage actor Charles Le Bargy. She was 21 at the time, he 40. After divorcing Le Bargy, she took the name Madame Simone. In 1909, she married Claude Casimir-Perier, son of former president Jean Casimir-Perier. Alain-Fournier was her secretary and also her lover during this marriage, but he died as a conscript as early as 1914. In 1915, she married for the third time, this time to writer François Porché. In her younger life, she had often acted in Porché's plays. From 1930, she devoted herself to writing. Her last book was published in 1970.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley (ELD) / GPL. Photo Bert. Lucien Guitry as Le coq (The Rooster), i.e. Chantecler in the stage play 'Chantecler' by Edmond Rostand. Lucien Guitry (1860-1925) was considered the preeminent French actor of his day. For many years, he played opposite Sarah Bernhardt. He also appeared in silent films like Tosca (1908) and Ceux de chez nous (1915). He was married to Jeanne Desclois and Renée de Pont-Jest, and his son was the well-known actor-writer-director Sacha Guitry.


Spanish edition by ELD of the postcard series Passion et mort de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. This was the fourth part of the French silent film La Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Maurice André Maître, Pathé Frères, 1913), with Jacques Norman playing Christ. Caption: The Death of Jesus.


Spanish edition by ELD of the postcard series Passion et mort de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Photo: Pathé Frères. This was the fourth part of the French silent film La Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Maurice André Maître, 1913), with Jacques Norman playing Christ. ELD also issued three postcard series on the other three parts of the films: 1. Naissance de Jésus; 2. L'Enfance de Jésus; 3. Vie publique et miracles de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ. A print of this film has been preserved by the Cinémathèque française. Caption: The Grave.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley (ELD). Photo: Films Pathé-Frères. Henry Krauss as Jean Valjean, relentlessly pursued by the Justice, in Les Misérables (Albert Capellani, 1913). Sent by mail in 1916.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Frères. Gaudin as Gavroche in Les Misérables (Albert Capellani, 1913), adapted from the famous novel by Victor Hugo. Caption: The Death of Gavroche. During the June Revolution of 1832, young Gavroche (Gaudin), son of the Thenardier couple, is killed while collecting bullets from deceased soldiers. On this card, he is shown as a revolutionary hero. This card is part of a booklet made by Le Deley with multiple portraits of the main actors and various scenes of the film.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé. Publicity still from Les Trois Mousquetaires / The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant Berger, 1921), based on the famous novel by Alexandre Dumas père, and produced by Pathé Consortium Cinéma. On this card, the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan, played by Henri Rollan as Athos, Charles Martinelli as Porthos, Pierre de Guingand as Aramis, and Aimé Simon-Girard as D'Artagnan. In the back, Armand Bernard as Planchet and Louis Pré fils as Grimaud.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinéma. Still from Les Trois Mousquetaires / The Three Musketeers (Henri Diamant Berger, 1921). On the right side, Richelieu (Édouard de Max) is playing chess against, possibly, King Louis XIII. Left, Queen Anne of Austria (Jeanne Desclos). The silent super-serial Les Trois Mousquetaires / The Three Musketeers (1921) was the first film adaptation of the famous adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas père, published in 1844. It was a French twelve-hour film divided into one-hour chapters, designed to be released in consecutive weeks over a three-month period.


French postcard by Ed. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: U.C.I. / Gaumont / Tiber Film. Hesperia in Il figlio di Madame Sans-Gêne (Baldassarre Negroni, 1921), adapted from the novel by Émile Moreau. Here, Hesperia as Madame Sans-Gêne is portrayed similarly to François Gérard's portrait of Juliette Récamier.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: U.C.I. / Gaumont / Tiber Film. Hesperia and perhaps Luigi Rinaldi or Camillo de Rossi in Il figlio di Madame Sans-Gêne / The Son of Madame Sans-Gêne (Baldassarre Negroni, 1921), based on the novel by Émile Moreau.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinema. Scene from the French silent film L'Empereur des pauvres (René Leprince, 1922), an adaptation of the novel by Felicien Champsaur, starring Léon Mathot, Gina Relly and Henry Krauss. The man down right on this card could be Mathot.


French postcard by M. Le Deley, Paris. Photo: Pathé Consortium Cinema. Gina Relly in L'Empereur des pauvres (René Leprince, 1922). The rich, young and spoiled Marc Anavan (Léon Mathot) decides to change his life, becomes a vagabond and starts doing good around him. He becomes the peaceful spokesperson for the disinherited, helped by the love of pure, young Sylvette (Gina Relly). Marc has to face revolution, anarchism and the Great War before retaking his humanitarian mission. In the end, he overcomes all the hardships on his way.


French postcard by Ets. Le Deley, Paris, for Gaumont-Metro-Goldwyn. Photo: Metro Goldwyn. Caption: a new screen star, Norma Shearer.

Source: Franki Olieu (Kortrijk in oude postkaarten - Dutch).