Irena Gawecka

Polish actress Irena Gawęcka (1901-1982) was a star of the silent cinema, who made 5 films between 1928 and 1930.


Polish postcard by Polonia, Kraków, no. 1337. Photo: Dorys, Warszawa.


Polish postcard by Polonia, Kraków, no. 1350. Photo: Enhafilm. Publicity still for Magdalena (Konstanty Meglicki, 1929).

Cross of the Civil Service Ceremony

Irena Gawęcka was born in 1901 in Buk, Germany (now Poland).

As a young girl, she participated in the Greater Poland Uprising in the supply department, for which she was awarded the Cross of the Civil Service Ceremony by the Supreme People's Council in 1919.

Then, after high school, Irena Gawęcka travelled around Europe, nothing is known about her acting work during this period.

After returning to Poland, she made her film debut as Countess Zofia opposite Boleslaw Szczurkiewicz as her father in Szaleńcy/Madmen (1928), which was also the directorial debut of Leonard Buczkowski.

Gawęcka contributed with her role to the success of the film. In 1929, the film was awarded the Grand Prix and the Gold Medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.

In 1934, the film returned to the screens already in the sound version with music developed by Tadeusz Górzyński.


Polish postcard by Polonia, Kraków, no. 1352. Photo: Enhafilm. Publicity still for Magdalena (Konstanty Meglicki, 1929).

A promising acting career broken

In 1929, Irena Gawęcka appeared in three more Polish silent films.

The first was the drama Ponad snieg/Above the snow (Konstanty Meglicki, 1929) in which she had a supporting part.

The second was Magdalena (Konstanty Meglicki, 1929) and the third was the war drama Z dnia na dzien/One Day to the Day After Next (Joseph Lejtes, 1929), in which she played the leading role.

When the sound entered the Polish cinemas, Gawęcka retired. She only appeared in the small role of a fisher woman in the film Wiatr od morza/Wind from the Sea (Kazimierz Czynski, 1930), but it was not a success. Her promising acting career was broken.

After the war, Irena Gawęcka settled in France. There she died in 1982 in Le Chesnay at the age of 81.


Polish postcard by Polonia, Kraków, no. 1335. Photo: Dorys, Warszawa.


Polish postcard by Polonia, Kraków, no. 1351. Photo: Enhafilm. Publicity still for Magdalena (Konstanty Meglicki, 1929).

Sources: Filmpolski.pl (Polish), Wikipedia (Polish) and IMDb.

Photo by Félix

In the early 1910s, Edition Pathé Frères published many postcards of the studio's stars. Among them were Stacia Napierkowska, Robinne and Berthe Bovy. And the biggest star of them all was the marvellous comedian Max Linder. Their photos were often taken by photographer Félix, who worked in his studio in Paris.


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Andrée Pascal (1892-1982) was a French actress who was highly active in French silent cinema. She did over 30 films for Pathé in the early 1910s, but suddenly stopped her film career after acting in L'empereur des pauvres (1922).


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix. Caption: Mlle Berthe Bovy of the Comédie Française. 1910s.

Berthe Bovy (1887-1977) was a Belgian stage and screen actress. She was a regular stage actress at the Comédie Française since 1907, but also acted in some 30 early silent films at mainly Pathé, and afterwards in some 20 sound films between the 1930s and early 1970s. She also worked for TV.


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Madeleine Céliat was a French stage actress who started out in film in 1909. She played in historical films by Pathé like Messalina (Henri Andréani 1910) and in one film by Eclair: La fin de Don Juan (Victorine-Hippolyte Jasset 1912), in which she played donna Anna. In 1912 Charles Pathé sent her to its Italian subsidiary Film d'Arte Italiana, in order to replace Francesca Bertini


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Germaine Dermoz (1888–1966), younger sister of actress Jeanne Delvair, was a French film and theatre actress of the early-to-mid twentieth century. She is most famous for her portrayal of Madame Beudet in Germaine Dulac's avant-garde film La souriante Madame Beudet/The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923).


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Maria Fromet (1902-1967), aka 'la petite Fromet', is mostly known for her countless parts as little girl in the films by Pathé Frères of the early 1910s.


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

French comedian Max Linder (1883-1925), with his trademark silk hat, stick and moustache was an influential pioneer of the silent film. He was largely responsible for the creation of the classic style of silent slapstick comedy and he was the highest paid entertainer of his day.


French postcard by Editions Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.


French postcard by Editions Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.


French postcard by Edition Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Marcelle Monthil (1892-1950) was a French actress who started her film career in the days of the early silent cinema. She played dozens of supporting and bit parts during the 1930s and 1940s.


French postcard by Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

During the early 1910s handsome French actor Castillan starred in several short films by Pathé Frères.


French postcard by Editions Pathé Frères. Photo: Félix.

Gabriel Signoret aka Signoret (1878-1937) was a French actor and director who played in some 85 films, mostly silent ones.


French postcard. Photo: Félix, Paris. Signed in 1913.

With his brooding good looks, stage and film actor Paul Capellani (1877-1960) became a successful star of some 100 French and American films between 1908 and 1930. He was the younger brother of noted film director Albert Capellani and he appeared in many of his brother’s silent historical films.

Na semi vetrakh (1962)

In the early 1960s, the East-German film distributor VEB Progress Film-Verleih published some series of big cards for East-European films. Earlier we did a post on
the French-Czechoslovakian co-production La liberté surveillée/Provisional Liberty (Henri Aisner, Vladimír Vlcek, 1958) with Marina Vlady and Robert Hossein. Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) is a Russian drama about the homefront during the Second World. The beautiful Larisa Luzhina plays the lead role, a peasant girl waiting for her beloved to return from the front.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 1. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 2. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962).


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 3. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina and Vyacheslav Tikhonov.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 4. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962).


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 7. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962).

Waiting in a back-water town

In the Russian war drama Na semi vetrakh (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) a simple Russian girl, Svetlana Ivashova (Larisa Luzhina) arrives in a small, back-water town to meet her boyfriend Igor.

But the Second World War has begun and Igor has left to join the army. Svetlana decides to stay, to wait for his return and for the war to end.

Svetlana patiently waits in the post office, where her boyfriend works, for the war to end, and she does all she can to help defeat the Nazis. Sometimes she works on a newspaper.

When the post office is temporarily used as a hospital, she works as a nurse. Her hard work earns her a medal. Eventually Svetlana and her lover are happily reunited.

In the US Na semi vetrakh was titled Four Winds of Heaven and in the UK In Seven Winds.

Other actors in the cast were Vyacheslav Tikhonov as Captain Suzdalev, Klara Luchko as Doctor Natalia Guseva and Leonid Bykov as Postman.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 8. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 9. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 10. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 11. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina and Leonid Bykov.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 12. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 14. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 15. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962).


Big East-German card by Progress, no. 16. Publicity still for Na semi vetrakh/Four Winds of Heaven (Stanislav Rostotskiy, 1962) with Larisa Luzhina.

Source: Kinoglaz.fr and IMDb.