16 February 2025

GDI: 15 Ross cards from the early 1930s

The Geoffrey Donaldson Institute (GDI) is one of the contributors to EFSP. A few months ago, Egbert Barten of GDI came along with two big bags full of postcard albums. So this year, we'll make a monthly post about one of those albums. Today, we selected 15 Ross Verlag postcards from the early 1930s you've never seen before at EFSP. Presented are female stars who worked for Ufa but also for Hollywood studios like Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros.

Jenny Jugo in Heute nacht - eventuell (1930)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5256/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Messtro-Film. Jenny Jugo in Heute nacht - eventuell/Tonight-Eventually (E.W. Emo, 1930).

Pretty Austrian actress Jenny Jugo (1904-2001) had a prolific career in German cinema, from the late silent era well into the war years. She did particularly well as a comedienne and starred between 1931 and 1942 in eleven smart and charming comedies directed by Erich Engel.

Lil Dagover
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6024/2, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Manassé, Wien. Lil Dagover in Elisabeth von Österreich/Elisabeth of Austria (Adolf Trotz, 1931).

German, but Dutch-born film actress Lil Dagover (1887-1980) was an exotic, dark beauty, who featured prominently during the golden age of German silent cinema. She had her breakthrough as the prey of Dr. Caligari's monster in the classic expressionist film Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) but gradually her fine and evanescent beauty changed and she turned into a ´Salondame´, a lady of the screen. Her career would span nearly six decades.

Lil Dagover
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6685/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Elmer Fryer / Warner Bros.

Lieselotte Schaak
German postcard by Ross Verlag. no. 6257/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

German actress Li(e)selotte Schaak (1908-?) began her film career with the silent films Achtung! Liebe! Lebensgefahr! (1929) and Rivalen im Weltrekord (1929). She experienced the height of her career in the early 1930s when she acted in such films as Alraune (1930) and Der tolle Bomberg (1932). She didn't continue her film career after the war.

Ernst Busch and Brigitte Helm in Eine von uns (1931)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 156/3. Photo: Paramount. Ernst Busch and Brigitte Helm in Eine von uns/One of Us (Johannes Meyer, 1931).

German actress Brigitte Helm (1908-1996) is still famous for her dual role as Maria and her double the evil Maria, the Maschinenmensch, in the silent SF classic Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). After Metropolis she made a string of over 30 films in which she almost always had the starring role. She easily made the transition to sound films, before she abruptly retired in 1935.

Brigitte Helm
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7705/1, 1932-1933. Photo: British European Film. Brigitte Helm in The Blue Danube (Herbert Wilcox, 1932).

Marianne Winkelstern
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6532/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Otto Kurt Vogelsang. Berlin.

German actress Marianne Winkelstern (1910-1966) became well-known as a ballerina in Germany and England. In Germany, she appeared in some silent films and early sound films.

Renate Müller and Willy Fritsch in Saison in Kairo (1933)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 184/2. Photo: Ufa. Renate Müller and Willy Fritsch in Saison in Kairo/Cairo Season (Reinhold Schünzel, 1933).

Popular actress Renate Müller (1906-1937) was the toast of late 1920s Berlin. She had a comet-like career in the early German sound cinema, that was abruptly ended by her mysterious early death.

Maria Solveg
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7446/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Yva, Berlin.

German film and screenwriter Maria Solveg or Maria Matray (1907-1993) was a star of the late Weimar cinema. When Hitler came to power, the Jewish actress went into exile and had a new career in the US as a choreographer and writer.

Mady Christians
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8022/2, 1933-1934. Photo: Gerstenberg / Dührkoop, Berlin.

Austrian-born stage actress Mady Christians (1892-1951) was also a star of the German silent cinema and appeared in Austrian, French, British and Hollywood films too.

Anny Ondra in Das verliebte Hotel (1933)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8244/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Ondra Lamac-Film / Bayerische Film. Anny Ondra in Fräulein Hoffmanns Erzählungen/Miss Hoffmann's Tales (Karel Lamac, 1933).

Anny Ondra (1903-1987) was a Polish-Czech-Austrian-German-French singer, film, and stage actress. During the 1920s and 1930s, she was a popular actress in Czech, Austrian and German comedies, and she was Alfred Hitchcock’s first ‘Blonde’.

Lilian Harvey


Lilian Harvey
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6733/3, 1931-1932. Photo: Ufa.

Lilian Harvey in Ein blonder Traum (1932)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7191/2, 1932-1933. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin / Ufa. Lilian Harvey in Ein blonder Traum/A Blonde Dream (Paul Martin, 1932).

British-born, German actress and singer Lilian Harvey (1906-1968) was Ufa's biggest star of the 1930s. With Willy Fritsch, she formed the 'Dream Team of the European Cinema'. Their best film was the immensely popular Film Operetta Der Kongress tanzt/The Congress Dances (Erik Charell, 1931).

Lilian Harvey In Hollywood
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7687/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Fox. Caption: Lilian Harvey In Hollywood.

Lilian Harvey and John Boles in My Lips Betray (1933)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 7993/1, 1932-1933. Photo: Fox. Lilian Harvey and John Boles in My Lips Betray (John G. Blystone, Henry King, 1933).

To be continued on 15 March 2025. All postcards: Collection Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

15 February 2025

Geneviève Page (1927-2025)

Yesterday, 14 February 2025, long-necked, doe-eyed Geneviève Page (1927) died in Paris. The French actress starred in French, Italian, British, and American films during a career spanning fifty years. She often played glamorous roles in costume pictures as a delectable heroine who meets an untimely demise. Page was 97.

Geneviève Page
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 281. Photo: Studio Harcourt.

Geneviève Page
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 330. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Geneviève Page (1927-2025)
West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3414. Photo: Allianz Film.

Fanfan la Tulipe


Geneviève Page was born Geneviève Bonjean in Paris, France in 1927. Her father was Jacques Paul Bonjean, a well-known French art collector. Her film début was in the murder mystery Pas de pitié pour les femmes/No Pity for Women (Christian Stengel, 1951) starring Simone Renant (AllMovie mentions the documentary Ce Siecle A Cinquante Ans/This Is the Half Century (Denise Tua, 1949) as her first film appearance).

It was followed by the comedy adventure film Fanfan la Tulipe (Christian-Jaque, 1952) in which she played Madame de Pompadour, alongside Gérard Philipe and Gina Lollobrigida. This swashbuckler was an enormous popular success and in 1952, it won both the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Since then, Page has appeared in French, Italian, British and American films. In Great Britain, she appeared opposite David Niven in the romantic comedy The Silken Affair (Roy Kellino, 1956). Opposite Robert Mitchum she played in the American thriller Foreign Intrigue (Sheldon Reynolds, 1956). In France she co-starred with Jean Marais in the comic fantasy Amour de poche/Girl in His Pocket (Pierre Kast, 1957) and in the spy parody L'honorable Stanislas, agent secret/How to Be a Spy Without Even Trying (Jean-Charles Dudrumet, 1963).

In Hollywood, she co-starred in the biographical film romance Song Without End a.k.a. The Story of Franz Liszt (1960) produced by Columbia Pictures. It was directed by Charles Vidor, who died during the shooting of the picture and he was replaced by George Cukor. The film starred Dirk Bogarde as Franz Liszt, Capucine as Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, and Page as Marie d'Agoult. The film won the Best Music Score Academy Award for Morris Stoloff and Harry Sukman and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Musical).

Next, she appeared for Samuel Bronston Productions in the historical epic El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961), a romanticized story of the life of the Christian Castilian knight ‘El Cid’ (Charlton Heston), who in the 11th century fought the North African Almoravides and ultimately contributed to the unification of Spain.

Geneviève Page
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 129/69. Photo: publicity still for El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961).

Jean Marais & Geneviève Page in L'honorable Stanislas, l'agent secret
German postcard by Progress-Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2416. Photo: Jean Marais and Geneviève Page in L'honorable Stanislas, l'agent secret (Jean-Charles Dudrumet, 1963).

Geneviève Page (1927-2025)
East German postcard by Progress-Filmvertrieb, Berlin, no. 2426, 1965. Photo: Geneviève Page in L'honorable Stanislas, l'agent secret (Jean-Charles Dudrumet, 1963).

Belle de Jour


Geneviève Page was a member of the international cast of the American action film Grand Prix (John Frankenheimer, 1966) with James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, and Yves Montand. One of the ten highest-grossing films of 1966, Grand Prix won three Academy Awards for its technical achievements.

One of her most famous films is Belle de Jour (Luis Bunuel, 1967). She played Madame Anais, who runs the high-class brothel, where Séverine (Catherine Deneuve) goes to work. Page appeared with Deneuve again when she played Countess Larisch in the romantic tragedy Mayerling (Terence Young, 1968). Billy Wilder cast her as the mysterious villain in his The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) with Robert Stephens as Sherlock Holmes.

In France, she had a small part in the black comedy Buffet Froid (Bertrand Blier, 1979) with Gérard Dépardieu, and a bigger part in the thriller Mortelle Randonnée/Deadly Circuit (Claude Miller, 1983) with Isabelle Adjani as a serial killer and Michel Serrault as the detective who is on her trail. The film had a total of 916,868 admissions in France.

In the US, she appeared in Robert Altman's Beyond Therapy (1987) with Jeff Goldblum and in Altman’s segment of the anthology film Aria (1987). In Italy she starred in the drama Cartoline italiane/Italian Postcards (Memè Perlini, 1987).

Besides her film career, Geneviève Page had a long and distinguished career on stage. She was the winner of the 1980 Prix de la meilleure comédienne du syndicat de la critique (Best Actress Award of the critics association) for her role in 'Les Larmes amères de Petra von Kant' (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant) at the Théâtre national de Chaillot in Paris, and in 1996, she was nominated for the Molière Award (the French equivalent of the Tony Award) for her role in 'Colombe'. She continued to act until 2003. Geneviève Page was married to Jean-Claude Bujard and they had two children.

Geneviève Page
Yugoslavian postcard by ZK, no. 2190. Photo: Sam Lévin.

Geneviève Page
Yugoslavian postcard by IOM, Beograd. Photo: Sedmo Silo.

Geneviève Page
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.

Sources: AllMovie, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

14 February 2025

La Collectionneuse: Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! We hope you will enjoy these postcards.

Kathryn Adams and John Barrymore in Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (1917)
Swedish postcard by Forlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 17. Kathryn Adams and John Barrymore in Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (George Irving, 1917).

Nerio Bernardi and Vera Vergani in Caterina (1921)
Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 601. Vera Vergani and Nerio Bernardi in Caterina (Mario Caserini, 1921). Vera Vergani and Nerio Bernardi co-starred in six films from 1920 to 1922.

Nita Naldi and Rudolph Valentino
Italian postcard by Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, no. 887.Photo: Verginio Rebuo, Milano. Nita Naldi and Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand (Fred Niblo, Dorothy Arzner, 1922). Nita Naldi and Rudolph Valentino co-starred in three movies from 1922 to 1925.

Eileen Pringle and John Gilbert
Finnish postcard by Kortcentrum Korttikeskus, Helsinki, no. 340. Aileen Pringle and John Gilbert in His Hour (King Vidor, Elinor Glyn, 1924). Aileen Pringle and John Gilbert co-starred in two movies in 1924.

Mae Murray and Lloyd Hughes
French postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn. Mae Murray and Lloyd Hughes in Valencia (Dmitriy Bukhovetskiy, 1926).

Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in Love on the Run (1936)
Dutch postcard by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, no. B 475. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in Love on the Run (W.S. Van Dyke, 1936). Joan Crawford and Clark Gable appeared in eight films together from 1931 to 1940. They were also rumoured to have had a love affair which lasted off and on for several years.

Tyrone Power and Norma Shearerin Marie Antoinette (1938)
Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, Barcelona, no. 4033. Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power in Marie Antoinette (W.S. Van Dyke, 1938). IMDb credits Julien Duvivier as co-director, but he was uncredited and only directed a few crowd scenes.

Mickey and Minnie Mouse
Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 116. Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse. Caption: 'Mickey is singing. Upon hearing his song, Minnie is pining for him on the balcony.'

Assia Noris and Amedeo Nazzari in Centomila dollari (1940)
Italian postcard by Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 2339. Photo: E.N.I.C. Assia Noris and Amadeo Nazzari in Centomila dollari / 100.000 Dollars (Mario Camerini, 1940). Assia Noris and Amedeo Nazzari co-starred in two films in 1938 and 1939.

Ella Raines and George Sanders in The Strange Affair of Uncle Henry (1945).
Spanish postcard. Ella Raines and George Sanders in The Strange Affair of Uncle Henry (Robert Siodmak, 1945).

Valentina Cortese and Richard Conte in Thieves' Highway (1949).
Spanish postcard by Sobe, no. 691. Valentina Cortese and Richard Conte in Thieves' Highway (Jules Dassin, 1949).

Tony Curtis and Jan Sterling in Flesh and Fury (1952) in Flesh and Fury (1952)
French or Belgian postcard. Jan Sterling and Tony Curtis in Flesh and Fury (Joseph Pevney, 1952).

Tyrone Power and Terry Moore in King of the Khyber Rifles (1953)
Spanish postcard, no. 2585. Terry Moore and Tyrone Power in King of the Khyber Rifles (Henry King, 1953).

Natalie Wood and James Garner in Cash McCall (1960)
Spanish postcard by C y A, no. 32. Natalie Wood and James Garner in Cash McCall (Joseph Pevney, 1960).

Barbara Eden and Pat Boone in All Hands on Deck (1961)
Spanish postcard by C y A, no. 95. Barbara Eden and Pat Boone in All Hands on Deck (Norman Taurog, 1961).

Text and postcards: Marlene Pilaete.