American postcard. Sent by mail in France.
Film historians consider The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) to be the first American action film and the first Western. Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson played three roles in The Great Train Robbery. It became the first blockbuster and was one of the most popular films of the silent era until the release of The Birth of a Nation in 1915. This unknown Western must have been made between these two milestones. There were many ink dots on the card, so I put quite some work into the scan, but I love the result.
French postcard by S.I.P., no. 918/1. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.
Beautiful Manon Loti, or Manon Loty, was an opera singer and actress. She was also a noted courtesan. At least one of her liaisons has been written about. She had a short, passionate affair with the dashing and wealthy Russian nobleman, Nikolay Felixovich Yusupov. The two were 'inseparable' during their affair in Paris. Nikolay’s brother, Prince Felix, described Loti as a beautiful and famous courtesan who lived in great luxury. Loti employed a dwarf as her servant and 'mascot'. Loti was a popular entertainer. She was often seen at Maxime’s, a Paris gathering spot for wealthy royals and industrialists. Men made arrangements with the Belle Epoque courtesans who gathered there. A 1910 article in Pearson’s magazine mentions her as an example of a “mercenary woman”.
French postcard by Établissements photographiques du Boulogne-sur-Seine. Photo: H. Manuel. Caption: Casino de Paris.
French actress and singer Mistinguett (1875-1956) captivated Paris with her risqué routines. She went on to become the most popular French entertainer of her time and the highest-paid female entertainer in the world. She appeared in the cinema more than 60 times.
Max Dearly (1874-1943) was a French actor, famous for his roles in 1930s French sound films but also for his previous career in Parisian Vaudeville.
French postcard. René Poyen as Bout de Zan.
René Poyen (1908-1968) was a famous child star in silent French cinema. At the age of four, he started at the Gaumont film company as the popular character Bout-de-Zan, a child dressed in adult clothing. Most of his burlesque comedies were filmed by Louis Feuillade.
French postcard by Imp. Phot. Neurdein et Cie, Paris. Photo: Cinéma Éclair. M. Teddy as Corporal Parisot and Josette Andriot as the spy in Les Poilus de la 9me (Rémond, 1916).
Édouard Pinto alias Teddy (1887-1965) was a Portuguese-born actor and acrobat. In 1904, whilst in Barcelona, Teddy met Segundo de Chomón. Chomón filmed him in a sketch in Spain as a clown reading his newspaper, while his sidekick sets the pages alight and ends up setting fire to the clown’s hat. Till 1923, Teddy starred in many French films, often for the Eclair company.
Josette Andriot (1886–1942) was a French film actress of the silent film era. From 1911, she did 60 films for Eclair and became known as the accomplice of Zigomar in the eponymous crime series. Yet, she is best known for playing Protéa in a series of espionage films made between 1913 and 1919. She dressed in a close-fitting black jersey, two years before Musidora would do so as Irma Vep in Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires.
French postcard by Cine Cartes, no. 1. Photo: Film Aubert. André Feramus as Gilbert de Kéradec in Sarati le terrible / Sarati the Terrible (René Hervil, Louis Mercanton, 1923). Caption: Gilbert de Kerradec on the quays of Algiers.
Sarati le terrible / Sarati the Terrible (René Hervil, Louis Mercanton, 1923) was an adaptation of a novel by Jean Vignaud. A man of humble origins, César Sarati (Henri Baudin) has made his fortune in the coal trade in Algiers. He ruthlessly exploits the indigenous labourers at the port, to whom he rents out, at exorbitant prices, slum dwellings in his large house in the Casbah, and lends money at interest.
French postcard in the Les Vedettes du Cinéma series by Éditions Filma, no. 84. Photo: Films Aubert.
Sessue Hayakawa (1889–1973) was a Japanese Issei actor who starred in American, Japanese, French, German, and British films. He was the first Asian actor to find stardom in the United States and Europe. His 'broodingly handsome' good looks and typecasting as a sinister villain with sexual dominance made him a heartthrob among American women. Several years before Rudolph Valentino, he was Hollywood's first male sex symbol. During those early years, Hayakawa was as well known and as popular as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, although today his name is largely unknown to the public.
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 395.
American actress Clara Bow (1905-1965) rose to stardom as an uninhibited flapper in silent films during the 1920s. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It (1927) brought her global fame and the nickname 'The It Girl'. Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.
French promotion card in the Les Vedettes de l'Ecran series. Erich von Stroheim in Ultimatum (Robert Wiene, Robert Siodmak, 1938).
Was Austrian-born Erich von Stroheim (1885-1957) a Hollywood movie star or a European film star? (Who cares!) As the sadistic, monocled Prussian officer in both American and French films, he became ‘The Man You Love to Hate’. But maybe he is best known as one of the greatest and most influential directors of the silent era, known for his extravagance and the uncompromising accuracy of detail in his monumental films.
French card by Massilia. Photo: Filmsonor.
French film actor Roger Duchesne (1906-1996) appeared in 30 films between 1934 and 1957. He is best remembered as the silver-haired gangster Bob in Jean-Pierre Melville's Policier Bob le flambeur / Bob the Gambler (1956).
French card by Folies-Bergère. Photo: Louis Silvester. Card from a set of 4 cards.
The Folies-Bergère (French pronunciation: [fɔli bɛʁʒɛʁ]) is a famous cabaret music hall in Paris, France. The house was at the height of its fame and popularity during the Belle Époque from the 1890s through the 1920s. The Folies-Bergère Revues featured extravagant costumes, sets and effects, and often nude women.
French postcard by Edition Chantal, Paris, no. 585.
Beautiful Nita Raya (1915-2015) was a French dancer, singer and actress. She was a lead dancer at the Folies-Bergère. For ten years, she was the companion of Maurice Chevalier.
French postcard, no. 205. Photo: Studio Harcourt. Signed in 1946.
French actor Pierre Brasseur (1905–1972), who appeared in some 150 films and TV productions, was renowned for playing charming and flamboyant characters. He is best known as 19th-century actor Frédérick Lemaître in Les Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise (1945) and as Docteur Génessier in the Horror film Les Yeux sans visage / Eyes Without a Face (1960). Brasseur was also a poet and playwright.
French postcard by Greff, Paris, no. 4. Photo: Studio Harcourt.
French actress Michèle Morgan (1920-2016) was a classic beauty and one of her country's most popular leading ladies for over five decades. The delicate, sophisticated, and detached star was especially noted for her large, expressive eyes.
French postcard by Editions Publistar, no. 796. Photo: Gérard Neuvecelle / Disques Président.
The Spotnicks were a Swedish instrumental guitar rock band which formed in the late 1950s and enjoyed great popularity in the first half of the 1960s. The band is best known for the space suits they wore during their performances.
