Jacques Dumesnil

French actor Jacques Dumesnil (1904-1998) played mostly secondary roles in more than 50 films. He was often cast as an officer or a crook.


French postcard by SERP, Paris, no. 97. Photo: Studio Harcourt.


French postcard by Collection Chantal, Paris, no. 97. Photo: Ind. Ciném. que.

Buster Keaton

Jacques Dumesnil was born Marie Émile Eugène André Joly in Paris, France in 1904.

His film career started in the early 1930s with parts in melodramas like Le maître de forges/The Ironmaster (Abel Gance, Fernand Rivers, 1933) with Gaby Morlay, La belle de nuit/The Beauty of the Night (Louis Valray, 1934) and Lucrèce Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia (Abel Gance, 1935) starring Edwige Feuillère.

Dumesnil played a gangster in Le Roi des Champs-Élysées/Champ of the Champs Elysees (Max Nosseck, 1934). In this curious comedy, silent screen legend Buster Keaton played both an American gangster who leads a chase and his look-alike, the ‘good’ Buster, a hapless Parisian publicist.

Buster Keaton speaks French in this film and just before the end the 'Great Stone Face' breaks into an uncharacteristic wide smile.

Other 1930s films with Dumesnil are the romantic drama Retour à l'aube/Return to the Dawn (Henri Decoin, 1938) and the China-situated adventure film Les pirates du rail/The Pirates of the Railroad (Christian Jacque, 1938) based on a script by Hergé, the creator of 'Tintin'.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 68. Photo: Ch. Vandamme, Les Mirages.


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 150, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Vandamme.

The French voice of Charlie Chaplin

During the French occupation, Jacques Dumesnil acted in such films as Le mariage de Chiffon/The Marriage of Chiffon (Claude Autant-Lara, 1942), but also worked as a production designer for the Fernandel vehicle La bonne étoile/The Good Star (Jean Boyer, 1943) and the opera drama La Malibran/Maria Malibran's Story (Sacha Guitry, 1944).

After the war he played the lead in the comedy Jeux de Femmes/Women's Games (Maurice Cloche, 1946) as a carefree young man, living in exquisite sin, who suddenly has to marry. He also starred in La ferme des sept péchés/The Farm of Seven Sins (Jean-Devaivre, 1949), a drama set during the Napoleonic era.

The latter film won first prize at the Locarno Film Festival, but commercially more successful were the films in which he played secondary roles, like Anna (Alberto Lattuada, 1951) starring Silvana Mangano, Ulisse/Ulysses (Mario Camerini, 1954) starring Kirk Douglas, and Napoléon (Sascha Guitry, 1955) with Daniel Gelin in the title role.

Dumesnil gave Charlie Chaplin a French voice in the synchronised versions of Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin, 1947) and A King in New York (Charles Chaplin, 1957) and he was also active in the theatre as a member of the Comédie-Francaise.

His last film role was as a dying mob boss in the excellent thriller Les tontons flingueurs/Grisby or Not Grisby (George Lautner, 1963). In later years he only worked for TV and for the Comédie-Francaise. His son, Pierre Dumesnil was a French swimming champion who participated in the Olympic Games of 1952. Jacques Dumesnil died in 1998 in Bron, France.


Scene from Anna (1951). Silvana Mangano sings 'Non dimenticare'. Source: Jack11anbar (YouTube).


Scene from Toute la mémoire du monde (1956), a 21 minute short directed by the great director Alain Resnais. The text by Rémo Forlani was read by Jacques Dumesnil. Source: Professionieditoria (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 2 February 2024.