René Poyen

René Poyen (1908-1968) was a talented child star of the silent French cinema. He started at the age of four as the popular character Bout-de-Zan (Tiny Tim) in a popular burlesque series based on the adventures of little rascals in cute hats. Most of these burlesque comedies were filmed between 1912 and 1916 by Louis Feuillade for the Gaumont company.


French postcard by Cinémagazine, no. 172. Photo: Ajax.


Spanish minicard in the Escenas selectas de cinematografía series, series B, no. 13, for Juan Garcia, Chocolates Gavilan, Alicante. René Poyen (Bout de Zan) as war orphan Joseph (left) in Le gamin de Paris/Paris urchin (Louis Feuillade, 1923). The little girl he holds was Bouboule as Gaby, the general was played by Adolphe Candé, and the lady at right, Madame de Mersange, by Renée van Delly. The Spanish title is El muchacho de Paris. As a child star, René Poyen was known in France as Bout de Zan and in Spain as Minutiyo.

Rascal kid actor

René Georges Poyen was born at the Tenon Hospital in Paris, France, in 1908. His mother, Marguerite Roussel was a nurse. Legitimised by his mother's marriage to Paul Adrien Poyen, in 1914, he was finally adopted in 1921 and took the name of Poyen.

He began his acting career at the age of four. In 1912, he started his film career at Gaumont as Bout-de-Zan, the younger brother of rascal kid actor Bébé (René Dary), in the film comedy Bébé adopte un petit frère/An Adventurous Adoption (Louis Feuillade, 1912).

It was after a dispute with Gaumont and Bébé's family that René Dary's contract was not renewed. René Poyen was then given the character of 'Bout de Zan' in a series of burlesque shorts still directed by Louis Feuillade. Pyen became the child star of Gaumont in the subsequent years. Urbanora writes in The Bioscope: "Greater comic emphasis was placed on Bout-de-Zan being an ‘adult’ figure, as he dressed like an adult, aped adult mannerisms, and was generally an earthier character than Bébé. He would also often give knowing looks to the camera, making the audience complicit in his trickery."

Already in 1913 Poyen made 24 one-reelers with his popular mischievous alter ego; 16 in 1914; and 18 in 1915. At the French website CinéMemorial, Gary Richardson describes Bout de Zan as a little man, who swims in his too large clothes. He wears a dented top hat or a huge bowler hat, too big and worn out clogs. René Poyen perfectly embodies the street kid of Paris, a pitiful, rascal and mischievous boy.

In 1915, he also played a small role in Louis Feuillade's famous crime serial Les Vampires/The Vampires (1915) starring Musidora as the mysterious Irma Vep, dressed in black tights. In 1917 he played 'The Licorice Kid' in another popular Feuillade serial Judex, featuring René Cresté as a caped superhero. He also appeared in the crime parody Le pied qui étreint/The Clutching Foot (Jacques Feyder, 1917), and a handful of Bout-de-Zan shorts.

By then the era of the short Bout-de-Zan comedies was over, but Poyen continued to play in crime serials like La nouvelle mission de Judex/Judex's new mission (Louis Feuillade, 1917), another detective series in twelve episodes, with René Cresté in the title role.


Bébé (René Dary). French postcard. Photo Eclectic Films.


Spanish minicard in the Escenas selectas de cinematografía series, series B, no. 13, for Juan Garcia, Chocolates Gavilan, Alicante. Sandra Milowanoff, Berthe Jalabert and René Poyen in Le gamin de Paris/Paris urchin (Louis Feuillade, 1923). Poyen's comic character Bout-de-Zan at Gaumont - some ten years before this film - was called Minutiyo in Spain. The Spanish release title of Le Gamin de Paris was El muchacho de Paris.


René Cresté. French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Gaumont. Still for La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Bouboule

René Poyen appeared for Feuillade as a 12-year-old teenager in the serial Les deux gamines/The Two Girls (Louis Feuillade, 1920) alongside Alice Tissot, and as a young detective in the series L'orphelin de Paris/The Orphan of Paris (Louis Feuillade, 1924).

In the early 1920s, he was often paired with a six-year-old girl actress Bouboule (Geneviève Juttet), as in Le gamin de Paris/Paris Urchin (Louis Feuillade, 1923) where he played a war orphan, La gosseline/The Gossamer (Louis Feuillade, 1923), Pierrot, Pierrette (Louis Feuillade, 1924), and Lucette (Louis Feuillade, Maurice Champreux, 1924).

He also performed in the features La proie/The prey (Marcel Dumont, 1921), La fille bien gardée/The well-kept daughter (Louis Feuillade, 1923-1924) as the dance hall bellboy, and Romanetti, Le roi du maquis/Romanetti, king of the maquis (Gennaro Dini, 1924). When Louis Feuillade died in 1925, René Poyen lost his mentor. After a last role in Les murailles du silence/The walls of silence (Louis de Carbonnat, 1925), with Elmire Vautier, René Poyen's career ended at the age of 17.

René Poyen then worked in commerce while waiting for the age to take on the jobs of a young lead. In the sound era, Poyen returned only twice more in films, in an uncredited role in Clochard/Tramp (Robert Péguy, 1932) and the last time as Bout-de-Zan in the comedy Le Bidon d'or/The Golden Can (Christian Jaque, 1932). He proved to be a poor actor. He also realised that with the advent of talking pictures, techniques had changed a lot, and without regret, he left the world of cinema at the age of 24.

René Poyen died in his hometown Paris in 1968, in the strictest anonymity. He was 59. Poyen is interred in the cemetery of Villeparisis (Seine-et-Marne).


Bout-de-Zan vole un éléphant/Bout de Zan Steals an Elephant (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Source: Tonytony 9292 (YouTube).


Bout-de-Zan Et L'Embusqué/Bout de Zan and the Shirker (Louis Feuillade, 1916). Source: Mau M (YouTube).

Sources: Gary Richardson (CinéMemorial - French), Urbanora (The Bioscope), Turner Classic Movies, IMDb and Wikipedia (French).

This post was last updated on 25 August 2022.