La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917)

René Cresté was the hero Jacques de Tremeuse, better known as Judex, in de popular French crime-adventure serial Judex (1916-1917), directed by Louis Feuillade for Gaumont. Judex is an amazingly cool character and became the first superhero in the cinema. Of course, a sequel was needed and Cresté returned in La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918), a serial in twelve episodes. Because of the paper shortage in France during the World War, there are hardly any postcards of Feuillade's earlier serials, Les Vampires and Judex, but we found two card series of La nouvelle mission de Judex: a French postcard series with portraits of the main characters by Coquemer Gravures in Paris and a Spanish collectors card series with film scenes by Chocolate Pi in Barcelona.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté in La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Édouard Mathé in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Louis Leubas in the role of Favraud in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque in the role of Coquentin La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard in the 'Les Artistes de Judex' series by Coquemer Grav. Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andréyor as Jacqueline in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

The strict boundaries between good women and bad women are blurred

In the sequel La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918) most characters from Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1916-1917) return: Judex (René Cresté), Jacqueline (Yvette Andreyor), her father Favraux (Louis Leubas), clumsy Cocantin (Marcel Lévesque), little Jean (Olinda Mano) and Roger (Edouard Mathé).

Jacques de Tremeuse better known as Judex has married Jacqueline, so he has become a father to her son Jean. Jacques' brother Roger loves the neighbour girl Primerose (Georgette de Néry), whose father is the inventor Milton (Emile Keppens). Their happiness is threatened by the dangerous gang 'La rafle aux secrets' (The Raiders of the Secrets), avid in stealing and reselling important technological inventions.

The evil Dr. Howey (Andrew Brunelle) and his accomplice, the dangerous Baronne d'Apremont (Juana Borguèse), both have the capacity to hypnotise the innocent Jacqueline and Primerose and make them do things against their will. Jacqueline threatens to poison her already ill son, while Primerose steals her father's invention and kidnaps little Jean.

The Baronne and her female aid Gaby (Cyprian Gilles) hold Jean, but they are captured and imprisoned by Judex and Cocantin, Gaby repents but the unrepentant Baronne escapes. Dr. Howey and the Baronne die when their boat explodes, accidentally caused by Cocantin.

In the end, Primerose is cured and marries Roger. Remarkable is that the theft of the invention seems an excuse to display the hysterical crises and hypnotised states of the women, while the Baronne and Gaby seem to be very close to one another and the previous strict boundaries between good women and bad women in Judex are blurred.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 26 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Left, Juana Borguèse as the Baronne d'Apremont in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 26 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque as Cocantin, dressed as a woman but recognised by the baker's boy, in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 33 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Juana Borguèse as the Baronne d'Apremont in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 43 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque as Cocantin in La Nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 44 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Judex (René Cresté) overhears a phone call by the evil Baronne d'Apremont (Juana Borguèse) in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 47 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Scene La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918). The man on the right could be Andrew Brunelle as the hypnotising Dr. Howey.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 49 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque as Cocantin in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 53 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Edouard Mathé as Roger de Tremeuse and probably Georgette de Néry as Primerose in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Less anti-establishment and closer to bourgeois morals

In Louis Feuillade's crime serial film Les Vampires (1915-1916) about the gang of Vampires including the fatal beauty Irma Vep (Musidora), the police were ridiculed. The real police prefect of Paris forbade the screenings of the serial for a while.

After the upheaval of Les Vampires, later on, cherished by the Surrealists, Feuillade's next serial, Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1916-1917), was less anti-establishment and closer to bourgeois morals. The positive hero, played by René Cresté, is a black caped avenger who kidnaps the evil banker Favraux (Louis Leubas), who has caused his father's death. Musidora is the banker's evil mistress and governess of his grandson, and Marcel Lévesque plays the clumsy amateur detective Cocantin.

In 1916, Feuillade and writer Arthur Bernède had begun to develop 'Jacques de Tremeuse' (aka Judex) as a mysterious avenger who sports a signature long dark cloak, a wide-brimmed black hat, and a fatalistic air. Judex (which translates as 'Justice') appears and disappears like a ghost, and seems to have hypnotic powers. He is a master of disguise and an excellent fighter. He commands the loyalty of an organisation composed of circus folks and redeemed Apaches. He flies a plane and has a secret lair, where he interrogates his prisoners through a ‘television’ screen - everything Judex writes on the screen on his desk appears on a similar screen on the wall of his victim's cell.

René Cresté as Judex was already very popular with female audiences as this positive hero who comes to the rescue of the oppressed, but the sequel landed René Cresté definitively in ‘le Panthéon du cinéma’, as Philippe Pelletier writes so beautifully at CinéArtistes. He wore in his role as Judex a hat and cape, like Aristide Bruant, a French singer of his time. This costume is very similar to the hero costume of the later comic book hero The Shadow. Edouard Mathé played Cresté’s brother, Roger de Tremeuse. Henceforth Mathé often played a relative or buddy of in subsequent Feuillade serials such as in Judex: La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Musidora didn't act in the sequel as her character had died at the end of Judex. Georgette de Néry aka de Nérys didn't play in the original Judex film but played Primerose in the sequel. It was also probably her only film.

After two more crime serials for Feuillade, Tih Minh (1918) and Vendémiaire (1918), René Cresté was fed up with the genre and concerned about his image. He decided to take his career in hand and started his own film company, Films-René-Cresté, with disastrous effects. He turned to manage the Cocorico cinema in the Parisian district of Belleville and re-enacted his famous character, Judex, in a show at the Gaîté-Rochechouart. He died of tuberculosis in 1922. His brother in the Judex serials, Edouard Mathé quit filmmaking with Feuillade in 1922 after Parisette. After a handful of films in 1923-1924, including the two Ausonia films Mes p’tits (1923) and La course à l’amour (1924), he quitted acting in film altogether.

The Cinémathèque française owns a 35 mm version of La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918) that was screened as part of the major Louis Feuillade retrospective in 2006. The series has not yet been released on DVD.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Félix / Gaumont. Juana Borguèse as the evil Baronne d'Apremont in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Production Gaumont. René Cresté as Judex and Georgette de Néry as Primerose in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Andrew Brunelle as the evil Dr. Howey in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Olinda Mano as the boy Jean in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Photo: Gaumont. Georgette de Néry as Primerose in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque in the role of Coquentin La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Édouard Mathé in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


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


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté and Edouard Mathé in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Source: Vicki Callahan (Zones of Anxiety: Movement, Musidora and the Crime Serials of Louis Feuillade), Philippe Pelletier (CinéArtistes - French), Jeffrey M. Anderson (Combustible Celluloid), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.