French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 44. Photo: Pathé Cinema.
French postcard. Photo: Studio Harcourt.
The biggest box office hit after La grande illusion
Born in Paris in 1917, André Le Gall debuted - as far as known - both on stage and on-screen during the German Occupation of France. He played a censured and cut part in La Cavalcade des heures/Love Around the Clock (Yvan Noé, 1943) starring Gaby Morlay, Fernandel and singer Charles Trenet and had an uncredited part in the comedy Adieu Léonard/Goodbye Leonard (Pierre Prévert, 1943) starring Charles Trenet.
Le Gall quickly rose to stardom with the lead role opposite Irène Corday in Premier de cordée/First on the Rope (Louis Daquin, 1944), about a young aspiring mountain man whose career plans are thwarted by an accident, causing him vertigo. Two years later when his father, a veteran mountain climber, is persuaded by a Norwegian tourist to take him on a trip into the mountains, his son is forced to come to their rescue when they run into trouble during a storm.
The mountain drama was filmed on location around Mont Blanc in the French Alps, with real mountaineers and without special effects. It glorifies the landscape, similar to the previous mountain films by Luis Trenker, deviating from the many indoor-shot studio films from those days. Wikipedia: "Despite being directed by Louis Daquin, a French Communist, it was considered to demonstrate a Pétainist ideology possibly even containing elements of Nazism." Shot in 1943, the film was released in France in early 1944.
After the war, André Le Gall had a supporting part as the Breton Quérec in Le Bataillon du ciel/They are not Angels (Alexandre Esway, 1947), a two-part film based on a novel by Joseph Kessel. It's the story of a French parachute battalion of the Special Air Service was dropped on Brittany to help the Resistance contain the enemy forces en route to Normandy in 1944. Le Bataillon du ciel was filmed in 1945 but released in France in 1947.
Le Bataillon du ciel/They are not Angels was and is one of the biggest French box office hits, starring Pierre Blanchar and René Lefèvre. At the time of its release, it was the biggest box office hit after Jean Renoir's La grande illusion/The Grand Illusion (1937).
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès, no. 370. Photo: Lucienne Chevert.
French postcard, no. 44. Photo: Pathé Cinéma.
French poster for Fantômas (Jean Sacha, 1947). Collection: Philippe Freyhof@Flickr.
A major part as the journalist Fandor in Fantômas
After the short L'assassin était trop familier/The Assassin was All Too Familiar (Raymond Leboursier, 1946), André Le Gall played a major part as the journalist Fandor in Fantômas (Jean Sacha, 1947). The film features the fictional master criminal Fantômas, created in 1911 by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. The film was a rather cheaply made 'policier' with Marcel Herrand in the title role and Alexandre Rignault as commissaire Juve.
Next, Le Gall was Albert Préjean's antagonist in La Grande Volière/The large aviary (Georges Péclet, 1947) and had a major part in the smugglers' film Passeurs d'or/Gold Smugglers (Émile-Georges De Meyst, 1948), starring Ginette Leclerc. It was Pathé's biggest French box-office success in 1948.
In 1949 he had leads as a diver in L'Épave/Sin and Desire (Willy Rozier, 1949), opposite Françoise Arnoul, and as a professional cyclist in Drame au Vel'd'Hiv'/Crime at the velodrome (Maurice Cam, 1949), opposite Claude Farell. He also had supporting parts in Le Cas du docteur Galloy/The Case of Doctor Galloy (Maurice Téboul, 1949, released in 1951), and Prélude à la gloire/Prelude to Glory (Georges Lacombe, 1950), the film that turned musical child prodigy Roberto Benzi into a star.
In the early 1950s, Le Gall still had major parts, e.g. as Raymond Pellegrin's antagonist in the mystery Coupable?/Guilty? (Yvan Noé, 1951), and as a retired criminal forced to kill a gangster moll in the thriller Opération Magali/Operation Magali (László V. Kish, 1953). Later, Le Gall was absent from the sets almost all through the late fifties and completely during the sixties.
André Le Gall returned to the screen in the early 1970s as the counsellor in Jean-Pierre Mocky's thriller L'Albatros/Love Hate (1971) and had a few minor parts in TV series. In 1974, André Le Gall died at 57 in Bois-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine.
French poster for Fantômas (Jean Sacha, 1947). Collection: Philippe Freyhof@Flickr.
French postcard. Photo: Studio Harcourt.
French postcard. Photo: Studio Harcourt.
Sources: Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.
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