Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56492. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne. Set photo of Greta Garbo in The Kiss (Jacques Feyder, 1929), produced by MGM.
French postcard by Editions Filma in Les vedettes de l'Ecran series, no. 107. Jean Angelo in L’Atlantide/Lost Atlantis (Jacques Feyder, 1922).
French postcard by Cinémagazine, no. 238. Jean Forest in Gribiche (Jacques Feyder, 1926).
German postcard by Ross Verlag / Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze, no. 535/2. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ramon Novarro in Son of India (Jacques Feyder, 1931).
Dutch postcard by Tobis filmdistributie N.V. Amsterdam. Photo: Tobis. Francoise Rosay in La Kermesse Heroique (Jacques Feyder, 1935). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.
Passion for filmmaking
Jacques Feyder was born Jacques Léon Louis Frédérix in Ixelles, Belgium, in 1885. He was the son of Alfred Frédérix, a lawyer, president of the Cercle artistique de Bruxelles and director of the Compagnie internationale des Wagons-Lits, and Angèle Picard. He was the grandson of Gustave Frédérix, a famous Belgian theatre critic.
In his bourgeois family, many members belonged to the military. Jacques was initially also destined for a military career but decided to pursue an interest in acting. In 1908, he made his stage debut At the age of 25, Feyder moved from Belgium to Paris. There he appeared in various theatres, but initially only in small roles.
His film career began in 1912 as an actor under such directors as Georges Méliès and Louis Feuillade. He became increasingly interested in filmmaking and assisted the director Gaston Ravel from 1914 to 1915 (some sources say from 1912). At the time, filmmaking was not recognised as a creative profession and Feyder was only rarely credited in the films.
From 1916, he directed his own films for the Gaumont film company. He was paid very little by Gaumont, one franc per metre of film shot. His passion for filmmaking led him to adopt a pseudonym. From Frédérix, he changed his surname to Feyder (in Brussels, he had lived near rue Faider). At first, Feyder mainly made small comedies.
In 1917, he married the actress Françoise Rosay. They remained married until his death. She starred in most of his films, from the short film Têtes de femmes, femmes de tête (1916) to Macadam (1946), of which he had only the artistic supervision. In 1917, Feyder was drafted into the Belgian army and worked as an actor in troop entertainment. He successfully returned to the film business in 1919.
Spanish collector card (cromo) by Chocolate Salas, Sabadell, card no. 4. Photo: Gaumont. André Roanne as the adulterous Lord Stanley and Kitty Hot as his wife, who with her sister's help teaches him a lesson in the comedy Têtes de femmes, femmes de tête (1916), the debut of director Jacques Feyder.
Spanish collector card (cromo) by Chocolate Salas, Sabadell, card no. 5. Photo: Gaumont. nother scene from Têtes de femmes, femmes de tête (Jacques Feyder, 1916). Before she leaves for the spas, Princess Orazzi (Georgette Faraboni, left) gives a farewell dinner as a 'bal costumé'. Here she flirts with the married Lord (André Roanne), who is head-over-heels in love with her. His sister-in-law (Suzanne Delvé, right) defends her sister.
French postcard for the Louis Aubert production L'Atlantide/Lost Atlantis (Jacques Feyder, 1921). The card depicts the French captain Morhange (Jean Angelo) who is received by the mysterious and cruel desert queen Antinéa (Stacia Napierkowska). The sets were by Manuel Orazi.
Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 3541. Photo: Albatros. Raquel Meller in Carmen (Jacques Feyder, 1926).
Italian postcard by G. Vettori, Bologna, no. 3544. Raquel Meller and Raymond Guérin-Catelain in Carmen (Jacques Feyder, 1926). Collection: Marlene Pilaete.
A reputation as an innovative director
Jacques Feyder had his artistic breakthrough with the epic adventure film L'Atlantide/Lost Atlantis (1921), starring Jean Angelo as Capt. Morhange and Stacia Napierkowska as Queen Antinéa. He shot the film, based on a novel by Pierre Benoît in Africa over eight months. He wanted to film the Sahara and other locations as described by Benoit. L'Atlantide revealed his mastery of depicting wide-open spaces. Despite the 3-hour running time, the film ran at a Paris cinema for over one year and was widely sold abroad.
Another important feature film was the drama Crainquebille (1922) with Jean Forest, based on a novel by Anatole France. The film was also successful and received good reviews, so Feyder built up a reputation as an innovative director in the French film world.
Another masterpiece was Visages d'enfants/Children's Faces (1923), one of his most personal and enduring films made in Switzerland. The film deals with the emotional situation of stepchildren. The extras were real peasants, many of whom had never seen a camera or even attended a film screening. The scenes were shot in the village of Grimentz, where Feyder and Françoise Rosay would return almost twenty years later to make Une femme disparaît/Portrait of a Woman (1942). Only the interiors of the chalet and the chapel, buried under the avalanche, were shot in the studio in Paris. Visages d'enfants was finally released in 1925, hailed as a milestone film by the critics but shunned by the public.
He re-established himself with Gribiche (1926) and the literary adaptation Carmen (1926), starring Raquel Meller. Feyder became a naturalised French citizen inn 1928. His satirical comedy Les nouveaux messieurs/The New Gentlemen (1928) was censored for ‘offending the dignity of Parliament and its ministers’. He therefore turned his attention abroad for a while. In Germany, Feyder made Thérèse Raquin (1928), based on Émile Zola's novel and starring Gina Manès.
Then MGM contacted Feyder to work in Hollywood. He accepted MGM’s proposal and directed the last silent film with Greta Garbo, The Kiss (1929) with Conrad Nagel and Lew Ayres. The film has no audible dialogue but features a synchronised musical score and sound effects. He had no problems with the switch to sound film and shot the German version of Garbo’s first sound film Anna Christie (1930) in the USA. In 1930, he directed Jetta Goudal in her only French language film made in Hollywood, Le Spectre vert/The Green Spectre. He also made two films with Ramon Novarro, Daybreak (1931) and Son of India (1931), in which his search for light and his sense of poetry were evident.
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 589. Albert Préjean and Gaby Morlay in Les nouveaux messieurs/The New Gentlemen (Jacques Feyder, 1928).
French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition, Paris, no. 591. Henry Roussel in Les nouveaux messieurs/The New Gentlemen (Jacques Feyder, 1928).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5113/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Greta Garbo and Conrad Nagel in The Kiss (Jacques Feyder, 1929).
Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga phot, Bruxelles, no. 46. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Tania Fédor in Si l’empereur savait ça/His Glorious Night (Jacques Feyder, 1930). Caption: The most beautiful films are performed by the stars of Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
Belgian postcard by P.I.A. Belga phot, Bruxelles, no. 50. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Francoise Rosay in Si l'empereur savait ça/His Glorious Night (Jacques Feyder, 1930).
French postcard by Europe, no. 850. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Clarence Sinclair Bull. Greta Garbo in the German version of Anna Christie (Jacques Feyder, 1930).
A craftsman of filmmaking
Disillusioned with the Hollywood system, Jacques Feyder returned to France in 1933. There he became one of the leading representatives and co-founders of French poetic realism in film in the 1930s. He directed, among others, the drama Le Grand Jeu (1934) set against the background of the French Foreign Legion, Pension Mimosas (1934) set largely in a small hotel on the Côte d'Azur, and the satire La Kermesse héroïque/Carnival in Flanders (1935).
He co-wrote the screenplay of these three classics with his compatriot Charles Spaak and he gave Marcel Carné his foot in the door by casting him as his assistant director. For La Kermesse héroïque, Feyder won the Grand Prix du cinéma français in 1935 and the prize for Best Direction at the Venice Film Festival in 1936.
Jacques Feyder made more foreign films, including Knight Without Armour (1937) with Marlene Dietrich, until the Second World War. By the time the war broke out, Feyder had been directing for some thirty years and had completed his career. He had gone from silent to sound cinema. He had seen the film industry become more structured and the importance of his work as a director was more widely recognised in the industry.
At the beginning of 1939, he shot an adventure drama with Michèle Morgan, La loi du nord/The Law of the North (1939). The film was selected for the first edition of the Cannes Film Festival, but this was cancelled following the outbreak of war. During the German Occupation, the Nazis changed the title to La Piste du Nord/The Trail of the North. Following the Nazi occupation, Feyder fled to neutral Switzerland. There he made his last film, the mystery Une femme disparaît/Portrait of a Woman (1942) starring Rosay, and gave readings at the conservatory in Geneva.
In 1944 Feyder and Françoise Rosay published ‘Le Cinéma, notre métier’, an autobiographical memoir of their work together in the cinema, in which Feyder stated that he regarded himself as an 'artisan', a craftsman of filmmaking. Towards the end of his life, he took on the artistic directorship of Marcel Blistène's dark crime drama Macadam/Back Streets of Paris (1946) starring Françoise Rosay once more. Two years later, Jacques Feyder died in Prangins, Switzerland, in 1948. at the age of 62. His funeral took place in Brussels and he is buried in the Brussels Cemetery in Evere. With Rosay, Feyder had three sons who also worked in the film industry: the set designer Marc Frédérix and the assistant directors Paul Feyder and Bernard Farre.
American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. GH8. Photo: George Hurrell / Creative Art Images, Hollywood. Caption: Ramon Novarro, 1931. Publicity still for Daybreak (Jacques Feyder, 1931).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, unnumbered. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Ramon Novarro in Son of India (Jacques Feyder, 1931).
French postcard, no. 29. Pierre Richard Willm in Le grand jeu/The Great Game (Jacques Feyder, 1934).
Dutch postcard by Tobis filmdistributie N.V. Amsterdam. Photo: Tobis. Publicity still for La Kermesse Heroique (1935). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.
British postcard by Art Photo Postcard, no. 125. Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat in the London Films production Knight Without Armour (Jacques Feyder, 1937). This historical drama set during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War was produced by Alexander Korda from a screenplay by Lajos Bíró adapted by Frances Marion from the 1933 novel of the same title by James Hilton.
Italian postcard by Rizzoli & c., Milano, 1938 XVI Photo: Korda Films. Marlene Dietrich in Knight Without Armour (Jacques Feyder, 1937).
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 1777/1, 1937-1938. Photo: Tobis. Camilla Horn in Fahrendes Volk/Travelling people (Jacques Feyder, 1938).
Big German collectors card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Tobis. Hans Albers and Hannes Stelzer in Fahrendes Volk/Travelling people (Jacques Feyder, 1938).
French postcard by Edit. Chantal, Rueil, no. 571. Photo: Discina, Paris. Michèle Morgan in La Loi du Nord/Law of the North (Jacques Feyder, 1939).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German, French and English) and IMDb.
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