Jean Galland

Jean Galland (1897-1967) was a French actor who was known for such early sound films as Fantômas (1932) and Le jugement de minuit (1933). After the war, he played supporting parts in classics by Jean Becker and Max Ophüls.


French postcard, no. 20.


French postcard by Editions et Publications cinématographiques (EPC), no. 97.

"Indecent," "immoral", and tending to "corrupt morals"

Jean Charles Pierre Galland was born in 1897 in Laval, in the Mayenne department in France, into a family of magistrates. He studied law and prepared for the École Libre des Sciences Politiques. But soon, the First World War called him up. In 1916, he was seriously injured in Verdun and returned to civilian life with the rank of lieutenant.

After the war, his life had a turning point. By chance, he found himself in the middle of a group of actors, and this triggered him in an unexpected direction despite the opposition of his family. He made his stage debut in the music hall and then, under the pseudonym Jean Gallot, he joined the prestigious Vieux Colombier theatre company directed by Jacques Copeau. He stayed there for three years and then moved to the Boulevard Theatre.

With the advent of talking pictures, he began a career in cinema. Galland made his film debut in Paris la nuit / Paris By Night (Henri Diamant-Berger, 1930), starring Marguerite Moreno and Armand Bernard. Galland played another supporting part in the war drama Les croix de bois / The Wooden Crosses (Raymond Bernard, 1932) with Pierre Blanchar. He played Captain Cruchet, who experienced the horrors of the trenches during the First World War with his comrades.

He had his breakthrough as the mysterious star of the crime thriller Fantômas (Pál Fejös, 1932) opposite Tania Fedor and Thomy Bourdelle as Inspector Juve. That same year, he had a leading part in Gance's dreadful melodrama Mater dolorosa (Abel Gance, 1932) with Line Noro. He appeared as the husband of Jeanne Boitel in the romantic drama Remous / Whirlpool (Edmond T. Gréville, 1935). Galland played a newly-married man who is paralysed and impotent after a car accident. His sexually frustrated wife, who loves him, has a short affair with an athletic, handsome man. When the husband learns of the affair, he commits suicide. U.S. censors twice denied American distributors a license for the film as being "indecent," "immoral", and tending to "corrupt morals."

In Germany, Galland co-starred in the romantic drama Die Unbekannte / The Unknown (Frank Wisbar, 1936) opposite Sybille Schmitz. It was inspired by the famous death of an unknown woman who was discovered drowned in the River Seine in Paris. He also appeared in Gréville's Menaces.. / Threats (Edmond T. Gréville, 1940) with Mireille Balin, John Loder and Erich von Stroheim. The film was completed in September 1938 under the title Cinq jours d'angoisse, but before it could be released, the film was partially destroyed by fire. This required many of the scenes to be refilmed.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 2071/1, 1939-1940. Photo: Piaz, Paris.


French collector card. Photo: Teddy Piaz.

The most perfect film ever made

After an interval during and after the war, Jean Galland returned to the screen as the snobbish uncle of Caroline in the warm and optimistic romantic comedy-drama Edouard et Caroline (Jacques Becker, 1951), featuring Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon. DB DuMonteil at IMDb: "My god, I love this film! Among Jacques Becker's small filmography (13 movies in all), this is perhaps the most overlooked one. The plot is very thin, and the whole story takes place in two apartments, Edouard and Caroline's modest home, and her uncle's luxurious dwelling."

Next, Galland appeared in another classic, the Guy de Maupassant adaptation Le Plaisir / Pleasure (Max Ophüls, 1951) with Claude Dauphin and Gaby Morlay. He also played a supporting part in Ophüls's romantic drama Madame de... / The Earrings of Madame de... (Max Ophüls, 1953), starring Danielle Darrieux. The film is considered a masterpiece of 1950s French cinema, with film critic Andrew Sarris calling it "the most perfect film ever made".

In the following decades, Galland continued acting in films, theatre and later, television. His later films included Marianne de ma jeunesse / Marianne of My Youth (Julien Duvivier, 1955) with Marianne Hold and Pierre Vaneck, Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955) starring Martine Carol, and La tête contre les murs (Georges Franju, 1959) with Pierre Brasseur and Jean-Pierre Mocky.

Later he appeared in Mocky's comedies Snobs! (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1962), Les vierges / The Virgins (1962) and Un drôle de paroissien / Thank Heaven for Small Favors (Jean-Pierre Mocky, 1963) starring Bourvil. He also played a bank director in Une Manche et la Bell / What Price Murder? (1957) by Henri Verneuil and Arthur's uncle in Les godelureaux / Wise Guys (1960) by Claude Chabrol.

From 1931, Jean Galland ran with Charles Saint Pouloff the cinema Théâtre Le Ranelagh in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. A renowned mountaineer, he made a documentary film, which he presented in Cherbourg in 1959. In 1967, he retired definitively from artistic life to take charge of a pharmaceutical laboratory. In 1967, he died of a heart attack at the age of 70 while on tour in Evian-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, and is buried in the family grave in the Condé-sur-Noireau cemetery in Calvados. Jean Galland was married for 30 years, from 1926 to 1957, to the actress Germaine Dermoz, with whom he had a daughter, Anne-Marie. He then married Annie Maillard.


French postcard, no. 20.


French postcard by Editions et Publications Cinématographiques, no. 97.

Sources: Gary Richardson (Notre Cinéma), DB DuMonteil (IMDb), Wikipedia (French and English) and IMDb.