Vintage postcard by Neobrom, no. 120.
French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Editions Hazan, Paris, no. 6192, 1989. Photo: Sam Lévin. Gérard Philipe and the shadow of Michel Simon in La Beauté du diable (René Clair, 1950).
French postcard in the Les Vedettes de l'Écran series by Éditions Filma, no. 126.
French postcard by Editions du Globe, Paris, no. 325. Photo: Sam Lévin. Gina Lollobrigida in Les belles de nuit / Beauties of the Night (René Clair, 1952).
American postcard by Fotofolio, NY, NY, no. LJ5. Photo: Lotte Jacobi. Caption: René Clair, Berlin, c. 1920s.
A series of films with a taste for the fantastic
René Clair was born René Lucien Chomette in Paris in 1898. He was the son of a soap manufacturer. His elder brother, Henri Chomette, later also became a writer and director. René grew up in Paris in the district of Les Halles, whose lively and picturesque character made a lasting impression on him. He attended the Lycée Montaigne and then the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he became friends with the poet Jacques Rigaut. In 1917, he was mobilised as a volunteer ambulance driver during World War I. He was deeply affected by the horrors of war that he witnessed and gave expression to this in writing a volume of poetry called 'La Tête de l'homme', which remained unpublished.
In 1918, he started working as a journalist for the left-wing newspaper L'Intransigeant under the pseudonym René Després. He also wrote lyrics for the music-hall singer Damia, under the pseudonym Danceny. Clair was persuaded by her to visit Gaumont studios in 1920, where a film was being cast. With Damia, he made his debut as the lead actor in the silent film Le Lys de la vie / The Lily of Life (Loïe Fuller, Gabrielle Sorère, 1920), written by Queen Marie of Romania.
He went on to play roles in other films like the serials L'Orpheline / The Orphan (Louis Feuillade, 1921) and Parisette (Louis Feuillade, 1921), both starring Sandra Milowanoff, and Le Sens de la mort / The Meaning of Death (Yakov Protazanov, 1922) with Diana Karenne. For these films, he chose the pseudonym René Clair. He also became director of the cinema supplement for the magazine Théâtre et Comœdia illustré.
In 1922, he became Jacques de Baroncelli's assistant on two films. That same year, he began writing the screenplay for Le Rayon diabolique, which he shot in 1923 with the support of the producer Henri Diamant-Berger. The film was released in 1925 under the title Paris qui dort. In the meantime, Eric Satie's ballet 'Relâche', for which Francis Picabia had written the libretto, was to be staged at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The theatre's director, Jacques Hébertot, was also the director of Comœdia. Picabia wanted a short film to be shown during the interval and chose René Clair to direct it. The Dadaist-inspired film Entr'acte (1924), in which Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray also took part, caused a scandal and made Clair famous.
In the following years, Clair made a series of films with a taste for the fantastic. His Sci-Fi comedy Paris qui dort / Paris Asleep (1925) was followed by Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge / The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge (1925) and Le Voyage imaginaire / The Imaginary Voyage (1926), which featured Albert Préjean. In 1926, Clair joined Alexandre Kamenka's Films Albatros company to film a dramatic story, La Proie du vent / The Prey of the Wind (1926), with Charles Vanel and Jean Murat. The film was a commercial success. Clair remained at Albatros for his last two silent films, the comedies Un chapeau de paille d'Italie / The Italian Straw Hat (1928) and Les Deux Timides / Two Timid Souls (1928), based on two plays by Eugène Labiche. Wikipedia: "As the author of all of his own scripts, who also paid close attention to every aspect of the making of a film, including the editing, Clair was one of the first French filmmakers to establish for himself the full role of an auteur." At the same time, René Clair devoted himself to writing a novel, 'Adams', which was published by Grasset in 1926. In 1929, he co-wrote the screenplay for Prix de beauté (1930), which he was initially also to direct. The film was directed by Augusto Genina, and Louise Brooks played the lead role.
German card. Photo: Verleih Hugo Engel-Film. Albert Préjean in Sous les toits de Paris / Under the Roofs of Paris (René Clair, 1930). Préjean plays a street singer and here distributes the texts of the song 'Sous les toits de Paris'.
French postcard by Eds. Le Malibran, Paris. Annabella and René Lefèvre in the comedy Le million / The Million (René Clair, 1931).
British postcard by. Photogravure. Robert Donat in the British comedy The Ghost Goes West (René Clair, 1935).
British Real Photograph postcard, no. 100b. Photo: London Films. Jean Parker in The Ghost Goes West (René Clair, 1935).
French coloured postcard by Eds. Centre Pompidou / Flammario, 1994. Maurice Chevalier and Marcelle Derrien in Le silence est d'or / Man About Town (René Clair, 1947).
An offer by Alexander Korda to work in London
René Clair was not happy with the arrival of sound film. He thought it would undermine the complex language constructed by the silent cinema over the last three decades. Ironically, it was his first talking film, Sous les toits de Paris / Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), that earned him an international reputation with prestigious admirers including Charles Chaplin and Sergei Eisenstein. He had realised the creative possibilities that sound film offered, particularly if the soundtrack was not used realistically; words and pictures should not be tied together in a clumsy duplication of information; dialogue did not always need to be heard.
His success was confirmed with the musicals Le Million / The Million (1931) with Annabella, À nous la liberté / Freedom for Us (1931), a utopian satire of industrial society, and Quatorze juillet / Bastille Day (1933). These films were made at the Epinay Studios for Films Sonores Tobis, a French subsidiary of the German-owned Tobis company.
When Chaplin's Modern Times came out in 1936. Tobis, which in 1935 had come under the control of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, decided to sue Chaplin for plagiarism of À nous la liberté / Freedom for Us (1931). Clair opposed this action, seeing Chaplin's film, which he admired, as an indirect homage to his film, but Tobis continued to sue Chaplin.
After the failure of Le Dernier Milliardaire / The Last Millionaire (1934), a satirical evocation of the 1929 crisis, René Clair accepted an offer by Alexander Korda to work in London. His first British film, The Ghost Goes West (1935), was a comic fantasy about transatlantic culture clash. It was a success. His next film, Break the News (1938), a musical comedy with Jack Buchanan and Maurice Chevalier, was a disappointment.
He returned to France in 1938 and began shooting a new project, Air pur, in July 1939. Shooting was interrupted by the mobilisation order in September, which sent various members of the film crew off to war, leaving the film unfinished. At the end of June 1940, René Clair left France with his wife and child. They went to Spain and then Portugal, and set sail for New York. The Vichy government stripped him of his French nationality, but reversed the decision later.
French film poster postcard by Dix et Démi Quinze, Paris, 1995. Affiche by Jean Adrien Mercier for À nous la liberté / Freedom for Us (René Clair, 1931). Released on the occasion of an exhibition on Jean Adrien Mercier.
Swiss poster postcard by CVB publishers. Affiche: Jean Adrien Mercier / Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne. Affiche by Jean Adrien Mercier for Quatorze juillet / Bastille Day (René Clair, 1933).
French poster postcard by Eds. Zreik, Paris. Affiche Coll. Télérama, la mémoire du cinéma. French affiche for I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1940).
French poster postcard by F. Nugeron 29. Eds. Ramsay, Paris. Affiche: designed by Guy Gérard-Noèl. French poster for Les belles de nuit / Beauties of the Night (René Clair, 1952).
French poster postcard by Encyclopédie du Cinéma. Affiche: designed by René Peron. French poster for Porte des lilas / The Gates of Paris (René Clair, 1957), with Pierre Brasseur, Georges Brassens, Henri Vidal and Dany Carrel.
Four successful films in Hollywood
In June 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, René Clair emigrated to the United States, where he shot four successful films in Hollywood. He made his first American film for Universal Studios, The Flame of New Orleans (1941), starring Marlene Dietrich. The film was a commercial failure. Clair is highly regarded for the whimsical comedy I Married a Witch (1942), for which he effectively discovered latent comedic talents in his star Veronica Lake.
It was followed by It Happened Tomorrow (1944), which did respectably well. His mystery, And Then There Were None (1945), was an exceptional commercial success and is considered one of the most faithful adaptations of an Agatha Christie thriller. In 1946, Clair returned to France and made the romantic comedy Le silence est d'or / Silence is Golden (1947), an amusing evocation of the silent film era. It was Clair's first French film since the aborted project Air pur. Le silence est d'or also marked Maurice Chevalier's return to the cinema after an absence of seven years.
Clair then made one of his most famous films, La Beauté du diable / Beauty and the Devil (1949), in which he revisited the myth of Faust and directed Gérard Philipe for the first time. Philipe also starred in his next film, the whimsical comedy Les Belles de nuit / Beauties of the Night (1952), also with Gina Lollobrigida. An International success was his film Les Grandes Manœuvres / Summer Manoeuvres (1955), starring Michèle Morgan, Gérard Philipe and Brigitte Bardot. His first film in colour won the Prix Louis-Delluc.
Clair then directed Porte des Lilas / The Gates of Paris (1957), featuring singer Georges Brassens in his only film appearance, playing the role of a singer who resembled him. From the 1950s, Clair also started writing, mainly essays, but also some novels and novellas. In 1960, he was elected as a member of the Académie française, as the first filmmaker. At the same time, the Nouvelle Vague overturned the rules of studio cinema, of which he had become the most prestigious representative. He then alternated between the sketch films La Française et l'Amour / Love and the Frenchwoman (1960) and Les Quatre Vérités / Three Fables of Love (1962) and the feature films Tout l'or du monde / All the Gold in the World (1961) with Bourvil, followed by his last film, Les Fêtes galantes / The Lace Wars (1965).
Clair then devoted himself to writing and directing plays. He restaged Francis Picabia's ballet 'Relâche' in 1970, and tried his hand at opera with 'Orphée et Eurydice' in 1973, presented at the Paris Opéra. In 1974, he was the president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. René Clair died in 1981 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was buried in the ancient cemetery in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Since 1928, René Clair had been married to Bronia Clair. At the end of 1924, while Clair was working with Picabia, he first met a young actress, Bronja Perlmutter, who subsequently appeared in his film Le Voyage imaginaire (1926). They married in 1926, and their son, Jean-François, was born in 1927. Since 1994, the Académie has awarded the Prix René Clair for Best Camera Work.
French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Editions Hazan, Paris, no. 6195, 1989. Photo: Sam Lévin. Gérard Philipe and Michel Simon in La Beauté du diable (René Clair, 1950).
French postcard by Editions P.I. / Editions du Musée Grévin, Paris, no. 4. Photo: Musée Grévin, a wax museum in Paris, recreated a scene with wax figures of Gérard Philipe and Nicole Besnard in La Beauté du diable / Beauty and the Devil (René Clair, 1950). Caption: Voyage de noces a Venise (Honeymoon in Venice).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 212. Dany Carrel and Gérard Philipe in Les grandes manoeuvres / Summer Manoeuvres (René Clair, 1955).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 194. Michèle Morgan and Gérard Philipe in Les grandes manoeuvres / Summer Manoeuvres (René Clair, 1955).
Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56501. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne. Brigitte Bardot and Yves Robert in Les Grandes Manoeuvres / Summer Manoeuvres (René Clair, 1955), produced by Filmsonor and Rizzoli Films.
Small Romanian card by Cooperativa Fotografia, no. 2. Jean-Pierre Cassel in Les fêtes galantes / The Lace Wars (René Clair, 1965).
East-German postcard by VEB Progress Filmvertrieb, no. 2686. Jean-Pierre Cassel and Geneviève Casile in the Franco-Romanian coproduction Les Fêtes galantes / The Lace Wars (René Clair, 1965).
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, French and English) and IMDb.
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