Leni Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) was the notorious director of Triumph des Willens (1935), a fascinating propaganda documentary about Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, commissioned by the Nazi government. Before she started directing films, she worked as a dancer and actress. She became a star in the mountain films, directed by Arnold Fanck.


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as the pilot Ellen Lawrence in S.O.S. Iceberg (Tay Garnett, 1933).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1626/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa / Parufamet. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4660/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Kiesel. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4803/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Jacobi, Berlin. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5679/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Aafa-Film. Publicity still for Stürme über dem Mont Blanc / Storm Over Mont Blanc (Arnold Fanck, 1930) with Sepp Rist.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. A 3162/1, 1941-1944. Photo: Riefenstahlfilm / Tobis. Franz Eichberger in Tiefland / Lowlands (Leni Riefenstahl, 1940-1954).

The perfect German female

Helene Bertha Amalie 'Leni' Riefenstahl was born in Berlin, German Empire, in 1902. Her family was Lutheran Protestant, and she had a brother, Heinz, who was killed on the Eastern Front in World War II. Her father, Alfred Theodor Paul Riefenstahl, owned a successful heating and ventilation company and wanted his daughter to follow him into the business world. Leni was athletic. At the age of twelve, she joined a gymnastics and swim club. Without her father's knowledge, she enrolled in dance and ballet classes at the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin in 1918, where she quickly became a star pupil.

Riefenstahl later also studied dance with Jutta Klamt, Eugenie Eduardova and Mary Wigman. She became well known for her self-styled interpretive dancing skills. She travelled across Europe with Max Reinhardt in a show funded by Jewish producer Harry Sokal. She appeared with Wigman in a scene in the documentary Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit - Ein Film über moderne Körperkultur / The Way to Strength and Health: a film of modern body culture (Nicholas Kaufmann, Wilhelm Prager, 1925), an artefact of the Naturist fad that swept Germany at this time.

Riefenstahl began to suffer foot injuries that led to knee surgery, which threatened her dance career. A poster for the mountain film Der Berg des Schicksals / The Mountain of Destiny (Arnold Fanck, 1924) inspired her to move into film acting. She got in touch with director Arnold Fanck, who was the pioneer of the mountain film genre. Riefenstahl persuaded Fanck to feature her in his next film, Der heilige Berg / The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926) with Luis Trenker and Frieda Richard. The film cost 1.5 million Reichsmarks to produce, and was released during the 1926 Christmas season. Der heilige Berg / The Holy Mountain was popular in Berlin, where sold-out performances extended its premiere run for five weeks. The film was also screened in Britain, France and the US and was the first international success of its director

Between 1926 and 1931, Leni Riefenstahl starred in five successful films. First she made Der Große Sprung / The Great Leap (Arnold Fanck, 1927) and Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg / Fate of the House of Habsburg (Rolf Raffé, 1928). The film that brought Riefenstahl into the limelight was Fanck's Die Weisse Hölle vom Piz Palü / The White Hell of Piz Palü (Arnold Fanck, G. W. Pabst, 1929) with Gustav Diessl. Her fame spread to countries outside Germany. Her next two films were Stürme über dem Mont Blanc / Storm Over Mont Blanc (Arnold Fanck, 1930) with Sepp Rist, and Der Weisse Rausch / The White Ecstasy (Arnold Fanck, 1931).

From Arnold Fanck, she had learned acting but also film editing techniques. His use of cinematic technique - filters, special film stock, slow motion - to endow magnificent natural scenery with dramatic stature provided her with key elements of her towering visual style and fostered her technical skill. Leni Riefenstahl decided to try to produce and direct her own film. It was called Das Blaue Licht / The Blue Light (1932), co-written by Carl Mayer and Béla Balázs. In the film, Riefenstahl played an innocent peasant girl in the Tyrolean mountains who is hated and cast out by the villagers because they think she is diabolic. She is protected by a secret cave of blue crystals. With the blue light, she lures young men to their deaths. The film attracted the attention of Adolf Hitler, who saw talent in Riefenstahl. He believed Riefenstahl epitomised the perfect German female.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 24/5. Photo: Ufa. Publicity still for Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit / Ways to Strength and Beauty (Nicholas Kaufmann, Wilhelm Prager, 1925). Pictured are members of the Tanzgruppe Mary Wigman performing 'Die Wanderung' (The Hike). Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard. Photo: Karl Schenker. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1814/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Karl Schenker. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3168/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German collector card by Ross Verlag in the series 'Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film', picture no. 130, group 40. Photo: Ufa. Leni Riefenstahl in Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü / The White Hell of Piz Palü (Arnold Fanck, G. W. Pabst, 1929).


German collector card by Ross Verlag. Photo: Aafa. Leni Riefenstahl and Sepp Rist in Stürme über dem Mont Blanc / Storm Over Mont Blanc (Arnold Fanck, 1930).


German collector card by Ross Verlag in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 98. Photo: Aafa. Leni Riefenstahl in Das blaue Licht / The Blue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932).


German collector card in the series 'Vom Werden deutscher Filmkunst - Der Tonfilm', album no. 11, picture no. 43, group 44. Photo: Ufa / Ross Verlag. Leni Riefenstahl and Gustav Diessl in S.O.S. Eisberg / S.O.S. Iceberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933).

A friendly relationship with Hitler

In 1933, Leni Riefenstahl appeared in the American-German co-productions SOS Eisberg (Arnold Fanck, 1933; German version) and SOS Iceberg (Tay Garnett, 1933; US version). The two versions were filmed simultaneously in English and German and produced and distributed by Universal Studios. Riefenstahl co-starred with Gustav Diessl and Ernst Udet in S.O.S. Eisberg, and with Gibson Gowland and Rod La Rocque in S.O.S. Iceberg. Her part in SOS Iceberg would be her only English-language film role.

Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at the Berlin Sportpalast in 1932 and by her own account, she was 'mesmerised by his talent as a public speaker'. After meeting Hitler, Riefenstahl was offered the opportunity to direct Der Sieg des Glaubens / The Victory of Faith (1933), an hour-long propaganda film about the fifth Nuremberg Rally in 1933. Riefenstahl agreed to direct the film. She and Hitler got on well, forming a friendly relationship. The Propaganda film was funded entirely by the NSDAP.

Impressed with Riefenstahl's work, Hitler asked her to film Triumph des Willens / Triumph of the Will (1935), a new propaganda film about the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. More than 700,000 Nazi supporters attended the rally. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by Nazi leaders at the Congress, including Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and Julius Streicher, interspersed with footage of massed Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel troops and public reaction. Riefenstahl's techniques — such as moving cameras, aerial photography, the use of long focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, and her revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography — made Triumph des Willens / Triumph of the Will a prominent example of propaganda in film history.

Riefenstahl won several awards, not only in Germany but also in the United States, France, Sweden, and other countries. Despite allegedly vowing not to make any more films about the Nazi Party, Riefenstahl made the 28-minute Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht / Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces (1935) about the German Army. Hitler then invited Riefenstahl to film the 1936 Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Berlin. She visited Greece to take footage of the route of the inaugural torch relay and the games' original site at Olympia, where she was aided by Greek photographer Nelly's. This material became the two-part Olympia (Festival Of Nations / Festival Of Beauty)(1938), a hugely successful film which has since been widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements.

Riefenstahl began work on the Opera film Tiefland / Lowlands. On Hitler's direct order, the German government paid her seven million Reichsmarks in compensation. Sinti and Roma people from the Marzahn detention camp near Berlin were compelled to work as extras. Almost to the end of her life, despite overwhelming evidence that the concentration camp occupants had been forced to work on the film unpaid, Riefenstahl continued to maintain all the film extras survived and that she had met several of them after the war. In October 1944, the production of Tiefland moved to Barrandov Studios in Prague for interior filming. Lavish sets made these shots some of the most costly of the film. The film was not edited and released until almost ten years later. Tiefland (1954) would be her last feature film.


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Dance 'Study after a Cavotte' (1923).


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' (2000). Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as the dancer Diotima in Der heilige Berg / The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926).


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl five lives' (2000). Leni Riefenstahl and Luis Trenker in Der heilige Berg / The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, Leni Riefenstahl, 1926). Caption: The Ice Cathedral.


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl five lives' (2000). Photo: Ufa. Leni Riefenstahl as Maria Majoni in Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü / The White Hell of Piz Palü (Arnold Fanck, G. W. Pabst, 1929).


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl five lives' (2000). Photo: Ufa. Leni Riefenstahl as Maria Majoni and Ernst Petersen as Hans Brandt in Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü / The White Hell of Piz Palü (Arnold Fanck, G. W. Pabst, 1929).


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as Junta in Das blaue Licht / The Blue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932).


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' (2000). Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as Junta in the crystal grotto in Das blaue Licht / The Blue Light (Leni Riefenstahl, 1932).


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as the pilot Ellen Lawrence in S.O.S. Iceberg (Tay Garnett, 1933).

Fellow traveller

In 1945, after the war, Leni Riefenstahl was arrested by US soldiers at her chalet in Kitzbühel in the Tyrol. Throughout 1945 to 1948, she was held in various Allied-controlled prison camps across Germany. She was also under house arrest for a period of time. She had never been a Nazi party member and was cleared of active involvement by a de-Nazification tribunal. She was declared a Mitläufer or fellow traveller, which disbarred her from ever seeking public office.

During the 1950s and 1960s, she tried many times to make more films, but was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism. Triumph des Willens and her other work for the Nazis had significantly damaged her career and reputation. Despite her protests to the contrary, Riefenstahl was considered an intricate part of the Third Reich's propaganda machine.

In the 1960s, Riefenstahl discovered Africa and reinvented herself as a still photographer. She published two photo books on the Nuba tribes, 'The Nuba' and 'The Nuba of Kau'. In 1968, she began a lifelong companionship with her cameraman Horst Kettner. She was 60, and he was 20. He assisted her with her photographs. She also photographed the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. In 1978, Riefenstahl published a book of her sub-aquatic photographs called 'Korallengärten' (Coral Gardens), followed by the 1990 book 'Wunder unter Wasser' (Wonder under Water). Riefenstahl also released the autobiography A Memoir (1995). Leni Riefenstahl died of cancer in 2003 in Pöcking, Germany, at the age of 101. She was buried at the Waldfriedhof in Munich.

Leni Riefenstahl was married twice. From 1944 till 1947, she was married to Peter Jacob. Shortly before her death, she married her longtime companion Horst Kettner. After Kettner died in 2016, Riefenstahl's former secretary Gisela Jahn became the sole heir of Riefenstahl's estate. In 2018, Jahn bequeathed the Berlin-based Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) photos, films, manuscripts and letters that had belonged to Riefenstahl. The donation contained more than 700 boxes.

In 1993, Ray Müller made the documentary Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl / The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, for which he won an International Emmy Award. Müller lets the spirited, then 92-year-old woman speak without interrupting her too much. He observes and makes it clear that she has not the slightest regret about her collaboration with Hitler, but she does regret the fact that it so severely hampered her postwar career. In 2024, Andres Veiel made the documentary Riefenstahl, which does not pass explicit judgment either, but it does tear Riefenstahl’s own victim narrative to shreds.


German collector card by Ross Verlag in the Unsere Bunten Filmbilder series for Constantin Cigarettenfabrik, Dresden, no. 271. Photo: Binder. Leni Riefenstahl during the filming of Triumph des Willens / Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935).


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Director Leni Riefenstahl and cameraman Walter Frentz during the filming of Olympia (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938).


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Still for Olympia (Leni Riefenstahl, 1938).


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as director during the filming, 1940. Preparations for Tiefland (Leni Riefenstahl, 1940-1954).


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' (2000). Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl as the Gypsy Martha, dancing in an inn in Tiefland / Lowlands (Leni Riefenstahl, 1940-1954).


German postcard by Taschen, from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' (2000). Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Franz Eichberger as Pedro, a herdsman in the Pyrenees in Tiefland / Lowlands (Leni Riefenstahl, 1940-1954).


German postcard from the book 'Leni Riefenstahl Five Lives' by Taschen, Köln, 2000. Photo: Leni Riefenstahl. Caption: Leni Riefenstahl as a diver, c. 1980.


German autograph card.


German trailer for Der Weisse Rausch / The White Ecstasy (1931). Source: FREERIDE FILMFESTIVAL (YouTube).


Clip from Tiefland / Lowlands (1954). Source: Канал пользователя samoslav01 (YouTube).

Sources: Richard Falcon (The Guardian), Rainer Rother (Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius), Berliner Woche (Page now defunct), DW, Wikipedia and IMDb.

Published by Les Éditions Filma

Shortly after the First World War, French publishing house Les Éditions Filma created the well-known postcard series 'Les Vedettes du Cinéma' (The Stars of the Cinema). The sepia postcards contained portraits of French 'vedettes' of the silent cinema, but also of Hollywood stars like William S. Hart and Mary Pickford. Around the time this series stopped, in the early 1920s, Filma started another film star postcard series, 'Les Vedettes de l'Écran' (The Stars of the Screen). The numbers of this new set followed the numbers of the first series. During the late 1920s, another Paris-based publisher, André Noyer (A.N.), presented the 'Les Vedettes de Cinéma' series. In the past, EFSP had posts on all three series. Interestingly, Filma also published film books and other film postcards. Today we present 18 postcards by Les Éditions Filma, which were not part of the two Vedettes series and were published around 1923.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 6. Lillian Gish in The White Sister (Henry King, 1923).

American actress Lillian Gish (1893–1993) was 'The First Lady of the Silent Screen'. During the 1910s, she was one of director D.W. Griffith's greatest stars. She appeared in films such as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Broken Blossoms (1919), and Orphans of the Storm (1921). After 13 years with Griffith, she moved to MGM, where her first picture was La Bohème (King Vidor, 1926). In the 1940s, after a long interval, she returned to the screen in a handful of films and received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role as Laura Belle McCanles in Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946). Again, a decade later, she was marvellous in the classic Film Noir The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955). Her last film was The Whales of August (Lindsay Anderson, 1987) in which she shared the lead with Bette Davis.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 50. Photo: Pathé.

Romuald Joubé (1876–1949) was an actor of French silent cinema who became famous for his part in Abel Gance’s J’accuse (1918). He also acted in various naturalistic features by André Antoine.

French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 84. Photo: Abel.

Sessue Hayakawa (1889–1973) was a Japanese Issei actor who starred in American, Japanese, French, German, and British films. He was the first Asian actor to find stardom in the United States and Europe. His 'broodingly handsome' good looks and typecasting as a sinister villain with sexual dominance made him a heartthrob among American women. Several years before Rudolph Valentino, he was Hollywood's first male sex symbol. During those early years, Hayakawa was as well known and as popular as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, although today his name is largely unknown to the public.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 100. Photo: [Ruben] Sobol.

Géneviève Félix (1901–?) was a French actress of the silent cinema. After being a regular actress of Georges Champavert and Jean Kemm, she starred in the Victor Hugo adaptation La dame de Monsoreau (1925).


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 107. Photo: F. Bixio.

Rolla Norman (1889–1971) was a French actor in silent and sound cinema. 'The Man with Many Faces’ was also a war hero.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 109. Photo: Wyndham.

French film actress Suzanne Bianchetti (1889–1936) was one of France's most loved and respected actresses of her time. She played Marie Antoinette in Abel Gance's epic Napoléon (1927) and worked with many other great names of the silent cinema. After her death, the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti was created in her memory, an annual French award given to the most promising young actress.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 121. Photo: Aubert.

French actor Edmond van Daële, aka Van Daele (1884–1960), is best known as the evil Robespierre in Abel Gance's masterpiece Napoleon (1927). Van Daele also appeared in films by Léon Poirier, Louis Delluc and Jean Epstein. He easily transferred to sound film and played in about fifty films until 1950.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 125. Photo: G. Fontaine.

Sandra Milowanoff (1892–1957), also written as Milovanoff, was a Russian actress who became a French citizen. She was a star of the French silent cinema in the 1920s, acting with directors such as Feuillade, De Baroncelli, Fescourt and Vanel.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 126. Photo: Fox Film.

William Russell (1884–1929) was an American popular actor of the silent screen. First at Biograph, Thanhouser. Mutual, American, and afterwards at Fox and Warner/ First National. He died already at age 44 in 1929.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 130.

Jane Rollette (1891–1994) was a French film actress who peaked in Louis Feuillade's serial films of the late 1910s and early 1920s.


French postcard by 'Éditions Filma, no. 133. Photo: Gaumont.

French silent film actress Marguérite Madys, aka Madys (1899–1986), started in 1919 at the Gaumont company. She starred in several films by Léon Poirier, Jean Kemm and Pierre Colombier. She also appeared in two Franco-German coproductions by Harry Piel. René Clair and Julien Duvivier also directed her before she ended her film career in 1927.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 135. Photo: Films. Ant. Jupiter. Emmy Lynn in Visages voilés... âmes closes / The Sheik's Wife (Henry Roussel, 1921).

Emmy Lynn (1889–1978) was a French stage and screen actress, known for her parts in the French silent films by Abel Gance, Henry Roussel, and Marcel L’Herbier.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 140. Photo: Sartony.

Sweet 'little angel' Régine Dumien (1914–1979) was a popular child star of the French silent cinema of the early 1920s.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 144. Photo: Gaumont. Armand Tallier in Jocelyn (Léon Poirier, 1922).

Armand Tallier (1887–1958) was a stage and screen actor who peaked in the silent era. Inspired by theatre director Jacques Copeau, who had opened the alternative Théâtre du Vieux Colombier, and who had directed Tallier on stage from 1913 for several years, Tallier created with Laurence Myrga the Studio des Ursulines, one of the first Parisian art houses, founded to ensure the diffusion of avant-garde cinema. The first session took place in January 1926. As an homage to him, since 1958, the best book on film is awarded the Prix Armand Tallier, which is since 1977 called Prix littéraire du syndicat français de la critique de cinéma.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 149. Photo: Abel.

Jean Dehelly (1896–1964) was a French film actor who was active in French cinema of the 1920s and early 1930s.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 150. Ivan Mozzhukhin in Kean / Edmund Kean: Prince Among Lovers (Alexandre Volkoff, 1924).

Russian actor Ivan Mozzhukhin (in France, Ivan Mosjoukine) (1889–1939) was a legendary star of the European silent film, who shone in Russia, France, Germany and Austria, but suffered in Hollywood.


French postcard by Éditions Filma, no. 151. Photo: P. Apers.

Spanish actress, singer, and diva Raquel Meller (1888–1962) acted mainly in French silent films. She was already a highly popular singer before debuting as a film actress in 1919.


French postcard, probably by Éditions Filma, no. 1002. Photo: Henri Manuel.

Geneviève Félix (1901–?) was a French actress of the silent cinema. After being a regular actress of Georges Champavert and Jean Kemm, she starred in the Victor Hugo adaptation La dame de Monsoreau (1925).

And check out our earlier posts on Les Éditions Filma:

Les Vedettes du Cinéma, 14 October 2017.
Les Vedettes de l'Écran, 23 October 2017.

Le roman d'un mousse (1913) and Les fiancés de Séville (1914)

We continue our weekly series on the small collector cards from the 1910s by the Spanish editor Reclam Films. Last Sunday, we posted about these mini-cards for two early French films produced by Pathé Frères. Ivo Blom also acquired two series of Reclam collector cards for two pre-WWI films made by the other big pioneering French film company, Gaumont. In this post, EFSP presents the melodrama in four parts: Le roman d'un mousse / The Curse of Greed (1913) by Léonce Perret and Les fiancés de Séville / The Betrothed of Seville (1914) by Louis Feuillade. Nous espérons que vous apprécierez!

Le roman d'un mousse (1913)

Spanish collector card by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 1 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Le roman d'un mousse (Léonce Perret, 1913). Adrien Petit as Charles-Henri with Maurice Luguet as the usurer Werb.


Spanish collector card by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 2 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Le roman d'un mousse (Léonce Perret, 1913), starring Adrien Petit.


Spanish collector card by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 3 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Final scene from Le roman d'un mousse (Léonce Perret, 1913). Little Charles Henri (Adrien Petit) unmasks the evil Werb (Maurice Luguet) before the judges as his kidnapper. Shocked, his mother (Angèle Lérida), accused of the assassination of her husband, looks on at the revealing of the evil plan of Werb and her husband to get rid of mother and son.

The Spanish release title of Le roman d'un mousse / The Curse of Greed (1913) was Tormenta. It referred to the original French title, La Tourmente / The Ordeal. The numbering on the Reclam Minicards does not follow the plot: number 3 shows the final scene. So here follows the story. The Marquis de Luscky (Louis Leubas), gravely in debt, is refused a new loan by the moneylender Werb (Maurice Luguet). On his way home on horseback, the anxious Marquis accidentally throws himself in front of a car. His horse is killed, and he himself is seriously injured. The car is driven by the Countess de Ker Armor (Angèle Lérida), widow of a naval officer and daughter of an American multimillionaire. She has the injured man picked up, taken to her home, and first aid is administered. The marquis suffers from multiple fractures and is forced to remain immobile for a long time.

Upon hearing the news, Werb writes him a personal letter. He tells him that if he is clever and knows how to take advantage of the situation, he can win both the woman’s heart and a considerable fortune. The Marquis de Luscky realises what an opportunity has presented itself and redoubles his attentions toward the young woman, courting her assiduously and ardently. Werb and the Marquis concoct an evil plan. As soon as the marriage is concluded, the countess needs to disappear. Werb takes charge of her child, little Charles-Henri (Adrien Petit), the son of the Countess’s first marriage. He becomes the child’s tutor, and while the newlyweds are spending their honeymoon in Italy, Werb, under the pretext of a study trip, takes little Charles-Henri to Saint-Malo.

After putting little Charles-Henri to sleep, Werb hands him over to another creditor of his, Captain Dick (Emile André). The Captain agrees to take Charles-Henri on board as a ship's boy, with the intention of drowning him. The child's ordeal begins, but he meets a kind, old fisherman on board, Father Paimpol (Armand Dutertre), who takes the child under his wing and shields him from harm. Father Paimpol understands the skipper’s true intentions, and one night, when land is in sight, they escape in a rowboat. After weathering a terrible storm, they are picked up by a ship that brings them to Le Havre. Meanwhile, the Marquis de Luscky continues his work. Upon learning of her son’s disappearance, the countess, now a marquise, falls gravely ill. Werb returns, announcing that his task is completed and urging De Luscky to carry out his. De Luscky decides to pour a poison given to him by Werb into the marquise’s night glass; then, so as not to witness the death of the woman he was killing, he leaves and goes to meet his accomplice at a nightclub in Montmartre.

The Marquis returns in the early morning, not daring to glance into his wife’s room — she must be dead — but, overcome by the emotions of the night he has just endured, he goes to his study, takes a glass, and drinks the beverage that had been prepared for his wife. De Luscky tries to make his way back to his apartment, but he is wracked by a fierce pain and lets out a cry. The pain intensifies, and he collapses. Awakened by this cry, the Marquise de Luscky rises, alarmed. The Marquis is on the floor, still writhing. The distraught woman grabs the glass, wanting to give him a drink since he is asking for it, but he falls back down; death has done its work. At the cries raised by the Marquis and the Marquise de Luscky, the servants rush in. A doctor who has been summoned pronounces him dead, but at the same time becomes suspicious. The police get involved, and the marquise is arrested. The servants, when questioned, state that indeed, the marquise was holding the glass in her hand when, drawn by the screams, they entered the study where the marquis was dying. Her fingerprints are also on the glass.

The trial is underway. The marquise is appearing before the Assize Court. While this drama is unfolding in Paris, Charles Henry and Father Paimpol are in Le Havre. Upon leaving the maritime registration office, drawn by the cries of newspaper vendors, little Henry buys one and sees that his mother is implicated and that she is being tried as a poisoner and as the cause of his own disappearance, He takes Father Paimpol with him, and the two of them set off for Paris, arriving at the Criminal Court to prove the innocence of the Marquise de Luscky and expose the usurer Werb. At IMDb, DB Dumonteil rates the film 8 out of 10: "A visionary man, Perret, long before the overrated Nouvelle Vague which happened almost half a century later, already took the cinema out of the studio whenever he could: there are shots of Saint-Malo ramparts, of Le Havre harbour, and the final scene uses the sunset to startling effects. A melodrama in four parts, it's very good storytelling, well played (particularly the actor who plays Werb gives a masterful performance and the child actor rises to the occasion too)."


Spanish collector card by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 4 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Le roman d'un mousse (Léonce Perret, 1913), starring Adrien Petit as Charles-Henri, here with Armand Dutertre as Father Paimpol.


Spanish collector card by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 5 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Le roman d'un mousse (Léonce Perret, 1913), starring Adrien Petit as the ship's boy Charles Henri. Here he is with Armand Dutertre as Father Páimpol.


Spanish collector card by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 6 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Le roman d'un mousse (Léonce Perret, 1913). The Countess (Angèle Lérida) is courted by the debt-ridden Marquis (Louis Leubas), who is after her money.

Les fiancés de Séville (1914)

Spanish collector by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 1 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Les fiancés de Séville (Louis Feuillade, 1914), starring Fernand Herrmann as Joselito. The man on the left of this card is René Navarre as Bertier.


Spanish collector by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 2 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Les fiancés de Séville (Louis Feuillade, 1914), starring Fernand Herrmann.


Spanish collector by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 3 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Les fiancés de Séville (Louis Feuillade, 1914).

In 1914, Gaumont director Louis Feuillade travelled to Spain to direct two feature films on the theme of bullfighting: Les fiancés de Séville / The Betrothed of Seville (Louis Feuillade, 1914). The Spanish release title was Amoríos sevillanos. In the cast were Fernand Herrmann, Eugène Bréon, Renée Carl, René Navarre, Suzanne Le Bret, Marthe Vinot and Maurice Vinot. Louis Feuillade also wrote the script for the film. The outbreak of World War I prevented him from completing his second Spanish film, but one of the sequences shot at that time was incorporated into the sixth episode of his famous serial Les Vampires, entitled Les Yeux qui fascinent (1916)

In Les fiancés de Séville / The Betrothed of Seville, the bullfighter Joselito, his fiancée Rosario, and her friend Angelita are posing for a genre painting by the artist Bertier, who is visiting Seville. Joselito is jealous, and his jealousy is fueled by Angelita, who secretly loves him.

One day, after Bertier gave Rosario a small gift to celebrate her birthday, Joselito waits for Bertier in the gardens of the Alcázar at night and stabs him in the back with his knife. Fortunately, the wound is not fatal. The newspapers report the news the next day. Angelita, pursuing her goal, shows the newspaper to Rosario and makes her understand that Joselito, her fiancé, is the murderer.

The young woman runs after the matador and, when she finds him, questions him. He lowers his head, and she understands that this gesture is a confession. She leaves him in outrage, telling him that she will never again see the one who cowardly attacks at night and from behind. Joselito instructs Angelita to deliver a letter to Rosario in which he writes that if she does not forgive him by the following Sunday, he will let himself be killed by the bull in the arena.

Angelita feels remorse and decides to prevent the tragedy she has caused. She runs to find Rosario and tells her about the matador’s letter, and they rush to the circus. Too late — Joselito has been gored by the second bull and is carried to the infirmary. Fortunately, his injury isn’t very serious. Rosario forgives him, just as she forgives Angelita.


Spanish collector by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 4 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Les fiancés de Séville (Louis Feuillade, 1914), starring Fernand Herrmann.


Spanish collector by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 5 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Les fiancés de Séville (Louis Feuillade, 1914), starring Fernand Herrmann.


Spanish collector by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card 6 of 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from Les fiancés de Séville (Louis Feuillade, 1914), starring Fernand Herrmann.

Sources: dbdumonteil (IMDb), Script Le roman d'un mousse (gparchives - French), Script Les fiancés de Séville (gparchives - French), Le Ciné-club de Caen (French) and IMDb.