René Cresté

René Cresté (1881-1922) was a French stage and film actor and director of the silent film era. He is best remembered as the amazingly cool title character in the crime-adventure serial Judex (1917-1918), directed by Louis Feuillade. Judex was the first superhero in the cinema.

French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Still for La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

French postcard in the series Les Vedettes de l'Ecran by Editions Filma, no. 112.

Louis Feuillade

René Cresté was born in Paris, France, in 1881. He began his acting career on the stages of Paris as a jeune premier in plays such as Claudine à Paris (Claudine in Paris) by and with Colette, Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, and Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugene Scribe. In 1913, Alphonse Séché engaged him for his Nouveau Théâtre d’Art to play leading roles in several plays.

Cresté signed a contract with the Gaumont Film Company in 1908. Little is known of these first film appearances as they are considered lost. For Pathé he appeared in La chatte métamorphosée en femme/The cat transformed in a woman (Michel Carré, 1910) with Carlos Avril.

In 1912 he began appearing in a series of mystery shorts directed by Léonce Perret for Gaumont. These films included La bonne hôtesse/The good hostess (Léonce Perret, 1912) with Suzanne Grandais, Le mariage de Suzie/Suzie’s Wedding (Léonce Perret, 1912) with Suzanne Grandais, and Par l’amour/By Love (Léonce Perret, 1913) with Jean Aymé.

At the onset of the First World War, Cresté enlisted in the French army and actively participated in the fighting. Injured and demobilized, he resumed his acting career at Gaumont studios by the end of 1915 and appeared in Son or/His Gold (Louis Feuillade, 1915) with Yvette Andréyor, Dernier amour/Last Love (Léonce Perret, 1916) with Valentine Petit, and Le roi de la montagne/The King of the Mountain (Léonce Perret, 1916) with Fabienne Fabrèges.

In 1917 he played in several films for Louis Feuillade, including Le passé de Monique/Monique (Louis Feuillade, 1917) with Edouard Mathé, Mon Oncle/My Uncle (Louis Feuillade, 1917) with Musidora, and Les petites marionnettes/The small puppets (Louis Feuillade, 1917) again opposite Edouard Mathé.


Spanish collector's card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 1. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté inLa déserteuse (Louis Feuillade, 1917). The Spanish release title was Tortura de madre.

Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 6 (of six cards). Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andreyor and René Cresté in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917). The Spanish release title was Tortura de madre.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, card 44 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Judex (René Cresté) overhears a phone call by the evil Baronne d'Apremont (Juana Borguèse) in La Nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Le Panthéon du cinéma

René Cresté was then cast for his greatest role – Judex, a positive hero who steals to help the poor. The character's arch-nemesis is the callous banker Favraux, who had carelessly driven thousands of people into bankruptcy. In 1916, Feuillade and writer Arthur Bernède had begun to develop a surrealistic character called 'Jacques de Tremeuse' (aka Judex) - a mysterious avenger who sports a signature long dark cloak, a wide-brimmed black hat, and a fatalistic air.

Judex (which means Justice) appears and disappears like a ghost, and would appear to have mild hypnotic powers. He is a master of disguise and an excellent fighter. He commands the loyalty of an organization composed of circus folks and redeemed Apaches. Finally, he flies a plane and has a secret lair, where he interrogates his prisoners through a ‘television’ screen - everything Judex writes on the screen on his desk appears on a similar screen on the wall of his victim's cell.

The serial began production in 1917 and was released the same year in its first instalment to critical and public praise. Jefferey M. Anderson at Combustible Celluloid calls Judex an ‘unalloyed masterwork’: “establishing Feuillade as one of history's greatest directors. He had an uncanny knack for finding shocking beauty in simple images, such as a gate or a wall or an antique car driving down the road”.

The character of Judex is widely recognized as one of cinema's first superheroes. René Cresté, who was already popular among female audiences, has now become an immensely popular film star. Judex also starred Musidora as villainess Diana Monti, Édouard Mathé, Gaston Michel, the young René Poyen, and Yvette Andréyor.

Simultaneously with the release of the serial, a novelisation, signed by both Feuillade and Bernède, was released, first as a serial in Le Petit Parisien, then in a collected edition by Tallandier. The following year a sequel was made, La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917), which landed Cresté definitively in ‘le Panthéon du cinéma’, as Philippe Pelletier writes so beautifully at Ciné Artistes.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Gaumont. Still for La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Gaumont. Still for La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917-1918).

Eyes Without a Face

Following the success of Judex, René Cresté appeared in the serials Tih Minh (Louis Feuillade, 1918), and Vendémiaire (Louis Feuillade, 1918) with Édouard Mathé and Mary Harald. Both were less successful than Judex.

He also appeared in the films L’homme sans visage/Eyes Without a Face (Louis Feuillade, 1919) with Gina Manès, L’engrenage/The gearing (Louis Feuillade, 1919) with Geneviève Félix, and L’énigme/Enigma (Louis Feuillade, 1919) with Fernand Herrmann.

Then Cresté founded his own film production company, Films-René-Cresté, for which he produced and directed Le château du silence/The Silent Castle (René Cresté, 1919) and L’aventure de René/René’s Adventure (René Cresté, 1921).

His last film was Un coup de tête/A Whim (René Cresté, 1922). All his productions were ultimately unsuccessful. Disappointed and ruined he decided to take the management of a Parisian Cinema, the Cocorico. He also played Judex again at the stage of the Gaîté-Rochechouart.

In 1922, René Cresté died of tuberculosis in Paris, aged 40. To support the financial needs of his widow and infirmed daughter, a charity gala was organised by friends of the Cresté family with the help of the Surrealist artists in February 1929. Three months following the event, his only daughter Renée died. She was buried next to her father.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Production Gaumont. Still for the sequel La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917-1918) with Georgette de Néry.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Production Gaumont. René Cresté in the role of Judex in La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917-1918).


British postcard. René Cresté and Mary Harald in Tih-Minh (Louis Feuillade, 1919).

Sources: Jeffrey M. Anderson (Combustible Celluloid), Philippe Pelletier (CinéArtistes - French), French Wold Newton Universe, Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 7 November 2023.

La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917)

René Cresté was the hero Jacques de Tremeuse, better known as Judex, in de popular French crime-adventure serial Judex (1916-1917), directed by Louis Feuillade for Gaumont. Judex is an amazingly cool character and became the first superhero in the cinema. Of course, a sequel was needed and Cresté returned in La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918), a serial in twelve episodes. Because of the paper shortage in France during the World War, there are hardly any postcards of Feuillade's earlier serials, Les Vampires and Judex, but we found two card series of La nouvelle mission de Judex: a French postcard series with portraits of the main characters by Coquemer Gravures in Paris and a Spanish collectors card series with film scenes by Chocolate Pi in Barcelona.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté in La nouvelle mission de Judex (1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Édouard Mathé in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Louis Leubas in the role of Favraud in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque in the role of Coquentin La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard in the 'Les Artistes de Judex' series by Coquemer Grav. Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andréyor as Jacqueline in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

The strict boundaries between good women and bad women are blurred

In the sequel La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918) most characters from Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1916-1917) return: Judex (René Cresté), Jacqueline (Yvette Andreyor), her father Favraux (Louis Leubas), clumsy Cocantin (Marcel Lévesque), little Jean (Olinda Mano) and Roger (Edouard Mathé).

Jacques de Tremeuse better known as Judex has married Jacqueline, so he has become a father to her son Jean. Jacques' brother Roger loves the neighbour girl Primerose (Georgette de Néry), whose father is the inventor Milton (Emile Keppens). Their happiness is threatened by the dangerous gang 'La rafle aux secrets' (The Raiders of the Secrets), avid in stealing and reselling important technological inventions.

The evil Dr. Howey (Andrew Brunelle) and his accomplice, the dangerous Baronne d'Apremont (Juana Borguèse), both have the capacity to hypnotise the innocent Jacqueline and Primerose and make them do things against their will. Jacqueline threatens to poison her already ill son, while Primerose steals her father's invention and kidnaps little Jean.

The Baronne and her female aid Gaby (Cyprian Gilles) hold Jean, but they are captured and imprisoned by Judex and Cocantin, Gaby repents but the unrepentant Baronne escapes. Dr. Howey and the Baronne die when their boat explodes, accidentally caused by Cocantin.

In the end, Primerose is cured and marries Roger. Remarkable is that the theft of the invention seems an excuse to display the hysterical crises and hypnotised states of the women, while the Baronne and Gaby seem to be very close to one another and the previous strict boundaries between good women and bad women in Judex are blurred.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 26 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Left, Juana Borguèse as the Baronne d'Apremont in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 26 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque as Cocantin, dressed as a woman but recognised by the baker's boy, in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 33 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Juana Borguèse as the Baronne d'Apremont in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 43 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque as Cocantin in La Nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 44 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Judex (René Cresté) overhears a phone call by the evil Baronne d'Apremont (Juana Borguèse) in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 47 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Scene La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918). The man on the right could be Andrew Brunelle as the hypnotising Dr. Howey.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 49 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque as Cocantin in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 53 of 54. Photo: Gaumont. Edouard Mathé as Roger de Tremeuse and probably Georgette de Néry as Primerose in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Less anti-establishment and closer to bourgeois morals

In Louis Feuillade's crime serial film Les Vampires (1915-1916) about the gang of Vampires including the fatal beauty Irma Vep (Musidora), the police were ridiculed. The real police prefect of Paris forbade the screenings of the serial for a while.

After the upheaval of Les Vampires, later on, cherished by the Surrealists, Feuillade's next serial, Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1916-1917), was less anti-establishment and closer to bourgeois morals. The positive hero, played by René Cresté, is a black caped avenger who kidnaps the evil banker Favraux (Louis Leubas), who has caused his father's death. Musidora is the banker's evil mistress and governess of his grandson, and Marcel Lévesque plays the clumsy amateur detective Cocantin.

In 1916, Feuillade and writer Arthur Bernède had begun to develop 'Jacques de Tremeuse' (aka Judex) as a mysterious avenger who sports a signature long dark cloak, a wide-brimmed black hat, and a fatalistic air. Judex (which translates as 'Justice') appears and disappears like a ghost, and seems to have hypnotic powers. He is a master of disguise and an excellent fighter. He commands the loyalty of an organisation composed of circus folks and redeemed Apaches. He flies a plane and has a secret lair, where he interrogates his prisoners through a ‘television’ screen - everything Judex writes on the screen on his desk appears on a similar screen on the wall of his victim's cell.

René Cresté as Judex was already very popular with female audiences as this positive hero who comes to the rescue of the oppressed, but the sequel landed René Cresté definitively in ‘le Panthéon du cinéma’, as Philippe Pelletier writes so beautifully at CinéArtistes. He wore in his role as Judex a hat and cape, like Aristide Bruant, a French singer of his time. This costume is very similar to the hero costume of the later comic book hero The Shadow. Edouard Mathé played Cresté’s brother, Roger de Tremeuse. Henceforth Mathé often played a relative or buddy of in subsequent Feuillade serials such as in Judex: La nouvelle mission de Judex/The New Mission of Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Musidora didn't act in the sequel as her character had died at the end of Judex. Georgette de Néry aka de Nérys didn't play in the original Judex film but played Primerose in the sequel. It was also probably her only film.

After two more crime serials for Feuillade, Tih Minh (1918) and Vendémiaire (1918), René Cresté was fed up with the genre and concerned about his image. He decided to take his career in hand and started his own film company, Films-René-Cresté, with disastrous effects. He turned to manage the Cocorico cinema in the Parisian district of Belleville and re-enacted his famous character, Judex, in a show at the Gaîté-Rochechouart. He died of tuberculosis in 1922. His brother in the Judex serials, Edouard Mathé quit filmmaking with Feuillade in 1922 after Parisette. After a handful of films in 1923-1924, including the two Ausonia films Mes p’tits (1923) and La course à l’amour (1924), he quitted acting in film altogether.

The Cinémathèque française owns a 35 mm version of La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918) that was screened as part of the major Louis Feuillade retrospective in 2006. The series has not yet been released on DVD.


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Félix / Gaumont. Juana Borguèse as the evil Baronne d'Apremont in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures. Photo: Production Gaumont. René Cresté as Judex and Georgette de Néry as Primerose in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Andrew Brunelle as the evil Dr. Howey in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Olinda Mano as the boy Jean in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Photo: Gaumont. Georgette de Néry as Primerose in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gerschel / Gaumont. Marcel Lévesque in the role of Coquentin La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. Édouard Mathé in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).


French postcard by Coquemer Gravures, Paris. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté and Edouard Mathé in La nouvelle mission de Judex (Louis Feuillade, 1917-1918).

Source: Vicki Callahan (Zones of Anxiety: Movement, Musidora and the Crime Serials of Louis Feuillade), Philippe Pelletier (CinéArtistes - French), Jeffrey M. Anderson (Combustible Celluloid), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

La déserteuse (1917)

In our 'Spanish Chocolate series', EFSP presents a film special on the Gaumont production La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917). Stars were Yvette Andreyor and René Cresté. Chocolate Pi produced a series of six cards on the film of which the Spanish release title was Tortura de madre.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 1. Photo: Gaumont. René Cresté in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 2. Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andreyor and René Cresté in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 3. Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andreyor and Olinda Mano in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917).

Paying her fault with her death

Little is known about La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917), but at the backs of the collectors cards the plot is written. We've translated the Spanish text.

Solange de Gensac (Yvette Andreyor) is unhappily married to a man her parents chose. Her only reason for joy is her daughter Lucille (Olinda Mano). One day, she is visited by her youth friend, the navy officer Olivier de Esparre (René Cresté), whom she once secretly loved. He asks her to reconsider her marriage, but she answers she is still a mother.

However, when one night she sees her husband embracing another woman, she gives Gensac an ultimatum. He laughs it away, so she leaves him with her daughter. Yet, Oliver's work forces him to leave for Peking, so she decides to accompany him. When they are about to take the train though, the child's governess comes alone, as her husband has claimed the child.

Ten years after, Solange and Oliver have returned and live on the Côte d'Azur. Solange's heart has kept bleeding like it did that fatal night on the station. Because of a car accident she is escorted by a governess to a villa of an American couple, who happen to host Lucille. Solange is overjoyed to meet her daughter again, and substitutes as governess to Lucille, but the joy is cut short when the arrival of her ex is announced - so she disappears again in the dark, but not after confessing to Mrs. Davis her tragedy.

Solange gets more and more ill and begs her friend to bring Lucille to her. The husband, though, brutally denies a dying woman her last wish. It is Mrs. Davis, however, who brings Lucille to her dying mother, even if the girl doesn't know who she is. Solange has her last ecstasy seeing her daughter and smelling her flowers. Olivier asks Gensac how he will live on with his guilt, as Solange has paid her fault with her death.


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 4. Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andreyor in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 5. Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andreyor in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917).


Spanish collectors card by Chocolate Pi, Barcelona, no. 6 (of six cards). Photo: Gaumont. Yvette Andreyor and René Cresté in La déserteuse/Déserteuse! (Louis Feuillade, 1917).

Sources: Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.