LES NOUVEAUX MESSIEURS CONCERT WITH ANTONIO COPPOLA AND L'OCTUOR DE FRANCE

Les nouveaux Messieurs / [the film was not released in Finland]. FR 1929. PC: Films Albatros / Sequana Films. P: Alexandre Kamenka, Simon Schiffrin; D: Jacques Feyder; SC: Jacques Feyder, Charles Spaak, based on the play by Robert de Flers & Francis de Croisset (1926); cin: Georges Périnal, Maurice Desfassiaux; ad: Lazare Meerson; filmed: Brie-Comte-Robert; Créteil; Brunoy; Château de Bisy; Studios Billancourt; cast: Albert Préjean (Jacques Gaillac), Gaby Morlay (Suzanne Verrier), Henry Roussell (Comte de Montoire-Grandpré), Guy Ferrant (journalist), Henry Valbel (a deputy), Charles Barrois (Director of the Opéra), Andrée Canti (Julie), Raymond Narlay (Cabinet director), A. Duchange (prefect); 2805 m /20 fps/ 123 min; print: La Cinémathèque française, reconstituée 1990 par Renée Lichtig. Original in French with e-subtitles. The closing gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 11 October 2008.
Score composed and conducted by Antonio Coppola
Performed by l'Octuor de France
Feyder's handsome and extraordinary (conservative) political satire revisited. It keeps astonishing with its stunning visuals and witty inventions. The weakness: its characters fail to move.
It was a pleasure to experience Antonio Coppola's rich and many-sided music which responds to the satire of the "pomp and circumstance" and has both magnificent and droll patterns.

La Faute d'orthographe

FR 1919. PC: Gaumont. D+SC: Jacques Feyder; AD: Robert-Jules Garnier; ; cast: Charles Deschamps (Paul Huet), Marcel Vallée (burglar), Georges Mauloy (general manager), Charles Barrois (inspector), Gaston Dupray (guardian?), Fernand Ledoux (a plainclothes policeman), Fabien Haziza (messenger boy); 511 m /18 fps/ 25 min’; print: Archives Gaumont-Pathé. Original in French with e-subtitles in English and Italian, grand piano: Donald Sosin. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 6 October 2008. - Print ok, sometimes slightly high contrast or low contrast. - Lenny Borger: "Feyder returned briefly to Gaumont in 1919 after having served in a Belgian army theatrical troupe in the last months of the war. He sold the studio one last script entitled La Faute d’orthographe, a delightful short about a job candidate who, fearing he’s misspelled a word on his application, sneaks back into the company offices after hours to correct it – only to get himself arrested. But his job is saved by an educated burglar who had broken in the same night and obligingly made the corrections for him. Judged too eccentric by the conventional Gaumont, the film was Feyder’s last at the famous studio. Said one historian: “By dismissing an artisan, Léon Gaumont furthered the birth of a great film artist...” – Lenny Borger. - A witty mini thriller, where the the aspiring job applicant's desperate attempt at correcting his error is mixed up with stylish burglary. - Pretty funny, with original jokes about orthography. - "Ill gotten gains seldom prosper." - "Like all great criminals, you put your signature on the crime".

Un conseil d'ami

FR 1916. PC: Gaumont. D+SC: Jacques Feyder; AD: Robert-Jules Garnier; cast: Fernand Herrmann (Georges Midewski), ? (Roger), Gaston Michel (Sir Carry), Kitty Hott (Maud Carry); 326 m /18 fps/ 16 min; print: Archives Gaumont-Pathé. Original in French with e-subtitles in English and Italian, grand piano: Donald Sosin. Viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 6 September 2008. - Lenny Borger: "Inversely, in Un Conseil d’ami, Feyder uses spacious natural exteriors and in-depth studio sets to intensify the psychological discomfort of a young musician seeking a place in wealthy society." Lenny Borger. - Motto from Oscar Wilde: good advice is of no use to oneself, one has to give it to others. - Guy becomes sportsman, but girl had liked him as he was.

Des pieds et des mains / Feet and Hands

Gaston Ravel & Jacques Feyder: Des pieds et des mains / Feet and Hands (FR 1916). André Roanne (M. de Lestrac) and Kitty Hott (Mme. de Florange).

FR 1916. PC: Gaumont. D+SC: Gaston Ravel, Jacques Feyder; AD: Robert-Jules Garnier; cast: Kitty Hott (Mme. de Florange), André Roanne (M. de Lestrac); 320 m /18 fps/ 16 min; print: Archives Gaumont-Pathé, original in French, with e-subtitles in English and Italian, grand piano: Donald Sosin, viewed at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone, Cinema Verdi, 6 October 2008. - Print ok, Donald Sosin fine at the piano with classical inspiration.

Lenny Borger (GCM 2008): "The chronology and circumstances surrounding the directing debut of Jacques Feyder have always been unclear – and Feyder and his wife, Françoise Rosay, only added to the confusion in their memoirs. This much seems certain: around late 1915-early 1916, Feyder, a young Belgian actor and would-be-director at Gaumont Studios in Paris – he had only recently played an underworld henchman in Feuillade’s Les Vampires – earned the sympathetic support of contract director Gaston Ravel, who took him on as an assistant. Their first collaboration may have been a one-reel comedy called Des Pieds et des mains; others cite Monsieur Pinson, policier, presumably begun by Ravel and completed by Feyder – the former either being called up for military service or falling ill. What seems more sure (a letter survives to this effect) is that Ravel asked company boss Léon Gaumont to give Feyder a try-out as a co-director, and then left Feyder a free hand to direct solo."

"Feyder passed his screen test with flying colors, and at age 31 won his first directing stripes. In the next two years, he would make about 20 short and medium-length comedies and skits for Gaumont (many of them casually imagined by playwright-humorist Tristan Bernard). Their quality was uneven, but all were technically polished and displayed a striking sense of framing." Lenny Borger.

AA: A love story told only via hands and feet. The dogged suitor finally succeeds. The opening quote is that from a well formed leg one can already conclude the rest. A beautiful sketch of the woman. The shoe stuck in the trolley rail. In the finale we first see the faces, then the baby.

La Loi du Nord

026437 / 16 / FR / 1939 / Feyder, Jacques / drama

Loi du Nord, La / La Piste du Nord / The Law of the North / Pako pohjoiseen. PC: Filmos / Ciné Alliance. P: Gregor Rabinovitch, Roland Tual, Adolphe Osso. D: Jacques Feyder. CAST: Michèle Morgan, Pierre Richard-Willm, Charles Vanel, Jacques Terrane. 101’. B&w. Safety print from La Cinémathèque Francaise with a mostly brilliant image and a damaged soundtrack. Fine earphone translation by Leena Talvio. Viewed at SEA, Cinema Orion, Helsinki, Thursday, 19 September 1997. *** An American millionaire (Richard-Willm) kills his wife’s lover and flees to the Frozen North with his secretary (Morgan). They are chased by a Canadian Mountie (Vanel). The exposition is boring, but the Jack London style adventure in the snowy wilderness is effective. It is also fun to see Morgan visit an Indian sauna. The scenes with Morgan are shot with reverence worthy of Garbo, whose director Feyder had been. Also Vanel is excellent. Swedish Lapland passes for Canada in the production. The film is little known. Its release was delayed by the Occupation; the producer was non-Aryan, and there was the problem of deference towards the ”Northern Law” embodied in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. While no masterpiece, the film is different and memorable.