Annabella Movies

The chef d'ouevre of legendary French filmmaker Abel Gance, the 235-minute Napoleon was supposed to have been the first installment in a multipart film study of the French military hero. Each of the film's set pieces is treated like a movie in itself: the opening pillow fights and snowball battles, staged while Napoleon is still a schoolboy (played by Russian youth Vladimir Roudenko), are choreographed on a scale worthy of D.W. Griffith. The plot proper begins with Napoleon's adult years. From home island of Corsica, Lt. Napoleon (played as an adult by Albert Dieudonné, and old friend of Gance's) decides to side with the Republic during the French Revolution. He quickly proves his mettle in a preliminary skirmish with the British. Offered the office of commander of Paris, Napoleon declines: he does not subscribe to Reign of Terror, nor does he believe in doing battle against Frenchmen. He is thrown in prison, where he meets his wife-to-be Josephine; thanks to a series of governmental upheavals, both are set free. For the next few years, France's bureaucratic bean-counters and pencil-pushers constantly thwart Napoleon's dreams of glory. The film's climax is Napoleon's rallying of the dispirited French troops and his subsequent advance into Italy.
Beyond its patriotic content, Napoléon was largely designed as a showcase for the revolutionary "Polyvision" process. Simply put, Polyvision utilized multiple images for dramatic effect. Sometimes this was accomplished in a fragmentary manner similar to the multiscreen techniques utilized in such 1960s films as The Thomas Crown Affair and The Boston Strangler. Polyvision could also manifest itself into a Cinerama-like "triptych": three screens, side by side, sometimes offering a panorama, sometimes displaying three separate but thematically linked images. Napoleon's spectacular triptych finale was the crowning touch to the remarkable camera pyrotechnics seen throughout the film; Gance hated static scenes, so he mounted his camera on pendulums, horses, gyroscopes, et al., masterfully placing the spectator in the thick of the action. The film also boasts some of the silent era's best color tinting, with special emphasis on the red, white, and blue of the French flag. Except for limited European showings, Napoleon has not been displayed in its original form since its 1927 Paris premiere. At least 19 different versions of the film exist, some horribly mutilated (cut from 17 reels to eight) and scrambled, others haphazardly reedited by Gance himself. Filmmaker/historian Kevin Brownlow's 1968 book The Parade's Gone By renewed public interest in Gance's lost masterpiece, sparking a 15-year campaign to restore Napoleon, spearheaded by Brownlow and American director Francis Ford Coppola. The resultant restoration job is not perfect -- the triptych scenes had to be reduced to postage-stamp size because no existing screen can accommodate them -- but this Napoleon is probably the closest we'll get ever get to the original. The music for the restored version was composed by Francis Ford Coppola's father Carmine Coppola. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Maldone was one of the first feature-length efforts of French filmmaker Jean Gremillon. The title character is a footloose bargee who returns to his ancestral home upon receiving a huge inheritance. At first, Maldone is reluctant to give up his carefree lifestyle, especially his lusty romance with a toothsome gypsy girl. Eventually, however, he accedes to the responsibilities of his social position, marrying the daughter of a wealthy neighbor and fathering a child. Though he tries to be a faithful husband and good father, Maldone simply can't get over his gypsy sweetheart, who has since become a famous actress. Finally, Maldone "breaks down," donning old clothes and scurrying back to his former haunts, in the vain hope that he will be reunited with his former love. Charles Dullin stars as Maldone, while among the supporting actors is an up-and-coming starlet named Annabella (later the wife of Tyrone Power). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This French production was released in English-speaking communities as Song to an Unknown Woman. A young man rescues a pretty girl from her criminal cohorts, whereupon he installs her in the servant's quarters of his home. Later he hires the girl as his secretary, with the implication that he expects her to do more than take dictation. She falls in love with him, only to be abruptly fired when she interferes with one of his various extracurricular romances. Turning the tables on her employer, the heroine begins treating him like dirt -- which of course convinces him that he's in love with her after all. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Son Altesse L'Amour is the French-language version of the German romantic comedy Ich Majestat die Liebe. Annabella stars as a lovely barmaid who falls in love with handsome young industrialist Roger Treville. His relatives strenuously oppose the union, and their arguments are bolstered when Annabella's ex-vaudevillian father Andre Lefaur embarrasses himself and his daughter at a fancy party. Treville, however, is determined to marry the girl, but by this time she has been forced into a union with an elderly, much-married baron. Realizing that his new bride is unhappy, the baron gives her her freedom -- whereupon she is made a baroness, and thus a "suitable" wife for the still-faithful Treville. The English-language version of this frothy yarn, Her Majesty Love, starred Marilyn Miller and W.C. Fields. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

René Lefèvre and Annabella are sheer delights, as is everything else in Le Million, René Clair's bright and winning early sound comedy. Clair has his actors sing their dialogue in a blithe and breezy way and utilizes a succession of surrealistic and Dadaesque touches to chronicle this lighthearted extended chase, concerning an artist racing through the streets of Paris (an amazing studio set constructed by Lazare Meerson) in order to retrieve a winning lottery ticket left in the pocket of a discarded jacket. Many of Clair's comic embellishments (like the dubbed-in sound effects of a football game over a portion of the chase) have been used endlessly in comedies ever since, but in Clair's hands, the old jokes still look fresh and magical. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Quatorze Juliet translates to "July 14th"--and if you know your French history, you'll know that July 14th is Bastille Day. This Rene Clair films deals not with the tumultuous events of the French Revolution, but with a 1932 celebration of that particular French holiday. Clair made the film hoping to capture the freewheeling, anecdotal style of his earlier Under the Roofs of Paris. The hero, George Rigaud, is a Parisian cabdriver; the heroine, Annabella, is a flower peddler. As the Bastille Day festivities stretch on into the night, the young lovers come in contact with several of Paris' more eccentric citizens. Director Clair felt that Quatorze Juliet was better in parts than in sum total; modern audiences will most likely enjoy the film as a whole, excusing the weaknesses of its structure while revelling in its music and atmosphere. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Less ambitious than his previous Golgotha, Julien Duvivier's La Bandera is nonetheless more entertaining. A Foreign Legion yarn, La Bandera downplays spectacular battle scenes in favor of a romantic triangle. Accused of murder, Pierre (Jean Gabin) joins the Legion, with detective Lucas (Robert Le Vigan) hot on his trail. Both Pierre and Lucas fall in love with beautiful Bedouin girl Aischa (Annabella), which only intensifies their hatred of one another. The two antagonists are eventually forced to bury the hatchet when fighting shoulder to shoulder against uprising natives. The ending is rather startling, inasmuch as the audience was expected the actor with the best screen billing to get the girl. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Varietes started out as a remake of E. A. DuPont's silent German classic Variety. Unfortunately, DuPont himself made his own remake, so writer-director Nicholas Farkas was obliged to whip up a new story. Annabella, Jean Gabin and Fernand Gravey star as a trio of circus trapeze artists. Both Gabin and Gravey love Annabella, but she has eyes only for Gravey. Seething with jealousy, Gabin plots revenge against his rival. He "accidentally" drops Gravey into a net during rehearsal -- but does he plan to do the same during a performance, when the trio works without a net? Though the audience may have thought that it was a step or two ahead of the story, there's a last-minute surprise in Varietes that never failed to elicit gasps from the viewers back in 1935. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide