Jacques Feyder Movies

Generally forgotten today, Macadam opened to good reviews and excellent business when it first came out in 1946. The film takes place in the "demimonde" of Paris' Montmartre district. The incomparable Francoise Rosay heads the cast in this atmospheric, melodramatic yarn about French gangsters, their mistresses, and various and assorted "ladies of the evening." Much of the critical attention was centered around Simone Signoret, in her first major screen role. In America, Macadam was released (in a heavily expurgated version!) as Back Streets of Paris. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Flora (Francoise Rosay), a hard-bitten female lion-tamer, tends to treat the people around her with the same harsh brutality that she doles out to her lions. Even so, she reacts in fear and loathing when her former lover Fernand (Andre Brule) escapes from prison. Threatening to tell the world that he's the father of Flora's son, Fernand is able to secure a job as her animal keeper. Within a few months, he's become the manager of Flora's circus, maintaining the respectable veneer even as he returns to his life of crime. Meanwhile, Flora reveals the more tender side of her nature as she deals with the romantic misadventures of her son Marcel (Fabien Loris) and his pregnant sweetheart Yvonne (Sylvia Battalie). All of the film's loose plotlines are tied up with in the final footage, as Fernand is returned to prison and Marcel comes to grips with the responsibilities of parenthood. Filmed in Germany, the French-produced Les Gens du Voyage (People Who Travel) was lensed simultaneously in a German-language version (Fahrendes Volk) by the same director, Jacques Feyder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Released in France as La Kermesse Heroique, Carnival in Flanders is set during the long-ago war between the Dutch and Spanish. A tiny village in Flanders is invaded by Spanish troops. The townsfolk have heard of Spanish cruelties in other towns, and decide to deflect the vanquishers by playing dead. This isn't terribly effective (you have to take a breath once in a while), so the wife of the burgomaster tries to soften up the invaders with a lavish carnival. So successful is this venture that the Spaniards allow the village to escape being decimated, or even taxed. An award-winner many times over, Carnival in Flanders was banned in Germany; evidently, Goebbels caught on that director Jacques Feyder and scenarists Bernard Zimmer and Charles Spaak were drawing deliberate parallels between the Spanish and the then-burgeoning Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An young boy is en route to Bombay with his wealthy father when they are ambushed by highwaymen and his father is mortally wounded. Just before he dies, he hands his son a large diamond. The boy then continues on to the city. By the time he gets there he is ragged and dirty. A crooked merchant, wanting the boy's diamond, tries to frame him for theft, but an Englishman vouches for the boy. The boy then continues his struggle to become wealthy and powerful. Along the way, he suffers an ill-fated love affair with a beautiful British lady. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Filmed simultaneously with the English version, this German-language film is considered by many to be technically superior. Greta Garbo, who was discovered by Louis B. Mayer in Berlin, spoke German well and her performance was highly praised. As the old lush Marthy, actress-writer Salka Steuermann (later Viertel) was perhaps not as striking as Marie Dressler, but her performance was highly praised. Veteran German star Hans Junkermann, in his only Hollywood film, took over from George F. Marion as Chris Christofferson, Anna's sailor father, and Theo Shall replaced Charles Bickford as the virile Matt Burke. The latter became famous in his native Germany as "the man who kissed Garbo." Completing the small cast, Herman Bing appeared unbilled as Larry, the bartender who serves Garbo her "viskey." The star herself often admitted to favoring this film over the English-language version and felt a great kinship with Belgian director Jacques Feyder. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Although His Glorious Night, MGM's 1929 talkie adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's Olympia, proved to be a box-office disaster (a failure chalked up by the studio to the vocal inadequacies of leading man John Gilbert, though this wasn't entirely the case), the studio was still committed to refilming the property in French, Spanish and German-language versions. The French version, Si L'Empereur Savait Ca, starred Andre Luguet, while the Spanish adaptation, Olympia, top-billed José Crespo. Olympia was also the name of the German-language version, which like the French adaptation was directed by Jacques Feyder. This time, Theodor Shall is cast as handsome Lieutenant Kovacs, the sweetheart of the lovely Princess Olympia (Nora Gregor). When the princess' snooty mother breaks up the romance, the embittered Kovacs threatens to tell the world that he has "ruined" the girl (not true!), making her unfit for marriage. To ensure his silence, the Lieutenant is promised a night alone with Olympia, just before the wedding. It is at this point that Kovacs proves he's a gentleman after all by marrying the Princess, which is what he intended to do all along. Olympia was remade in 1960 as A Breath of Scandal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

MGM's paranoid fear of audience reaction to Greta Garbo's speaking voice must have been the only reason for this plodding courtroom melodrama to have been made as a silent. Released with a synchronized score and two important sound effects, The Kiss would prove to be Garbo's, and Metro's, final silent feature film. Happily, Belgian director Jacques Feyder used both the pantomime format and the aforementioned sound effects -- a gunshot and the incessant ringing of a telephone -- to optimum effect. When ulcer-plagued husband Anders Randolf returns unexpectedly in the middle of a smooch between his wife and 18-year-old Lew Ayres, he naturally jumps to the wrong conclusion. But the kiss is in reality merely Garbo's firm goodbye to an overly anxious admirer. Randolf and Ayres fight, Garbo vainly attempts to reason with her husband, a closed door shields the action from the viewer, and only a muffled shot is heard (yes, heard). Then the telephone rings: It is Ayres' father (Holmes Herbert) wondering why his appointment, Randolf, never showed. To shield the boy, Garbo takes the blame for the killing (she actually did do it but only to save Ayres' life) and is defended in court by the real love of her life, Conrad Nagel. Hans Kraly's screenplay is a bit heavyhanded and certainly nothing special, but Garbo's luminous presence almost saves the film from the doldrums. She plays the kind of society wife who lounges about in Art Deco elegance, keeping a stack of eight-by-ten glossies at the ready to hand out to young admirers like Ayres. It is all completely artificial of course, but Garbo somehow makes it believable. The supporting cast is what you expect: Ayres, handsome and impossibly young, Randolf, all bombast and pomposity, and Nagel, his usual dull self. For now obscure reasons, Conrad Nagel was highly regarded at the time and was by far Hollywood's busiest leading man at the changeover to sound. Garbo enjoyed working with Feyder, who went on to guide her through the German-language version of Anna Christie in 1930; and she was always more relaxed on and offscreen when other Scandinavians were around, in this case the Danish-born Randolf. As the near future would reveal, neither Garbo nor Metro had anything to worry about regarding the diva's accent and in February of 1930, the studio could at long last proudly proclaim that Garbo talks. She was the last major star to do so with the possible exception of Charles Chaplin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The oft-filmed Prosper Merimee novel Carmen was again committed to celluloid in 1926, this time under the skilled hand of French director Jacques Feyder. Raquel Miller plays the title character, an unbridled gypsy girl fated to bring about the ruin of herself and her soldier lover Don José (Louis Lerch). Tragedy is inevitable when, after thoroughly debasing Don José, Carmen falls for sexy toreador Escamillo (Guerrero de Xandoval). Director Feyder manages to transform this timeworn story into a feast for the eyes, especially during the climactic bullfighting sequence. When released in America in 1928, Carmen did surprisingly well, considering that Fox Pictures had recently produced its own version of the same story, with Dolores Del Rio as the ill-fated heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1988, the Belgian Film Archive released a restored print of the 1925 film Visages d'enfants by the renowned Belgian director Jacques Feyder (1885-1948), who had a considerable influence on European filmmaking. His films were noteworthy for their introduction of the style of "poetic realism," which eventually became a cinematic movement. This films concerns Jean Amsler (Jean Forest), a young lad whose mother has recently died. When his father Pierre (Victor Vina) marries Jeanne Dutois ($achel Devirys), a woman with a child of her own, he feels betrayed, and not only rejects his stepmother but torments her daughter Arlette (Arlette Peyran). Eventually, he puts the little girl in mortal peril. Overwhelmed with remorse for the evil of his actions even though the girl was saved, he throws himself into a river but is saved by his now-vigilant stepmother. As he regains consciousness in her arms, at long last he calls her "mamma." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Anatole France, the silent Crainquebille was updated and directed by Jacques Feyder. Heavily influenced by the then-popular school of German symbolism, the film nonetheless bears traces of the French realism that would dominate the Gallic cinema of the 1930s. This 6-reeler stars child actor Jean Forest, whom Feyder would utilize to even better effect in his follow-up films Visage d'Enfants and Gribiche. The film, an essentially adult effort, is told from Forest's point of view, solidifying Feyder's expertise at directing children. Released in France in 1922, Crainquebille made the international rounds the following year. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide