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Casablanca, one of the greatest films ever made, owes its existence to the forgotten film Algiers from 1938, which had similar themes and narratives. Algiers, although not a big hit, inspired Casablanca and introduced Hedy Lamarr to American audiences. It received four Academy Award nominations. Casablanca also owes its existence to the French film Pépé le Moko, which was remade as Algiers and later as Casbah. Pépé le Moko influenced other films and even inspired the character Pepé Le Pew in Looney Tunes.

Casablanca is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, but it would have never happened if it wasn’t for one forgotten film from 1938. Directed by Michael Curtiz and based on the play Everybody Comes To Rick’s, Casablanca was released in 1942, and though it wasn’t really expected to stand out, it went on to be nominated and win various awards and earn a spot in film history.

The 10th Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the 1990s, offering a revealing overview of French cinema.

This year’s fest kicks off with a screening of Bertrand Tavernier’s acclaimed documentary “My Journey Through French Cinema,” the director’s personal reflections on key films and filmmakers. Several of the works he highlights — such as Jacques Becker’s “Casque d’or” and Jean-Pierre Melville’s “Le Samouraï” — are screened at this year’s fest.

The fest annually includes significant restorations, and this year features New Wave master Jacques Rivette’s visually sumptuous “La belle noiseuse.” The fest also provides one of the few opportunities available in St. Louis to see films projected the old-school, time-honored way, with Jean Renoir...

Foreplays is a column that explores under-known short films by renowned directors. Jean Epstein's Les feux de la mer (1948) is free to watch below. When not greeted with indifference or merely mentioned in passing, Jean Epstein’s Les feux de la mer (1948) is frequently regarded as a strange and mismatching film, containing only a few sparks of Epsteinian poetry. Commissioned by the United Nations, this 21-minute short—the final installment in Epstein’s Breton cycle that began with Finis terrae in 1929—was part of a larger project involving a series of movies from fourteen different countries, around the theme of international cooperation. As often happens with institutional films, Les feux de la mer has been too easily dismissed as compromised and propagandistic, overshadowed by a didactic discourse diametrically opposed to the very notion of audiovisual lyricism that normally defines Epstein’s cinema. In Les feux de la mer, there...

Mark, Aaron, David and Trevor return for part two of our exploration of the under-appreciated French director, Julien Duvivier. The first episode, Eclipse Viewer 54, looked at the first two films in his Eclipse set. This episode looks at the peak of his career, particularly La Belle Equipe, Pépé le Moko, and La Fin du Jour, along with an overview of his career and the availability (or lack) of his work in the states.

Episode Links & Notes Eclipse Viewer 54: Julien Duvivier in the 1930s Part 1 Criterion Close-Up 50: French Series Part 1 Criterion Close-Up 57: French Series part 2 Episode Credits Mark Hurne: Twitter | Letterboxd Aaron West: Twitter | Blog | Letterboxd David Blakeslee: Twitter | Website Trevor Berrett: Twitter | Website Criterion Close-Up: Facebook | Twitter | Email

Next time on the podcast: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg...

The New York Film Festival’s diverse slate of programming included a Revivals slate, a series of the latest restoration and re-releases of essential cinematic classics. Some of the films included Robert Bresson’s final film “L’Argent,” Edward Yang’s second feature “Taipei Story” and Julien Duvivier’s long-unseen postwar film “Panique,” which will have a two-week run at the Film Forum this January. Watch an exclusive trailer for the restoration below.

Read More: ‘The Lion in Winter’ Restoration Trailer: Anthony Harvey’s Beloved Adaptation Gets 4K Freshening — Watch

An adaptation of Georges Simenon’s “Mr. Hire’s Engagement,” the film follows Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon), a reviled, aloof voyeur who’s framed for murder by the very girl (Viviane Romance) whom he adores. It was Duvivier’s first film in France after his stint working Hollywood during World War II, and though it was criticized at the time for its bleakness,...

Dog Eat DogI collapsed on my bed in the Hotel Cristal in Cannes, the curtains blowing in the breeze, just like in Roy Scheider’s room before he gets the piano wire in Marathon Man, and somehow managed to dimly fall asleep until the text function on my phone started quacking. It was the girl I love, in Los Angeles, texting to say, I missed my flight. I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. What? Sorry? How can you even be sorry for missing a flight to Cannes—especially after I had added on a leg from Istanbul to Nice so she wouldn’t miss the opening-night parties? I was crushed. Heartbroken. We talked, but I knew it portended something bad. And I was especially pissed because this came a mere three and a half hours before my movie, Dog Eat Dog, was going to have its...

Now that most of the Cannes Film Festival 2016 line-up has been settled when it comes to new premieres, their Cannes Classics sidebar of restored films is not only a treat for those attending, but a hint at what we can expect to arrive at repertory theaters and labels like Criterion in the coming years.

Today they’ve unveiled their line-up, which is toplined by Bertrand Tavernier‘s new 3-hour and 15-minute documentary about French cinema, Voyage à travers le cinéma français. They will also be screening William Friedkin‘s Sorcerer following his masterclass. Along with various documentaries, both classics in the genre and ones about films, they will also premiere new restorations of Andrei Tarkovsky‘s Solaris, Jean-Luc Godard‘s Masculin féminin, two episodes of Krzysztof Kieślowski‘s The Decalogue, as well as films from Kenji Mizoguchi, Marlon Brando, Jacques Becker, Mario Bava, and more.

Check out the line-up below.

Before its flame was extinguished, New York’s legendary Kim’s Video contributed further to the world of cinephilia by polling better-known customers about their favorite films. One of these customers happened to be Allen Ginsberg, a figure whose relative lack of experience in cinema certainly won’t stand as any sort of qualifier. Thanks to The Allen Ginsberg Project (via Open Culture), we can now get a wider — and, to our eyes, more immediately understandable — grasp of what made this generation-defining voice tick.

Two interests — French Poetic Realism and the work of (or at least work heavily relating to) his fellow Beat poets — announce themselves rather clearly, given the fact that they arguably occupy 90% of the final list. The sole “outsider” is Battleship Potemkin, a picture that, with fierce political intentions and poetic inclinations in its cutting, nevertheless makes perfect sense as a Ginsberg favorite. Some of these are...

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

Translators introduction: This article by Mireille Latil Le Dantec, the first of two parts, was originally published in issue 40 of Cinématographe, September 1978. The previous issue of the magazine had included a dossier on "La qualité française" and a book of a never-shot script by Jean Grémillon (Le Printemps de la Liberté or The Spring of Freedom) had recently been published. The time was ripe for a re-evaluation of Grémillon's films and a resuscitation of his undervalued career. As this re-evaluation appears to still be happening nearly 40 years later—Grémillon's films have only recently seen DVD releases and a 35mm retrospective begins this week at Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—this article and its follow-up gives us an important view of a French perspective on Grémillon's work by a very perceptive critic doing the initial heavy-lifting in bringing the proper attention to the filmmaker's work.

Filmmaker maudit?...

Founded in 1997, Rialto has been described as the gold standard of the reissue distributors. Now it will distribute international classics from the 2,000+ film catalogue of media giant Studiocanal.Rialto's past releases have included Renoir's Grand Illusion; Carol Reed's The Third Man; Fellini's Nights of Cabiria; Jules Dassin's Rififi; De Sica's Umberto D; Godard's Breathless, Contempt, Band of Outsiders, Masculine Feminine, A Woman is a Woman, and Made in USA; Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko; Luis Buñuel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Diary of a Chambermaid, The Phantom of Liberty, The Milky Way and That Obscure Object of Desire; John Schlesinger's Billy Liar; Clouzot's Quai des Orfèvres; Mel Brooks' The Producers; Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette and Diary of a Country Priest; Jean-Pierre Melville's...

American entertainer and singer popular in the 1940s and 50s

The American entertainer Tony Martin, who has died aged 98, was once described as a singing tuxedo. Although he was rather a stiff actor, he was handsome and charming, with a winning, dimpled smile. What mattered most, however, was his mellifluous baritone voice, which he used softly in ballads such as To Each His Own and I Get Ideas, and powerfully in Begin the Beguine and There's No Tomorrow, all hit records in the 1940s and 50s.

He was one of the top crooners of the period with Vic Damone, Andy Williams and Dick Haymes, all of them just below Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra in esteem and popularity. According to Mel Tormé: "Tony Martin was technically the greatest singer of them all, as well as being the classiest guy around, both as an entertainer and a person."

He was...

They outraged the authorities on release. But the two films, made before and during the second world war, are now considered classics – and will be re-released this month. Our critics consider their impact

Ryan Gilbey on Le Quai des Brumes

It's easy now to call Marcel Carné's Le Quai des Brumes a masterpiece. When the film was released in 1938, such a view was more contentious. In the wake of the collapse of France's Popular Front government, the film was seen as exacerbating the mood of despair creeping into the left. Jean Renoir labelled it "counter-revolutionary". The Motion Picture Herald concluded: "One will be sorry that such art and talents have been used for such a trite and sordid story, which includes not a decent or healthy character." The Vichy government denounced it as "immoral, depressing and detrimental to young people", and declared that if the war was lost, Le Quai des Brumes...

Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr, Algiers Hedy Lamarr can be seen later this month on Turner Classic Movies: I Take This Woman (1940) will be shown on Saturday, April 28, and The Conspirators (1944) on Monday, April 30. I Take This Woman was a troubled production that took so long to make — W.S. Van Dyke replaced Frank Borzage who had replaced original director Josef von Sternberg — that punsters called it "I Retake This Woman." Spencer Tracy co-stars as a doctor who marries European refugee Lamarr. Jean Negulesco’s The Conspirators has several elements in common with Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, including an "exotic" World War II setting (in this case, Lisbon), conflicting loyalties, male lead Paul Henreid, and supporting players Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Curiously, at one point Lamarr had been considered for the Casablanca role that eventually went to Ingrid Bergman. Neither I Take This Woman nor The Conspirators did much for Hedy Lamarr’s Hollywood career.

Lock up your daughters' valuables! It seems film people can't help being seduced by that bloke pilfering the family silver

It's not wise to fall in love with a person who sneaks into your house in the dead of night and steals your valuables. And yet the charming thief has light-footed his way into any number of films, finding romance as well as loot. What is it about these smooth-talking characters that make them so irresistible? Is it their position outside of society, which gives them a sense of aloofness and danger? Is it because romance with a thief is fleeting, existing only in the brief moment before they're off on the run or captured by police? Perhaps film-makers hope we'll forget they're picking our pockets at £10 a ticket if we're seduced by a suave fellow in a tuxedo or a femme fatale in a catsuit. Whatever the reason, film...

Jean Gabin was France's answer to Humphrey Bogart, many (English-language) historians have claimed. Either that, or Gabin was France's answer to Spencer Tracy. Never mind the fact that Gabin was a major international star before either Bogart or Tracy achieved Hollywood stardom. In other words, if there was someone emulating someone else, it was Bogart and Tracy who followed the Frenchman's lead so as to become the American Jean Gabins. Turner Classic Movies is devoting a whole day to Jean Gabin's movies today, August 18, as part of its "Summer Under the Stars" series. [Jean Gabin Movie Schedule.] Right now, TCM is showing Julien Duvivier's Pépé le Moko (1937), the tale of a Parisian gangster (Gabin) hiding in Algiers' Casbah neighborhood, but who becomes careless after he falls for a beautiful woman (Mireille Balin, Gabin's co-star that same year in Jean Grémillon's Gueule d'amour / Lady Killer). Those whose idea of cinema begins...

Everett Jean-Paul Belmondo in Jean-Luc Goddard’s film “Breathless” (1960)

Since the competing claims of Edison and the Lumières to have invented the cinema, France and America have amassed two immensely rich but so often opposed film heritages. The attitude that has driven the American cinema was expressed by Sam Goldwyn when he observed, “Pictures are for entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union.” The well-crafted narrative rules in Hollywood, which has had little time for Jean-Luc Godard’s comment...

From the pioneers of the silver screen to today's new realism, French directors have shaped film-making around the world

France can, with some justification, claim to have invented the whole concept of cinema. Film historians call The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, the 50-second film by the Lumière brothers first screened in 1895, the birth of the medium.

But the best-known early pioneer, who made films with some kind of cherishable narrative value, was Georges Méliès, whose 1902 short A Trip to the Moon is generally heralded as the first science-fiction film, and a landmark in cinematic special effects. Meanwhile, Alice Guy-Blaché, Léon Gaumont's one-time secretary, is largely forgotten now, but with films such as L'enfant de la barricade trails the status of being the first female film-maker.

The towering achievement of French cinema in the silent era was undoubtedly Abel Gance's six-hour biopic of Napoleon (1927), which...

Hedy Lamarr, Ecstasy It's Hedy Lamarr evening on Turner Classic Movies tonight, beginning at 5 p.m. Pt. TCM will be showing five Lamarr vehicles, including the scandalous Ecstasy — nudity, sex, orgasm! — made by Gustav Machatý in Czechoslovakia in 1933, five years before Lamarr's Hollywood debut in Algiers. There's no nudity, sex, or orgasms in Algiers, but there's lots of cigarette smoking — much more damaging to one's health than orgasms — and Charles Boyer not saying "Com wheez me to ze Casbah!" Jean Gabin and Mireille Balin starred in the original French version, Pépé le Moko, released the year before — which shows that Hollywood's penchant for remaking French movies is nothing new. In Victor Fleming's Tortilla Flat, Lamarr looks great and sounds all wrong as Monterey's Dolores Ramirez — but her performance is a masterpiece of acting compared to those of fellow Hispano-Americans Spencer Tracy and John Garfield. The [...]...

This classic French battle between love, fate and bewitching passion set a pattern for later hits such as Casablanca

This classic example of pre-war French "poetic realism", directed by the great Belgian movie-maker Jacques Feyder, centres on an upper-class playboy business man (Pierre Richard-Willm) with financial problems being compelled to leave Paris and his high-maintenance lover Florence, and join the Foreign Legion in Morocco. A couple of years later as a reckless, hard-drinking sergeant, he meets a beautiful prostitute, the amnesiac Irma who's Florence's double, though their hair colour and voices are different. Can they be the same woman? A story of love, death and fate, this truly adult movie has a great cast that includes Marie Bell as both Florence and Irma, Charles Vanel as a vile hotelier and Françoise Rosay as a compassionate barmaid who predicts the hero's troubled future. Lazare Meerson's sets range from art deco Paris to Moroccan nightclubs,...