In his excellent biography of Jacques Tourneur, The Cinema of Nightfall, Chris Fujiwara lists Les filles de la concierge as Tourneur's best French film. Yet even him does not seem to know that, unlike what is implied by the credits on the main title of the film, it is not an original story.

The story is supposedly by Georges de la Fouchardière and Jean-Georges Auriol.
Fujiwara also tells us that 30 years after his film was released, Tourneur had considered remaking his film in the USA. Apparently nothing came of it, but it so happens that the film was already a remake.

I came across an article in the December 31, 1925 edition of the French magazine "Mon Ciné" entitled "Les trois filles de la concierge". The article is by a French reporter in Germany who reports of a film he saw at the Marmorhaus Theather in Berlin called Die drei Portiermädel, directed by Carl Boese. The story of the film follows:

Martha, Amelie & Annie

The daughters in Tourneur's version

A janitor (Margarete Kupfer) has three daughters. Amelie (Hanni Weisse) is employed in the fashion shop of Leopold Siedentopf (Jakob Tiedtke) who seduces her, Annie (Helga Molander) works for a photographer (Hermann Picha)and Martha (Maly Delschaft) is a launderer and is in love with Franz (Hugo Fischer-Köppe), a chauffeur who uses the boss's car to drive the three girls to work every morning. When he reports late to work one day, he clumsily tells his boss, Mr. Hans Brandstetter (Bruno Kastner), that he ran over a young girl. When he demands to see the victim, Franz introduces him to Annie and he falls in love with her. They soon get married.

Martha's wedding

Lucie's wedding (Tourneur)

Annie's mother, who feels ashamed of her social condition, uses an apartment in her building whose lodgers are on vacation as her own when her son-in-law visits her and pretends she is the widow of a secret service agent.
However, when Mr. Brandstetter surprises his chauffeur speaking too casually with his wife, not knowing that he is actually her brother-in-law, gets the wrong idea and Annie, upset with the whole thing, goes back to her mother's.

Siedentopf & Amelie

Brandstetter decides to drown his sorrow and goes out to a party where, by chance, he meets Amelie and Martha. When Franz sees his girlfriend with his boss, he too gets upset.
Annie and Martha are soon joined by Amelie at their mother's because she also left her husband who, it turns out, was unfaithful.

Ginette & Gaston Rival in a similar scene

The next day, Brandstetter comes back to the janitor's building where everything is explained. He embraces his new family. Franz and Martha make up and Amelie also finds happiness with Emil the bartender (Harry Halm), an old flame of hers whom she always loved.

Albert singing

Those of you familiar with the story of Tourneur's film have noticed that the only things different about this story are the names of the characters. The rest is a carbon copy. The article mentions that the film is energetic, fun and it predicts more success for it, but the journalist deplores that the  screen-writer (actually Margareta-Maria Langen) is not credited.

However, this apparently unpretentious story will surprisingly be filmed two more times before Tourneur tackled the subject! In Germany still, as a 1932 sound remake called Frau Lehmanns Töchter directed by Carl Heinz Wolff and starring Hansi Niese which will be released the next year in the USA as Mrs. Lehmann's Daughters. It also will see a limited release in eastern France, under the title Les filles de Madame Lehmann on June 14 1934, only 14 days after the release of Tourneur's version! In this output, the chauffeur sings a song, just like in the later French version.


A 1933 Swedish version called Giftasvuxna döttrar (Blooming Daughters) was directed (and played) by Sigurd Wallén.

It is unclear who the creator of the story really is since each film credits a different writer for the same plot. Wolff's version credits a book by Franz Rauch as the basis of the story. I could not find this book, though, and the man has credits only as a screenwriter and actor in most sources. Also he isn't mentioned in the first film. It is interesting how each version completely ignores the existence of the others.

Nothing in the article suggests that Die drei Portiermädel was released in France, but its success apparently resonated beyond Germany's borders. To my knowledge, if Tourneur's film is hard to find, it does exist (I have a copy), but the German original is probably lost.

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Do you remember Max de Winter's friend and secretary Frank Crawley in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca? It was a small part but the dashing blue-eyed man who played it made the most of it. You'd never guess by seeing him that he had been a star 20 years before that film.

He was born in London in 1890. The son and grand-son of comedians, he appears on stage at the age of 6 in the play The Royal Family, opposite Gertrude Elliott, in the part of the young Prince Charles Ferdinand. At 16, while still taking acting courses, he decides to become a professional boxer. Championed by Lord Lonsdale, he wins a tournament in 1908.

He then spends a year in the USA to play in a musical, Quaker Girl, opposite Miss Ina Claire. On his return, he sings at the Opera of Manchester and leaves again for a tour in Australia and India.

In Rebecca with Joan Fontaine

In 1913, he gets married in Calcutta to Irene Haisman, an actress who plays with him in several plays and films, and then goes back to New York where he appears in Twin Beds, James Barrie's Rosalind with Marie Tempest, The Professor's Love Story with George Arliss, and The Great Catherine.

He spends Word War I in the Royal Flying Corps, afterwhich he is hired for the New York revue The Passing Show of 1919 at the Winter Garden. He also appears with John Barrymore in Richard III.

It is then that he starts appearing regularly in films: Bringing up Betty, Paying The Piper (directed by George Fitzmaurice), Disraeli (with George Arliss again!), Footlights (with Elsie Ferguson), Sherlock Homes (also with John Barrymore, a film recently restored and available on Blu-ray).

But it is in the role of Napoleon Gibbs Jr. in 39 East that he is noticed by the public and by author H.C. Witwer who offered him to star as boxer Kid Roberts in the Universal serial called The Leather Pushers, adapted from his story. Denny was a shoe-in for the role with his experience of boxing. The serial lasted 24 episodes from 1922 to 1924 and a remake was made in 1940 starring Richard Arlen (from Wings).



Reginald even plays the son of Kid Roberts, Elliott Beresford, in the now lost film On your Toes.

Aside from the serial, Reginald Denny is offered starring parts in features, most often related with sports: The Kentucky Derby (Cinemagazine calls him "impeccable" in it, although they find the film disappointing), Sporting Youth (he even has an accident during the shoot of this film and recovered), and occasionally other subjects like the adaptation of his favorite author Jack London's Abysmal Brute.

One of these films is called Fast and Furious, not unlike the 2001 Rob L. Cohen film The Fast and the Furious.

He also stars in many comedies, eight of which with Otis Harlan, Happy in Snow White, like Where Was I? where the disapproving father (played by Tyrone Power Sr.) of his bride-to-be hires a girl to pretend he is already married; or What Happened to Jones? where, pursued by the police for gambling, he ends up in rags in a Turkish bath on ladies night.

Reginald in a 1925 Xmas publicity picture with wife Irene Haisman and daughter Barbara

In Out All Night, he takes the place of a ship surgeon.


In Skinner's Dress Suit, another comedy, he steps in the shoes of former star Bryant Washburn who starred in a previous version of the film.

His influence is such then that he even takes the role of director on his film That's My Daddy, when the original director Fred C. Newmeyer and he have "creative differences".

Mary Pickford and Reginald Denny

He embraces talking pictures and helps famous stars speak some of their first words. Jeannette MacDonald in Oh, for a man!, Buster Keaton in Parlor Bedroom and Bath, Mary Pickford in Kiki!
He then keeps starring parts opposite Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Boris Karloff, Bette Davis, etc. But as he gets older, he gradually becomes a supporting character actor, his recurring part of Algy Longworth in the Bulldog Drummond films being an example.

By the 1940s, his most notable parts are in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror and in H.C. Potter's Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House (starring Cary Grant).

Reginald's employee: Marilyn Monroe

He also develops a passion for model planes and radio controlled planes and launches the Radioplane company. One of his factory employee, nurse Ethel Dougherty, in April 1944 finds a job there for her daughter-in-law Norma Jeane, who gets noticed by a photographer a few months later and will soon become Marilyn Monroe.

He then focuses his career on television and ends it by a role in the acclaimed TV series Batman as King Boris and his very last role is in the Batman feature (available on Blu-ray) as Commodore Schmidlapp. Incidentally, that series is to be released this year on DVD.

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Mary Miles Minter's career is often overshadowed by that of another Mary and by the scandal that contributed in ending it. But she was more that the other girl with the golden curls and it is deplorable that the books that mention her today, are the ones about Mary Pickford or those about the murder of William Desmond Taylor.

Born Juliet Reilly in a family where the original star was actually her sister Margaret, a child actress groomed by their mother Lily Pearl Miles, herself an actress under the name Charlotte Shelby.

At 6

Juliet followed the paths of her sister from the age of five, and made her debut with the name adopted by all three: Shelby.
She gained recognition in her first play Cameo Kirby with Nat Goodwin in 1907 and is mentioned in the reviews. Five yeas later, Producer Pat Powers hired her for her screen debut in a film called The Nurse for a New York based company that moved to California right after filming and changed its name to Universal. (This is the same Pat Powers that lured Mickey Mouse's animator Ub Iwerks away from the Walt Disney studio.)

At 8

The then new National Child Labor Committee was advocating for child labor laws and young Juliet was in danger of loosing a part in The Littlest Rebel opposite William and Dustin Farnum because she was under 16, so Charlotte, with the help of the birth certificate of a dead relative, changed her age and her name to Mary Miles Minter. Some magazines later joked that she was "the only actress who is actually eight years younger than she says".

Under her new name, Mary was signed to star in 1915 in a Cinderella type of film adapted from a play she had appeared in, called The Fairy and the Waif, which unlike The Nurse, survives today. Her mother also appeared. Following the success of the film the Metro company hired her in July 1915 to appear in a series of six films over a year.

These were Always in the Way, where her mother also secured a role, and in which Mary plays the part of an abandoned daughter who travels to Africa. The film was directed by J. Searle Dawley, who went on to direct Snow White two years later with Marguerite Clark. Emmy of Stork's Nest is the first of a long line of films where Mary's characters are confronted with a class difference between her and the man she loves.

Barbara Frietchie is a civil war historical film directed by Alice Guy's husband Herbert Blaché in which silent film star Anna Q. Nilson also had a part.

The next film, Rose of the Alley, is about Nell, who tries to reform her no good brother. In Dimples, Mary plays once again an orphan who falls in love. Only this time she has money hidden in her doll and it saves the day in the end. Mary's mother appears here one final time at her side.

With Lovely Mary, filmed on location in Florida, Mary's contract with Metro ended. Apparently Charlotte's way of her running her business very much displeased Louis B. Mayer. As a result, he decided to re-edit one of her films, Rose of the Alley, not to capitalize on the actress, but to minimize her role to a bit part. The result was Somewhere in America, which was released in 1917 with a completely different story and new scenes.

In July of 1916, Mary signed a 6 picture deal with The American Film Corporation where her star grew more and more. The contract was renewed several times and went on until July of 1919.

Youth's Endearing Charm production still

Youth's Endearing Charm

For the "Flying A" studios (AFC), she did Youth's Endearing Charm (re-released in 1921 as Youth's Melting Pot) where she shares the screen with a dog. The Library of Congress still has an incomplete copy of the film. Dulcie's Adventure (aka No Wedding Bells, probably a British title), where Dulcie's aunts force her to marry a European Count for the money, was Mary's first collaboration with Mary Pickford's usual director James Kirkwood. Thus starting a connexion with the star that would soon grow.

In Mary's next production, Faith, also released as The Virtuous Outcast, she takes the blame of a theft committed by her sister played by her real life sister Margaret.

Mary in The Innocence of Lizette

She plays a rich girl turned street dancer with amnesia in A Dream Or Two Ago, and an orphan with a baby on her doorstep in The Innocence of Lizette, both restored in 2004, but still unavailable on home video. Yet the second reel of this last film can be seen on the Santa Barbara museum website.

In Environment

In 1917 Mary keeps collaborating with Kirkwood with the release of The Gentle Intruder in which her attorney keeps the money of her inheritance to himself. In Environment, she takes the blame again for the bad girl, played by her sister Margaret. Her recurring co-star in these films is George Fisher who also shares the screen with her in Annie For Spite, inexplicably also released as Sally Shows the Way (there is no Sally in the story) where she is an orphan once again.

In her next film Periwinkle, another orphan-turned-rich-by-marriage-in-the-end story, although her co-star is still George Fisher, a newcomer among the cast makes his first appearance at her side: Allan Forrest. He takes more and more importance in subsequent films like Melissa of The Hills and eventually becomes Mary's love interest in all AFC movies, starting with Charity Castle.

The American Theater of Oakland CA in 1917.

Her Country's Call, also released as The Call to Arms was the final part of 4 movie cycle by Benjamin Chapin about the life of Abraham Lincoln.

Mary shares the screen again with her sister in Peggy Leads the Way which still exists at the UCLA archives.

Peggy Leads The Way, with Allan Forrest

The Mate of the Sally Ann

In The Mate of the Sally Ann, George Periolat also a regular in her films, plays her sea captain grand-father. The film is also known as Peggy Rebels. You guessed it, there is no Peggy in the story but it was frequent at the time to re-release a film with a different title and different title cards to capitalize on the success of a different film with the same cast. In foreign countries, many actors and actresses were actually known by the nickname used throughout their films, even if they played different characters.

Powers That Prey

This film and the next, Beauty And The Rogue and Powers That Prey (also known as Extra! Extra!), were directed by famous director Henry King.

A Bit Of Jade is a story of a misplaced necklace that ends in marriage. In Social Briars, again by Henry King, Mary is an orphan resented by her rich adoptive family.

The next two films are still extant: The Ghost Of Rosy Taylor (not a ghost story but merely of assumed identities) and The Eyes of Julia Deep are both available on DVD from Grapevine.

The Ghost of Rosy Taylor

She did her next films Rosemary Climbs the Heights, Wives and Other Wives (with Margaret), The Amazing Impostor (with Margaret again), and The Intrusion of Isabel under the direction of Lloyd Ingraham.

A Bachelor's Wife, with Margaret too, where she plays an Irish girl who travels to the USA, and Yvonne From Paris were her last films for the American Film Corporation.

In 1919, Mary Pickford announced that she was leaving Paramount to found her own studio, United Artists, with husband Douglas Fairbanks and superstar Charles Chaplin. She apparently suggested herself that the studio hire Mary Miles Minter as her replacement at Paramount. It was soon announced that Adolf Zukor had signed her for 3 years, seven films per year at $1,300,000. In exchange for this fabulous sum, the actress would have to submit to a morality clause and a strict way of life.

The Intrusion of Isabel

She should not be seen in public too often, she should not marry or even give interviews. Zukor announced that he intended to spend another million dollars on publicity for her.

The first film under that contract and possibly one of the most famous among Mary Miles Minter's is unfortunately lost: Anne of Green Gables, adapted by the classic by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

This film also marked her first collaboration with director William Desmond Taylor who had previously directed Dustin Farnum in Davy Crockett, Jack Pickford in Tom Sawyer and of course his sister Mary Pickford in Johanna Enlists.

Mary, who had so often played orphans on films, was actually a fatherless child and, being only 17 when she met the 47 years-old director, she developed a school girl crush on him and went on to collaborate with him on four productions: Judy of Rogue's Harbor, Nurse Marjorie (available on DVD), and Jenny Be Good (with Margaret).

Judy of Rogue's Harbor

One her other director at Paramount was Charles Maigne, with whom she did A Cumberland Romance, and had to step in for her last films.

Nurse Marjorie

Paul Powell directed her in Sweet Lavender and Eyes of the Heart (where she plays a blind girl). Next came Chester McFranklin, who had directed Norma Talmadge and had recently adapted two Arabian Nights tales, as well as Stevenson's Treasure Island. With her, he did All Soul's Eve, in which she plays a dual role opposite Jack Holt.

Jenny Be Good

The Little Clown

By 1921, critics weren't as kind with her films as they had been.
She did the obligatory circus film called The Little Clown. Then two films about marriage, Don't Call Me Little Girl, and Moonlight And Honeysuckle directed by Joseph Henabery, like the next one: Her Winning Way,where she plays a paparazzi playing a dirty trick on a book writer.

For Tillie, her old co-star Allan Forrest came back. In this film, she has to become a Mennonite to receive her inheritance and she even commits suicide. Not necessarily what the audience came to expect of her movies.

Don't Call Me Little Girl

By the time her next film hit the screens, a famous Hollywood scandal occurred: her former director William Desmond Taylor was murdered on the night of February 1, 1922. Several film celebrities were considered as suspects and their respective lives and careers suffered from it. Among them were Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Mary Miles Minter (who was, according to her, having an affair with him) and Mary's ever controlling mother Charlotte.

Although the event definitely influenced Mary's future, it is incorrect to say it ended her career: she went on filming after Taylor's death. Her alleged romantic association with a man 30 years her senior, wildly reported in the press however, helped change Mary's wholesome image in the public mind.

Allan Forrest was also part of the cast for her next film, The Heart Specialist, but he was joined by comedian Roy Atwell, who later did the voice of Doc in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. He stayed with her through the next film South of Suva.

With Roy Atwell in The Heart Specialist

Departing from her usual image, Mary Miles Minter played in a Western shot in Wyoming called The Cowboy And The Lady.

Mary's two final films were Drums Of Fate, an adventure movie where she travels to Africa and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.

Trail of the Lonesome Pine

Mary announced her retirement after that when she declined to star in The Covered Wagon. She had already starred in a western and probably did not think much of it. The role was offered to Lois Wilson who benefited the film's outstanding success.

The Covered Wagon

Mary Miles Minter in 1934

Only two years later after she ended her career, she sued her mother for mismanagement of her money. The case was eventually settled out of court and Mary reconciled with her mother. By the 1930s, it is obvious from press pictures that Mary had already gained quite a bit of weight. She eventually suffered from diabetes.

She married Brandon Hildebrandt, a real eastate agent in 1957.
In 1981 a former servant snuck into her home and beat her to rob her. Although she survived, she finally died three years later from heart failure.

Some of her films exist to this day, but very few are available to the public and those that are restored are not available on DVD. I suggest you check out this great site for more information and click "like" on the blog's Facebook page for updates.

That's all for today folks!

Today is Paulette Rollin's birthday.  She was the French singing voice voice of Walt Disney's Cinderella when it was first released in 1950. Since 1991, Paulette's voice has been replaced by that of a new actress and singer called Dominique Poulain who, among other things, sang the French songs of The Rescuers.

Paulette Rollin in 1947

When she did Cinderella, Paulette was a young blond woman with chesnut eyes and a great smile who, with her conductor husband Hubert Rostaing, raised their daughter Chantal. Born in Marseille on March 23, 1920, she is the daughter of Louis Rollin, who was himself a comedian : he performed at the concert Mayol, at la Cigale and the Alcazar in Marseille. He wanted his daughter to have a classical training and chose Madeleine Lalande who had sung 29 years at the Opera, as her singing professor.

At the Ranelagh, she met her husband who, after he heard her singing a few tunes in English (she's bilingual), hired her in her band where she stayed for seven years. A few years after that, she was hired to sing for Cendrillon (Cinderella).

She also was the voice of Mickey's magic harp in Fun and Fancy Free. The soundtrack of the film was also rerecorded rather recently with the voice of Bénédicte Lecroart, who also did Belle in Beauty and the Beast's French version.

She also released many children's records in the 1950s, most notably with Disney songs. There is a Snow White And The Sven Dwarfs (Blanche Neige et les sept nains) mini album, and a medley of re-orchestrated songs from Cinderella, Three Little Pigs, Alice in Wonderland and other versions ofSnow White.

But Paulette Rollin's career is not limited to Walt Disney. She appears in a few French films like Jean Gourget's short : A Ray of Sunshine. She is also Françoise Arnoul's voice in Nous irons à Paris. She even has a cameo in an American color and Cinemascope movie : The Daughter of the Ambassador where she sings le printemps des poètes to Olivia de Havilland.


She is hired at Mercury records where she releases Djimbo l'éléphant for which she is awarded the "grand prix du disque" in 1951, and Dansons mon amour for which she wins the André Claveau award in Deauville in 1952. She then signs at Barclay records where she sings with Eddie Constantine.

Her songs are available on CD.

A December 1953 article about the singer reveals that her motto is "Do well and let them talk", which explains "her sometimes rather brutal frankness which makes Paulette Rollin a straight girl... with no hypocrisy which makes her quite sympathetic".

That same year, I even found this picture in a Turkish magazine under which you can read this text (thank you Sayim for the translation) :
"Unknown in our country, the person in the above photo is that of the beautiful singer that sings Minouche et Dansons mon amour. With these two songs, she became famous in France. Paris-Inter and Monte-Carlo compete to air her concerts live."



I was lucky enough to chat with her on occasion and I am taking this opportunity to pay hommage to this great lady and wish her a happy birthday.

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One dream that Walt Disney took over twenty years to materialize was a dance sequence in the clouds between one of his Princesses and her Prince. Since the very first feature film, a lyrical scene was planned right after Snow White had sung Some Day My Prince Will Come, and she was daydreaming that she and Prince Charming were floating in some kind of swan-boat pulled by star-shaped angels. Then they would dance among the clouds during an instrumental reprise of the song. Snow White would wear a different dress in that scene, one that would inspire the ones used for some dolls.


The scene never went beyond the stage of storyboard. Disney felt it had to be dropped for several reasons. First of all, it stopped the pacing of the story dead: no new plot element was introduced in the sequence and it could only be a visual treat. But the major problem was that he feared that they may not manage to reach that level of perfection on a relatively reasonable (and already exploding) budget because the Prince's animation was too difficult to handle for most animators.

Gone was the scene. The next opportunity was of course Cinderella. One could argue that Cinderella does dance with her Prince this time, and that the evocative backgrounds of the sequence could evoke a cloudy sky at some point, also a song called "Dancing on a cloud" was recorded by Ilene Woods but not kept in the final cut. But, as short as it is, the final scene of Sleeping Beauty is clearly the  finalized sequence closest to the original intent.





But in my book, Aurora is no Snow White and the few seconds of waltz in Sleeping Beauty cannot compare to the lengthy unproduced dance sequence of Snow White and her magic stars. There are two other ways of seeing what a dance between the two characters would have looked like.

You can watch the bonus section of your Blu-ray edition of the film where the beautiful storyboards have been filmed in sequence or... you can buy the DVD of the Marx brothers' movie A Night at the Opera.

At this point, you probably think I'm pulling your leg. Although I consider it a great film, my interest here lies in the bonus section again. In it, there is an MGM short with quality picture and deplorable audio called Sunday Night at the Trocadero. This 1937 film is basically a party hosted by former silent star Reginald Denny who was the subject of my article last month. He introduces famous and not so famous performers who only get a few seconds of screen time. Among the ones that are not credited, or even properly introduced by Denny are two dancers in the style of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers duo.

They actually have the most screen time of anyone else in the film. Their dance is energetic and they look like they're having fun dancing together. The names of these unknown would be revealed in an unrelated 1938 Life magazine article. The man was Louis Hightower and his partner was Marjorie Belcher, performing under the name Margie Bell.

The names may not be familiar to you but these two happen to be the live action models that Disney animators used for the characters of Snow White and the Prince! Some color home movie footage of Marge Belcher's sessions survives and is available on the Snow WhiteBlu-ray. In it, you can see the animators giving instructions to the dancer while she was being filmed. If her movements seem familiar, that's because the still frames of the film were traced on paper (a technique called rotoscoping) and animators would adapt these movements to the design of the characters. Specifically, for instance, Snow White has a much bigger head than a regular human. Marge even had to wear a helmet so that the size of her head would match the intended drawing but the idea was soon dropped because it was so uncomfortable.

Although the use of the technique was somewhat minimized in the Life article (where the two dancers were supposedly only an inspiration), their role in the making of the film is immense. Marge Belcher, the daughter of dance instructor Ernest Belcher, went on to model for the blue fairy for Pinocchio and married animator Art Babbitt. She later achieved worldwide fame when she remarried Gower Champion and they both became stars of a dancing duo in films. However, Louis Hightower, who had been suggested by Marge herself for the role since he was her dancing partner then, had no such luck: he was killed in World War II before he could make a name for himself.


Here is a short excerpt of their dance together that you can enjoy in its entirety by buying the DVD:

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BFI has just announced the discovery of a British masterpiece called Love Life and Laughter by George Pearson. Maybe this will throw a little light on its forgotten star.

When BFI restored "the Hitchcock 9": Alfred Hitchcock's surviving silent films, I couldn't help but think that some of these films probably wouldn't have gotten this attention, had they not been directed by the master of suspense. Yet, at the time they were made, his involvement was definitely not the selling point of these films. The real stars were the ones you could see on-screen and no one outside the business knew who Mr. Hitchcock was.

The scenario of Champagne, which ended up being a light comedy, was developed from the pre-established title and could have been entirely different. Indeed, Hitchcock initially thought the story would be articulated the opposite way: a poor girl working in a champagne factory would sin her way to the top of the social ladder and then go back to her old job when she grew tired of it.

In the end, the film would tell the story of a rich heiress who would be taught a lesson by her rich daddy by cutting off her endless money supply. She learns the lesson, goes back to being rich and everyone is happy.

1925 portrait

Such a seemingly tepid story could not be expected to be rendered more appealing by a then relatively new director (although the pressbook for the film boasts that he already has "the reputation of being the premier British director"), so a star was hired to ensure box office returns. Her name was Betty Balfour, who had just been christened "Britain's favorite actress" and is remembered today (if at all) only for this film.

Yet in the early twenties, Betty Balfour had become immensely popular in Great Britain thanks to her recurring role as Squibs, which began in the eponymous film. Her fame even crossed the Channel in 1922 when these films hit the French screens.

She started to work on stage at the age 18, in October 1914, at the Ambassadors in London thanks to producer C. B. Cochran who met her through the help of her admirer Lady Fitzmaurice. There she played a one act play called From Louvain. The next year, she appears in the show More.

When C. B. Cochran takes the direction of the Palladium, he also takes her along. Betty stars in All Women, a revue that she tours around the country. Upon her return in London, she plays at the Palace Theater in June 1917.

Betty in Nothing Else Matters

At the time, she was a victim of a German bomb and had to stay in bed for several months. But she went back to work in 1919, at the Alhambra, as Violet Manstone in the show Medorah. Her success in it triggered a two-year movie contract with Welsh Pearson and Company at the condition that she would disappear from the stage during that time. Her first screen role was that of a maid, Sally, in Nothing Else Matters, starring Moyna MacGill, Angela Lansbury's mother.

Then came Mary Find The Gold opposite Hugh E. Wright.
The role that propelled her to stardom was the title role of Squibs where she played a London flower girl. A character that seemed to gain the sympathy of the audience. So much so that Betty was dubbed "the English Mary Pickford" and, after a film called Mord Em'ly and another called Wee MacGregor's Sweetheart (shot in Scotland), she went back to the role in Squibs wins the Calcutta Sweep.

Wee MacGregor's Sweetheart with Donald Macardle

The Calcutta Sweep was a lottery. Each ticket cost one pound and the number of winners was determined by the number of horses in the Epsom Derby. Each winner was assigned a horse and the winning horse determined who among the ticket holders won the highest sum (several thousand pounds). For instance, a 1921 winner was a Londoner who won £69,000.

George Pearson, Hugh Wright, Betty Balfour & Fred Grove on the set.

Some of the exteriors for this film were even shot in Paris, on the Grands Boulevards and in Piccadilly Circus where Squibs learns that she won the lottery and kisses a surprised policeman in her excitement, a scene that was apparently shot among the unsuspecting crowd. Apparently Miss Balfour's boyfriend of the time played a policeman in the film.

Squibs has just won the lottery!

Before the Calcutta Sweet movie even finished shooting, the contract was renewed for two additional years. With it came two sequels called Squibs M.P., and Squibs' Honeymoon (for which she became respectively producer and screenwriter), all directed by George Pearson. Even though the next films are not direct Squibs sequels, Betty Balfour was typecast in similar roles in films like in Love, Life and Laughter. In this very recently recovered film, one of her old vaudeville act was used. She eventually ended her collaboration with George Pearson and tried to change her image.

Love, Life and Laughter

Her fame outside of Great Britain permitted her to export her talents in Europe, so she starred in several films in France (she was fluent in French) and in Germany.
The film Bright Eyes [Champagner], directed by Geza von Bolvary, was even sometimes confused with Alfred Hitchcock's film just because it shared the same star and a similar title. 

Prince Aage of Denmark visiting the set of Alfred Hitchcock's Champagne

It is ironic that her best remembered film today is Champagne, one of the films she made in an attempt to move away from her usual roles of poor but optimistic characters and the one film that is most often overlooked in the articles about her in the 1920s.

One of the films she made abroad was Monte Carlo by French director Louis Mercanton. According to Mon Ciné magazine, this was the first production to actually be filmed inside the casino. The same director also worked with her in Croquette and La petite bonne du palace. Another famous Frenchman, Marcel L'Herbier directed her in Le diable au coeur. In Paradise, she wins a prize and decides to travel to the Riviera (the actress broke a rib during her energetic dance scene with Alexandre D'Arcy).

Carlyle Blackwell, Jean-Louis Allibert & Betty Balfour in Monte Carlo

By 1927, she was making another international film called La fille du régiment from an Italian operetta with a German director and German actors, for a British company, opposite an Egyptian co-star. It was shot in Barcelona, London, Berlin, Paris...
In her interviews, she says she disliked talking pictures but had more faith in color.

Love, Life and Laughter

When the talkies came, however, she had to adapt. She starred in the first British musical, Raise the Roof, opposite Maurice Evans and in a second one called The Nipper. After which she vanished from the screen for 4 years.
When she returned, she played second fiddle to singing star Jessie Matthews in Evergreen, one of the few films she made that is available on DVD today. She then attempted to revive her fame as Squibs in a 1935 musical remake of the film. While not a complete failure, the film was not the success Betty hoped and, after one last film, she stopped filming. She made one last attempt in films ten years later in a film opposite another Hitchcock regular Gordon Harker: 29 Acacia Avenue.
After a return on the stage, she eventually retired and, were it not for Hitchcock's unpretentious comedy, she would be forgotten today. But maybe this newly rediscovered film will change that a little.

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The Jazz singer was presented in Paris on January 24, 1929, more than one year after its huge success in the USA. It took another 10 months for a French-speaking film to hit the screens (RCA sound-on-film system), presented at the Marivaux theater on October 31, 1929 and released to the audience the next day (there was even a release in Quebec).

1929 The Three Masks

The choice of subject for the first talking picture in France may surprise some as it did me when I found out that the film was called The Three Masks. The film does not exactly enjoy the cult status that The Jazz Singer has in the USA (and indeed the world) where it was recently re-released on Blu-ray or Blackmail for Great Britain.

1921 The Three Masks

As a matter of fact, the film was shot in London, at the BIP studio, the only place in Europe where you could make a talky at the time. The studio had unwisely been built right next to a railway track. So a man was hired solely to warn the crew of incoming trains thanks to an electric device which activated a light inside the studio everytime he pushed a button.Other foreign productions were shot there, like Atlantic, the first talkie inspired by the sinking of the Titanic. But a French sound studio was soon built in Joinville by Pathé and the short film Chiqué was shot there later that year.

1921 Henry Krauss & Charlotte Barbier-Krauss

As for The Three Masks, the choice of subject becomes clearer when you realize that this film is, not only a stage adaptation (an easy solution adopted by many filmmakers during this difficult period), but more importantly a remake of a great 1921 success. That version was even re-released in 1924, a very rare instance during the silent era where most films were released only once, never to be seen again (one of the reasons why so many films are lost today).

1929 Jean Toulout & Clotilde Person

As a matter of fact, in retrospect, the choice may seem bold, as the first film had a very limited number of intertitles and did not rely on dialog, unlike most subjects chosen for early talkies. One critic even wrote then that "the text is reduced to a bare minimum, almost nothing".



Here is a short clip of the 1929 film:

1921 The dead son under a mask

In Corsica, the rich Paolo della Corba loves the pretty Viola (Speranza in the silent version) in secret, because his father won't accept a poor daughter-in-law. Soon Viola gets pregnant and the couple decides to elope, but her three brothers vow to avenge her honor. During the carnival, wearing masks, they stab Paolo and bring him back in costume to his father who thinks the boy is just a drunk schoolteacher. When he removes the mask in the morning, the old man realizes his sorrow, and eventually cares for the baby.

1929 The dead son under a mask

The first version, although it did not enjoy the novelty of sound yet, was immensely successful. Critics called it admirable. It was directed by then-famous Henry Krauss who also starred in the film. One of the masks was played by Georges Wague, a celebrated mime. This version offered what the hastily shot sound film could not offer in a London studio: realism. The director went to Corsica and looked for a mansion that could be used for the father. According to Ciné Pour Tous magazine from April 8, 1921, Corsica was a poor region with very little industry or commerce and such mansions were actually very rare there. The owners of the ones he could find did not want to let the crew inside for fear of alerting the police on the origin of their wealth.

1921 "Let us in"

Henry Krauss (1921)

Jean Toulout (1929)

In spite of that, Krauss shot beautiful scenes in Corto, Corgese, Piana, Bastia etc. He ended up in the Castle of Feliceto near Muro, between Calvi and Belgodere, owned by a Mr. Salvetti who welcomed him and the crew. Krauss waited until late in filming to tell the story to Mr. Salvetti, for fear of upsetting the man on the dramatic depiction of a vendetta among Corsicans. The man told him that a similar story had happened only three years earlier in a nearby village.

1929 Renée Héribel (Viola) & François Rozet (Paolo)

When it was re-released in 1924, Cinémagazine (July 18, 1924) acknowledged the (very rare) event and wished that the film be always available. Unfortunately, as of today, their wish is not granted and neither the original nor the sound remake is available on DVD or any other format. Yet these films are still extant: the 1921 masterpiece was projected in Corsica as late as 2009.

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Theda Bara's name still rings a bell for some people. She was the iconic vamp of the silent era. Also she portrayed iconic characters such as Juliet (from Romeo & Juliet), Camille, Carmen, Madame Du Barry, Salome, all of them still popular and, at each new incarnation, her name is often brought up as a pioneer, even though few have actually seen her films since most of them are lost and those that are preserved are not necessarily the best ones and are usually presented in a very poor shape.

As a matter of fact, she played her most famous role in one of the most sought-after lost film: Cleopatra. Not often is a lost film so well illustrated to this day: tons of production photographs can be found on the internet or in various books. Joseph Mankiewick's version starring Elizabeth Taylor is actually a remake of this film, even though it was already lost by then.

Cleopatra

Since the film (and most of her filmography) was released during WW1, her fame reached Europe a little late, probably one of the reason why her films were not as well preserved as later ones. Theda Bara is not often mentioned in French post war film magazines, for instance. The craving for more details in movie magazines will flourish a little later and magazines like Cinéa or Cinémagazine will only be published from 1921. And most of Theda Bara's films had been released in France by then.

However, for this particular film, I found out that its first European premiere happened in Paris on January 30, 1920 at the Mogador Palace. For the occasion, a 40 piece orchestra played an especially written score by Paul Letombe. It took me a while to realize it since the film was not called Cléopâtre as one could expect. In the magazine "Ciné pour tous" and in every newspaper commenting the event (Le Petit Parisien, Le Figaro, etc.), the film is clearly advertized as La Reine des Césars [Queen of Caesars]. I can only guess what other titles were used throughout Europe. There is still hope to find a copy under some unexpected title after all!

Anyway, the film seems to have been a big success there since by February 3, Le Matin displayed an ad saying that over 3,000 people could not get a seat so the management of the Mogador could not guaranty entrance to anyone without a reservation.
On April 2, the film move to the Demours theater and it took another month (May 3rd, 1920) to reach Algiers.
So far, only a fragment of the film has been recovered, and in very poor shape, too:

Another fragment was thought to be from this film for a time, but it happened to be from another Fox epic with a similar cast and crew called Queen of Sheba. As a matter of fact, this film was supposed to star Theda Bara before she left the studio and she was replaced by Betty Blythe who wore equally revealing costumes.

However, Theda Bara cannot be summed up with Cleopatra alone. She wasn't the first to portrait the Queen, nor was she the first to play all of her famous roles. But she often was the first to play them in luxurious American feature films. At the time, movie studios kept their actors voluntarily anonymous so that they wouldn't demand higher salaries as they grew more famous. The few who reached fame had gained their way progressively as they had been eventually recognized film after film.
Unlike them, Theda became an overnight sensation, the first manufactured star thanks to her association with William Fox, whose studio was nearly going bankrupt and needed a publicity stunt to change his luck.

As most film actors of the time, she started her career on the East coast, at Fort Lee. After a debut under her real name, Theodosia Goodman, as a fake nurse (actually a gangster's moll) in The Stain, she starred in A Fool There Was, and became The Vampire, a bad woman who lured married men to their doom. Amazingly, these films, directed by Frank Powell, are two of the six films (out of 40) that are still extant today (A Fool There Was is even available on DVD).

The term "vamp" was coined for her and she was typecast to cash in the extraordinary publicity around her persona. A whole legend was spread through newspapers and studio publicity about her origins (more specifically when Cleopatra was released, when her named was conveniently revealed to be an anagram for "Arab Death"). In 1917, the Goodman family legally changed their name to Bara.

Carmen

Back to 1915: she made a short film with Raoul Walsh called Siren of Hell and two features: the first was Carmen, an adaptation of Prosper Mérimé's novel. Cecil B. DeMille also released his version starring Geraldine Farrar on the same day.

In The Serpent, she played yet another vamp. With director Herbert Brenon, she did more films with such roles, and also adaptations of classics: The Two Orphans, Alexander Dumas'The Clemenceau Case and Kreutzer Sonata from Tolstoi. That same year, she also stars in an adaptation Emile Zola's Labor called Destruction, which will be released in France 5 years later as La ravageuse.

With The Galley Slave, she started a collaboration with the director that would work on most of her films: J. Gordon Edwards, grand father of director Blake Edwards.

In 1916, she did East Lynne (still extant) with director Bertram Bracken, and a steamy version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with Edwards (which had yet again to face a rival production from Metro). For him, she also became Esmeralda in a 1917 adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris called The Darling of Paris and Camille from Alexandre Dumas's novel La dame aux camélias.

French poster for Madame Du Barry

Then came Cleopatra, for which she was asked to move to California, where the new studios were operating, and Madame Du Barry, which were both released in France three years later. By then Pola Negri's later version had reached the French screen and another comparison in critics of the time was inevitable, like Carmen or Romeo And Juliet earlier.

In 1918, she co-wrote the story of The Son of Buddha. She also did Salome. That year, Theda even became the subject of a cartoon short starring Mutt and Jeff called Meeting Theda Bara!

The next year saw the release of 2 films by Charles Brabin, Kathleen Mavourneen and La Belle Russe. Her next film, The Lure of Ambition, was the last one she made for Fox before her contract expired. She was denied a raise and decided to leave the studio. After a trip to Europe, she tried to find work at another studio but was unsuccessful until 1925 when she made a comeback with The Unchastened Woman directed by James Young. This last feature film still exists today.

Her last theatrical film was a comedy short called Madame Mystery co-directed by Stan Laurel in which she shared the screen with Oliver Hardy.

After an attempt on the stage, she retired. She had married Charles Brabin in 1921 and the two stayed together until Theda's death in 1955.

In my research, I found other French titles for her films:
- Un cavalier passa (A horseman went by, I don't know which film that is) was shown from November 7, 1919 at the Aubert Palace.
- Le démon de la jalousie (Demon of Jealousy, a title that could fit too many of her movies), was released on January 1920 in Rouen and on May 23, 1920 in Algiers. (probably in Paris some time in 1919).
- La DuBarry (Madame Du Barry, of course) released in Paris on February 6, 1920, just one week after Cleopatra.
- La ravageuse (Ravenous, which is the French title of Destruction) came out on April 15, 1920.
- La bête à misère (The Misery Beast) came out in Paris on July 30, 1920 and on March 3, 1921 in Algiers.
- Poppéa (French title of When a Woman Sins) came out on September 24, 1920 in Algiers.
- Salomé was released on January 14, 1921 and re-released on March 7, 1924. I even found a trace of the film as late as 1928 (January 25) in Madagascar.
- Apparently, La Reine des Césars (Cleopatra) was reissued on January 21, 1921 in Algiers, a rare occurrence in those days.
- Avant l'heure X (Before Time X, a war movie, possibly When Men Desire) was shown in Arcachon, France on February 18, 1922.

It is very difficult to associate a film with its title considering the French titles are usually completely different from the originals (Cleopatra being a good example). Also, the release dates are no help here considering that most of her films were made during World War I or right after, and were therefore almost all released in France in 1920 within a very short time bracket. Finally, no indication concerning the story, other actors or crew members are usually mentioned in the papers, cinema programs being mostly relegated to a mere column in the theater section of newspapers at the time.

If you wish to know more about this fascinating personality, I suggest you visit this website, and see the documentary The Woman With The Hungry Eyes.

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Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous work is the creation of detective Sherlock Holmes, and indeed the first screen adaptation came in 1900.
However, one of the most successful adaptations of  his novels was not a Sherlock Holmes film. The Lost World was a dinosaur story and nobody had figured out how to adapt such a fantastic tale until Willis H. O'Brien came along.

The man had developed a technique that enabled dinosaurs or other extinct beasts to take life in front of your eyes: stop motion animation. Basically, he would photograph puppets one frame at a time and would move them little by little so that the illusion of movement would be created when the film ran at normal speed. The same trick is used for cartoons, only this time, it was with three dimensional objects. And to the untrained eye of the spectators of the time, it might as well have been a real dinosaur up there on the screen.

Willis had experimented that technique since 1915 with short films like Dinosaurs and the Missing Link or R.F.D., 10,000 B.C. where he animated puppets of humans as well so they could interact with the animals, much in the way of The Flinstones. (Check out the latter: I saw several instances where you can accidentally see Willis' elbow for a split millisecond). By 1918, he fleshed out his films with live action segments that provided a more substantial story and characters that the audience could relate to. This gave birth to the short film The Ghost of Slumber Mountain.

Unfortunately, two thirds of the film are now lost and what you see here is an abridged version of a longer film.

With time, Willis progressed and he figured out that if he optically merged live action shots of people with his puppet shots, then the dinosaurs would seem even more realistic, as they would evolve in the real world. Recent research show that he first tried that with his partner Herbert Dawley in the film Along the Moonbeam Trail.

In 1923, a Buster Keaton comedy called Three Ages used stop motion animation in its prehistoric segment to create the illusion that the protagonist was using a giant dinosaur as transportation device. The way was paved for a prestige feature film to used this technique.

Facade of the Paris Cameo theater showing the film

The idea came to adapt Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World, a perfect material for his specific trade. It took a whole year for him to animate the many dinosaur sequences (publicity for the film said "seven years in the making"). To create a surefire success, real live wild beasts were photographed, and movie stars were hired. The star of Three Ages, Wallace Beery, took the part of Professor Challenger, Bessie Love was Paula White, Lewis Stone became Sir John Roxton and teen heartthrob Loyd Hughes played adventurer Ed Malone. Even Arthur Conan Doyle makes an appearance in the prologue.


Although not a secret (some articles of the time make wild guesses), the fact that the animals were animated was, at the time, not explained in the film publicity which preferred to describe the film as if cretaceous species had somehow magically reappeared.

The Lost World was a massive hit throughout the world for several years. It even became the first in-flight film as this French article proves (an experiment that will not be repeated much, the journalist suggests, considering how flammable film is). The deed took place in London in late 1925 and, according to the imdb, was repeated in Germany on February 4, 1926.

However, as most silent films, it was only sporadically re-released and in various edits. For many years, only severely shortened copies of lesser quality circulated. This site gives a complete explanation of this.

Lobster films eventually restored the film to a more acceptable length and quality, but unfortunately, portions of it are still missing. The film is also coming out on Blu-ray in France in October as a bonus feature of its 1960 sequel.

French magazine ad

The plot of the film inspired countless others: the remote island, the romance amidst catastrophe, the giant beast turn loose in the big city, the iconic monument destroyed are all still used today. Willis O'Brien's next big finished project will be animating his most famous work: King Kong.

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If the fairest one of all stays eternally young, it is no secret anymore that she was born a long time ago. The date commonly given is that of the premiere at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937. But the film did not go into general release until at least February of 1938 !


The French press mentions the film as early as 1935, when Walt Disney came to visit Paris. There are more and more articles by the end of 1937. In February of 1938, Ciné-France publishes one about Snow White patterns to make dresses. On March 11, 1938, the same magazine says that the French version is being recorded at the Disney studios (chanteuse Lily Pons's name is mentioned erroneously for the lead). It also says that band leader Ray Ventura is already recording his versions of the film's melodies.

Other records were cut in the USA and in England prior to that, and some were commercialized in France. On February 21, Frank Luther, with the help of Zora Layman, records a wacky version (in English) of the story on three discs. On March 25, Anne Lenner sings two songs accompanied by Carroll Gibbons and the Savoy Hotel Orpheans: "One Song" and "With a Smile And A Song". That same month, the US original soundtrack was released in Great Britain on three discs and, despite the language barrier, also in France. Still in March, Guy Lombardo and wife Carmen recorded two songs: "With A Smile And A Song" et "Whistle While You Work".
On April 9, Joe Loss and his orchestra offers a selection of the film's songs.
In May, Georges Briez does "Un sourire en chantant" (With a Smile And A Song") and a medley of "La tyrolienne des nains" (The Silly Song") and "Heigh Ho".


Le Populaire from April 22, 1938 announces the competitor's project : Max Fleischer prepares his own feature but the subject has not been revealed yet. It should be ready for the 1938/1939 season.

To conquer Europe, the film naturally started by Great Britain, where no adaptation was needed. But once finalized, the French version enabled Disney to present his first feature magnificently in Paris, on the Champs-Élysées, in only one theater, whose facade was entirely decorated for the occasion: the Marignan theater, in which Snow White replaced La tragédie impériale, a film by Marcel L'Herbier, starring Harry Baur.

The Marignan theater in 1938

The Marignan theater in 2013

The event happened on Friday May 6, 1938, and was heavily publicized in many newspapers (except in the communist paper L'Humanité which only changes the film program of the Marignan on May 11) and several personalities were invited at the gala premiere: actor Noël-Noël, opera singer Lily Pons (who, according to the press, was considered for the lead role), actress Renée St Cyr, director Robert Siodmak, etc.. Les petits chanteurs à la croix de bois (The little singers of Paris), presented by Father Munier, start the show, and "precious souvenirs" are handed. Seats for the evening retailed at 30, 40, 75 and even 100 francs! Guests had to be smartly dressed.

For this original release, several posters were used: one with the American design (see above), but French designer Bernard Lancy also designed several others, which were even used abroad.




Le programme du Marignan announces many tie-in products. Among them, other than imported British and American records, are those of Ray Ventura (Siffler en travaillant& Un sourire en chantant) and the two first songs by Lucienne Dugard, recorded in May, in time for the release: Un sourire en chantant & Un jour mon Prince viendra. These recordings are the first to use alternate lyrics, not those of the film (and that are found on the Salabert songbook that was published then). The same phenomenon can be found in the USA: there alternate lyrics for commercial recordings also, something which endures today for almost every new recording. This particular disc will lead many to believe that Lucienne Dugard was among the cast of the French dub of the film,in spite of the fact that her voice is completely different from Snow White's.

Irène Hilda in 1938

As a matter of fact, while Disney remained very secretive about the cast list, the press will speculate more than once about the star. I guess the actresses in these articles were probably mentioned for publicity, or simply because of the journalist's ignorance. Indeed, in its letters to the editor column, Pour Vous informs its readers on June 29, 1938 that "the actress who speaks for Snow White is called Irène Hilda". Olivier Kosinski brought to my attention the fact that A. de Montgon published an article in Le Petit Bleu on May 24, 1938 where he"reveals" that it is the Belgian actress and singer Sim Viva who gave her voice to Snow White in the French version. Yet, in a few paragraphs (July 20, 1938 in Pour Vous or July 7, 1938 in Cinémonde) the name of the actual actress who played the part can be found: director Jacques Tourneur's wife, Christiane Tourneur.



René Lehmann, in L'Intransigeant on May 7, 1938 (published the day before) gives his vision of the French version: "I must say the French voices given to these legendary little characters are often plagued with Germanic or Anglo-Saxon accents that shocked me." This is mostly due to the fact that the French version had been recorded in the USA by expatriates. Gilbert Bernard, of Le Matin, who praises the film, also notes the same problem: "The only critic I can make - regretfully so - is about the quality of the French voices ; which would have been better if the adaptation had been done in Paris instead of Hollywood."Walt Disney heard the critics and in Le Matin of May 15, 1938 one could read a press release in his name to glorify his efforts: "My most sincere wishes of success for the French version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I hope this production will help maintain and reinforce the friendship that always existed betwen the people of France and the U.S.A." That same day, the Marignan had seen thousands of spectators in a week and Le Journal de Mickey started the weekly publication of the comic adaptation of the film in color.

The Marignan

The movie thus settled at le Marignan as a permanent show from 1.30pm until 1.30am! In spite of that, the lines kept getting longer and these showings were not enough. On June 4, 1938, Le Matin announced that "because of incalculable demands from children and parents, two special showings of Snow White will be programed for Pentecost. Walt Disney's film will play at 10am On Sunday 5 and Monday 6 and the seats for these extraordinary events will exceptionally sell at 12, 16, 18 and 20 francs."

RKO trade ad

Danielle Darrieux in 1938

A contest was organized, described in the June 10 edition of Le Matin : "Contestants were supposed to designate the famous actors who they thought were best qualified to play the fictitious characters of Walt Disney's beautiful film. Milton was chosen for Happy, to Fernandel went the part of Bashful, Dopey would be Noël-Noël, Sneezy always with a cold would be played by Lucien Baroux, for Grumpy, Raimu was proposed. Michel Simon has to be satisfied with Sleepy and Armand Bernard becomes Doc. Finally Danielle Darrieux has been chosen for the nice Snow White."

The Marignan

On June 14, Le Matin tells of the incredible success of the film for the past six weeks and warns its readers that the exclusivity of the Marignan will only end in seven months and that, before this, "the film will not play in any neighborhood theater in Paris". That same day, Fred Adison and his orchestra record La tyrolienne des nains, again with "commercial records" lyrics, different from that of the film.

On June 21, 1938, it is Elyane Célis, with Marcel Cariven's orchestra, who records her version of Un sourire en chantant and Un jour mon Prince viendra. That version will also be quite popular and adds a new potential player to the supposed list of actresses who played Snow White (that isn't the case: for a complete list of actors who played in the French version of the film, please read this article). In June also, Albert Valensi aka "Valsien" also releases a medley of the film's tunes with the great orchestra of the Odéon and Odette Moulin releases a Pathé record of "Sifflez en travaillant" and "Un sourire en chantant" with the Fredo Gardoni orchestra.

Other products were made, as never before: handkerchiefs, puzzle games, card games, jewelry, and 25 postcards edited by E. Séphériadès. This series manages to tell the story of the Princesse while retaining only the dwarfs and the Prince, even adding scenes (like the one below) to cover for the absence of the Queen, the hunter, etc.

Postcard 19

In Le Matin, Grumpy complains in a fictitious July 10 interview that he had to learn seven languages to allow a release abroad. He mentions the title translations (all wrong, just like one could find in the Carthay Circle Theater program) and says he had trouble with Arabic "that isn't a language, [but] an explosion".

But it was worth it. On July 15, the newspaper claims "Blanche Neige breaks all records", and says that the film "during its nine first weeks of exclusivity, grossed a total sum of 3,600,000 francs, or a weekly sum of 400,000 francs!"

Hall of the Marignan

On September 3, 1938, Le Temps announces that the film won a special prize at the Venice festival. In the meantime, Yvonne Marsay and André Pierrel release their musical fantasy played by the Fernand Warms orchestra. In the USA, the soundtrack's release sold very well. So with a cover very similar to the British release, in September two records came out in France where the story of Snow White was recorded with Marcel Cariven's orchestra and sung by Elyane Célis. In this recording only, the songs kept the film's original lyrics.

The Marignan's exclusive engagement ended after 18 weeks when the film moved to l'Impérial for another exclusive 17 weeks from September 9, 1938, and from December 9, le film came out simultaneously in several theaters in Paris in time from Christmas. Meanwhile, it had already traveled through France to become the country's most phenomenal success.



However, even outside of Paris, exclusive engagements were negotiated: so on November 13, 1938 at the Excelsior in Rennes, Snow White plays for the first time in the region at 13H30, 16H30 and  20H45. An article in Ouest éclair says that "the ticket office was overcrowded". For once, the article warns that "No one can forget Snow White's voice" and calls the film "a complete success as each of the arts know very few." Publicity boasts that the film will not play elsewhere in the district for a year and in the town for 2 years!


On November 17, the same paper says that "all records of the film Snow White can be purchased at the maison Racine, 6 Lafayette street." and announces the broadcast of a"selectiion of tunes of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a film by Disney and Churchill." on radio Toulouse at 10.30pm (!)

And earlier, on September 23, 1938, because of the success of the first record, Lucienne Dugard recorded another with the songs "Je souhaite - Un chant" (with the film's lyrics only slightly adapted) & "Siffler en travaillant". Fred Adison, too, records a new title on November 21: Heigh-Ho.


Keep in mind that, at the time, France is not limited to its European territories. Snow White is also released in the many colonies. On October 31, 1938, the film reaches the Régent in Algiers and on November 9, the press says that the wildest hopes of the theater manager were fulfilled: "a lady who had seen the film in Paris came from Constantine to Algiers only to see it again." It came back in June 1940 in the same theater although it had never really left the screen in this town. Snow White is visible there with almost no interruption until February of 1943!

It is also presented in Indochina, at the Majestic of Hanoi which for the occasion, prints a luxurious program with the story of the film among colored illustrations.

On November 1, Le Temps announces that the film could be the first American movie to be played in U.S.S.R. since Modern Times.

Snow White continues its career in Paris: on December 11, 1938, it plays at the Lutétia, the Eldorado and at the Victor Hugo. Books are also announced: "Published by Hachette (...) in the series Hop-là with wonderful fold out pages, the prettiest chapter of Snow White, Snow White and her animal friends."


As a matter of fact, at Christmas, the film is still her to stay: on December 23, 1938, as it is freezing out (10°F in Paris) 7 theaters in Paris still play it.


On Christmas day, Le Temps announces a 9.30pm radio adaptation of Snow White on radio Droitwich. The show is played again the next day.

On december 26, 1938, the films is announced at the Casino in St Malo and at the Foyer in Combourg "which obtained the region's exclusivity for 10 month.
On January 10, 1939, the movie still plays in Paris at the Bonaparte and the Caméo.

In Fougères, on February 1, 1939, Ouest éclair praises M. Véiès' initiative who organized special showings for school children the day beforeand on that day too. In Dinard, the film is shown on February 2 and 4 at the Ciné Palace. Around this time too, the first advertisements for a collection of stickers  found in the Menier chocolate bars to glue in the two Snow White albums




And from March 2, Ouest éclair publishes a part of the comic adaptation in its Thursday pages until July 13, 1939.






In front of this lasting triumph, and to bring a response to the critics, on February17, 1939, as the film is still touring the country, a new exclusivity is announced, this time at the Normandie, a Pathé theater on the Champs-Élysées: the film in English! Showings start at 9.15pm.
 
This, however, doesn't last, an from March 8, Snow White has been replaced by La vie est magnifique, at the Normandie. But the public slowly took possession of the characters and the Noëlistes at St Vincent High School presented their version of the tale on February 5,1939 at 2.30 pm. Other stage adaptations will follow, on March 28, 1939, a version by Mme Jeanne Blanc is mentioned: "Blanche Neige et le Prince charmant"part of a show by Fernand Rouvray. That same day, the coming of a new feature called Pinocchio is announced, as well as the creation of a new Disney character: Goofy. On June 13, 1939, at the Luxembourg parc, a Snow White puppet show is played and Simone Debergé's adaptation is played on Saturday June 24, 1939 in Fougères starring Noëlla Debergé, actually a follow-up of the film.

But from March 29, 1939, the Lutétia programs two versions of the film every day. The matinée is Blanche Neige and the evening show is Snow White."
Mardi Gras offers a new occasion to publicize the film: in fact, Ouest France tells on March 20, 1939 of the carnival in Rennes with a Snow White float, and the character is even recieved at Town Hall and congratulated by the deputy mayor.

On April 8, 1939, the French version is released... in New York! At the Waldorf Theater, even French francs are accepted.

On May 5, 1939, almost a year after the release of the film, famous singer Jean Lumière also collaborates with Marcel Cariven to record his version of Un chant (One Song).


On June 12, 1939 there are advertisements in Ouest éclair for Cadum soaps who offer as a gift one of the eight color lithographies of Snow White in each box of three soaps. Each one represents a dwarf, except the eighth one which is, of course Snow White and her Prince. They met with great success and a new series with others scenes were produced.

Image Cadum belge

But on September 1, 1939 comes the war and Pinocchio's release is canceled. Yet, copies of Snow White apparently were still in circulation in France for years after that. Snow White is played on March 22, 1940 in Servan, and on June 2, 1940 at the Select in Rennes.

A new film from the studio was even released in March and April of 1940: La grande parade de Walt Disney, a kind of Festival of Hits which will be released later in the USA but with a rather different program: if Ferdinand the Bull is indeed part of the show, the rest is composed of other shorts: Brave Little Tailor, The Practical Pig, Donald's Golf Game, Ugly Duckling, and Farmyard Symphony.

Le Midi Libre of September 9, 1942 announces the last showings of Snow White downtown Toulouse at the Nouveautés (7 francs a seat) non stop from 2 to 6 with a special 9  o'clock showing because "this film will be forbidden in France from October 15."

It is indeed then that, in the free zone, that all American and British films were banned. If it hadn't been for that measure, it is likely that the little Princess' career would have gone on.


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As Paris has just been liberated, and before the war is even over, life goes on in the French Capital City. But French films are soon insufficient: one can read in Le Film Français that there are 220 French films made during the war and 60 more that are about to be available, but production will stop completely. 40 new American films are ready to invade the market, and there are those from before the war that can still be shown.

So the America production, which had left the screen during the occupation, is coming back strongly.
From October 1944, Hitchcock's comedy M. et Mme Smith (Mr. and Mrs. Smith) comes out.
In December 1944, "Furie" is played starring Spencer Tracy, Fra Diavolo with Laurel and Hardy, Ma femme est une sorcière (I Married a Witch) with Veronica Lake, and for feature cartoon amateurs, the Paramount theater offers Max and Dave Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels dubbed in French, with much publicity since December 20.

Disney is still present though: the cartoon package film La grande parade de Walt Disney is projected (listed since December 28 in Le Figaro) at the Cinéph. Champs Elysées, where it is enjoying a successful re-release (the first release being in 1940). On December 28, Le Figaro announces that on Thursday January 4, the French association of Cinema, for its opening night at the studio de l'étoile, will show a festival of cartoons.

Movie program in the Figaro of December 30, 1944

This interest for animated films and the movies in general will be satisfied with new American releases, sometimes not yet dubbed but also by old successes which copies were kept hidden during the war and allowed limited screenings. The list of films seen in Paris still varies somewhat erraticly and the systematic weekly release that was the norm before the war is still not quite adopted.

On Saturday December 30, 1944, L'Humanité and Le Figaro both announce that Le Normandie, on the Champs-Élysées has replaced the film Florence est folle,a comedy by Georges Lacombe with Annie Ducaux, by Blanche Neige et les sept nains. On the ads, on-stage attractions are announced, as well as the "great orchestra of the Normandie".

Le Normandie 1945

This picture, taken on January 15, 1945 by an American war correspondent, Sherman Montrose, shows the facade, decorated for the occasion and the line of people waiting. Other than the obvious attraction, it seems that movie theaters then were a good and cheap shelter from the cold when many could not afford to warm their own homes

The poster retains the design of Gustaf Tenggren once again but the dwarfs are closer in aspect to what they look like in the film. Apart from that, it would seem that no other poster was designed for that release. It is very likely that, in this period of restrictions and for a limited showing, the promotional material designed before the war was re-used.

Le Normandie 2014

As a matter of fact, you can catch a glimpse of the lobby with a poster that is present in the initial release pressbook. Next to it are several pictures displayed to give an idea of what the film was about to awaiting spectators. At least two of them are recognizable: there are the images I copied below.


Until I find proof of the contrary, it seems that this release was limited to that one theater. Yet at the time, the Hachette story book is published again and the 1938 E. Séphériadès postcards are also republished by Superluxe.

From December 1945 to February 1946, the French cinémathèque organizes an exhibit on animated cartoons and the poster cannot hide who the master of the genre is: Oswald, Pluto, Donald Duck and of course Mickey Mouse are clearly displayed. I doubt that such an event would have taken place if it hadn't been for Snow White.

6 years after this Paris release, the French version of the film reappears in Brussels at the Eldorado on August 10, 1951, where it stays from 1 to 9pm until August 30, 1951.

The very next day, on August 31, 1951, the film comes back, thanks to RKO in two theaters in Paris: at Gaumont Palace (Place Clichy, 4,600 seats, the place is gone now) and at the Berlitz (31 boulevard des italiens, 1,500 seats, also gone) and the success is once again astounding.
For its first exclusive week, the films makes 8,306,418 francs at the Gaumont Palace with 43,302 tickets sold and  3,434,540 francs at the Berlitz with 14,832 tickets.
The second week, it brings 5,711,692 francs at the Gaumont Palace (29,297 tickets) and 2,347,390 francs at the Berlitz (9,946 tickets), which brings it to the top of the biggest money makers in Paris in front of On The Town and September Affair.

Inside the Gaumont Palace in 1945

On the third week, with 28 showings in each theater, 14,382 tickets are sold in the Berlitz for 3,434,540 francs (each seat is sold between 200 and 300 francs) and 43,302 tickets earn the Gaumont Palace 8,306,418 francs (180 to 250 francs a seat).

It is at the Gaumont Palace that Cinderella premiered last Christmas and a giant ad already announces Alice in Wonderland for the coming holidays.

The poster is a copy of Bernard Lancy's original one with a different font on the title and one of the two RKO logos is replaced by "Technicolor".

On September 19, Blanche Neige starts a second exclusive showing in a different theater (4 weeks until October 14) at the Lord Byron (462 seats) located at number 122 on the Champs Elysees, a place now gone too. It grosses 2,125,500 francs that week with 8610 tickets sold; on the second, 2,162,500 francs with 8650 tickets;  the third week 1,190,000 (4,760 tickets); and the fourth and last 1,147,500 (4,590 tickets). At this point, Snow White already conquered the land thanks to a national release.


In Lille, the film came out on September 5, in two theaters : the Bellevue, where 7,354 tickets sold and grossed 822,200 francs, and at the Caméo which sold 7,962 tickets for 887,085 francs.
Also on September 5, Nice sees the film opening in 3 theaters : the Excelsior which sold 4,682 tickets in a week for 552,382 francs, the Politéama (4,876 tickets for 579,850 francs) and the Royal (4,687 tickets for 556,200 francs).
On September 11, the film comes out in Toulouse, at the Trianon Palace where it grosses 2,270,434 francs with 17,460 tickets for the first week only, and 2,278,334 francs for the second one.
In Marseille, the film is shown for a week only in two theaters : the Capitole with 2,254,670 francs (16,607 tickets) and the Rialto with 1,731,375 francs (12,925 tickets).
On September 19, the Pathé and the Olympia in Nancy both play the film with grosses of respectively 1,501,570 francs (11,462 tickets) and 678,515 francs (6,558 tickets) during the one week of exclusivity.
On September 24, Blanche Neige comes out in Strasbourg and the October 12, 1951 issue of Le film français triumphantly announces the 3,530,140 franc grosses made in 12 days (27,851 tickets) at the Vox of Strasbourg, which sets a new record for this theater.
On September 26, the film arrives at the Ciné Journal of Lyon which sells 15,214 tickets in a week for 1,942,650 francs, 10,402 tickets the second week for 1,344,950 francs, and 8,293 tickets the third and last week.
In Bordeaux, at the Français, the grosses for the first week are 2,587,300 francs. The Sogec company which owns the theater, organized a drawing contest for kids under 15 who are supposed to draw a scene or a character from the film. The hundreds of drawing sent are exposed in the lobby of the theater. Participants all get to see the film for free and the ten best drawings get a special prize. First prize is a brand new bike.


To coincide with the release, the Hachette storybook is reissued as well as the sheet music. A new book comes out by Hachette in the collection "Pink albums" with new illustrations which will be used again in other books and records. Other titles will follow in this same collection such as: La maison des nains (The dwarfs' cottage) in 1953, Le couronnement de Blanche Neige (Snow White's crowning) in 1955, Le retour de Blanche Neige (The return of Snow White) in 1956 and Il était une fois (Once upon a Time) in 1959 which is actually a reissue La maison des nains followed by Noah's ark.


Although inspired by the success of the 1939 Menier albums, a new 60 franc album is issued: in the "éclair" collection (éditions populaires modernes, 39 rue Paul Barruel, Paris XV) where one is supposed to glue "a wonderful collection of 240 multicolored images". This same album is also issued in Italy at about the same time with the same images inspired by the film but with adaptations that differ almost only in the translation.



In the following years, several types of products will fill the void when the film is not showing anywhere.
In 1953 a new Hachette picture book (collection Grands albums) where for the first time appear drawings, typical of the fifties, later used numerous times where the Queen has a red dress and where polka dots appear and disappear from Snow White's skirt from one drawing to another. The mother of Snow White is also represented as well as baby Snow White in a cradle.


In 1954, singer Paulette Rollin, who was then a sort of official voice for Disney because she voice the title character in Cinderella released three years earlier, proposed an album of Disney songs by Mercury records. She had already recorded in 1947 a selection of songs of Bambi (even when the film was released with songs in English in the French version), then songs of Cinderella. In this new album, she sang some of her non Disney songs, but also those of Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, and Snow White: Heigh-Ho, Un jour mon prince viendra, Sifflez en travaillant and Un chant. The orchestra is conducted by her husband: Hubert Rostaing.

In 1955, the popular story of Blanche Neige recorded by Élyane Célis is reissued. The recording is exactly the same as the two 1938 78 rpm records but it is now on the two sides of a single 45 rpm record.


Recording equipments having evolved, Lucien Adès, who has already flooded the market with other Disney features, has a new version of the story recorded, this time with more actors for better characterization. The narrator is François Périer who will later take that same role in one of the French dubs of Fantasia. The Princess is played by Lucienne Pacley. Director/actor Roger Coggio plays the Prince at a time when he is starting a long career in the movies and the theater. Ariane Murator (or Muratore) plays the Queen and the Witch. Jacques Provins, Yonal and Joé Noël share the parts of the dwarfs. Jany Sylvaire sings for Snow White and Aimé Doniat for the Prince. For the first time, a booklet with images and text comes with this record.

One of the drawings of this album will be used that same year to illustrate the cover of a record of songs from the film by singer Christiane Legrand, accompanied on some titles by Jean Cussac. These songs will be used many times on subsequent records  and will even appear in 1963 (without crediting the singers) on an American record "Snow White in French and English" which alternates American songs by Tutti Camarata and French versions by Christiane Legrand.

Still in 1955 (a prolific year for Blanche Neige given the fact that the film was not released in France then), the same drawing is used a s a cover of a book  "in 3 dimensions" (actually a pop-up book).

The French version of the film comes out in Russia with Russian subtitles in July 1955 in theaters and even on TV! Snow White will apparently be dubbed in Russian only much later for its DVD release. It is in fact a Russian 35mm copy of the first French dubbing that is now held in the French film archives of Bois D'Arcy.

In 1958, Paulette Rollin strikes again at Barclay records with a mini album of Snow White songs. This time, the album is solely of Snow White and despite the fact that the titles are similar to the previous record, the recordings are different and the orchestra here is conducted by Mario Bua. On the cover are the rubber figurines that were displayed in the original 1937 American trailer (with a few changes). In a rare occurence, that same year on February 14, in the show Au caprice du temps, singer Mathé Altéry, who had already performed the main title song in Peter Pan, sings Un jour mon Prince viendra on TV!

Meanwhile, the films comes out again in the US, and for the first time, it is not released by RKO anymore, as the company ceased most activities the previous year. For that reason, the main title is shot again with different credits: the emphasis on the fact that it is a feature film is toned down, the film now opens by a simple "Walt Disney presents" and the RKO credit is erased from the third frame. In order to achieve that, a new background, inspired by the original, has to be designed as, according to the studio, the first one has been misplaced. A new background is now available to adapt the main title of the film in an infinity of foreign versions. This is a perfect occasion to create whole new versions of Snow White throughout the world where it is scheduled to be re-released soon...

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As Snow White has been released in the USA in 1958 through Buena Vista, the studio prepares an international Christmas 1962 release. Since new American credits had to be created to erase the name RKO which use to distribute the film, new foreign titles are created for the same purpose.
But Snow White must remain the fairest one of all. And Walt Disney has never been very fond of the foreign versions of his first features. For some of them, some of the songs weren't even translated (Bambi, Dumbo) in France and in the case of Snow White, not only the chorus was international (and sung wordless songs), but the recording quality had never satisfied him. As a matter of fact, most of the critics of the initial release were about the French version, the quality of the translation and the accents of the actors in it.

The solution appears obvious: re-dub the film with a new translation. Louis Sauvat is entrusted with the adaptation. The recording is done at S. P. S., Société Parisienne de Sonorisation, 8 rue Leredde, Paris 13.

Lucie Dolène in 1956

For the part of Snow White, just like the first version, separate people are tested for the speaking and singing voice. Lucie Dolène, then 31, has done that before. Other than her radio appearances (with Pierre Cour), her experience on the stage with operettas ("Le chevalier du ciel" with Luis Mariano) and on TV where she is often invited in the show "36 chandelles" by Jean Nohain (with her husband who composed Edith Piaf's "Mon manège à moi": Jean Constantin), she was Debbie Reynolds' singing voice in the French version of Singin' In The Rain and she also dubbed Dany Robin's singing in the film Frou Frou. She actually regrets that her work was kept a secret even though she was promised screen credit.

But once chosen to sing Snow White's songs, she overhears executives saying they still need an actress. She then offers to test for dialogs and gets the part. She remains, to this day, the only French artist to sing and talk for the Princess, as both other versions use two different persons. She will sing several times in other Disney productions like The Jungle Book or Beauty And The Beast.

Jean Cussac

Likewise, the Prince's voice is 40 year old Jean Cussac's both in the singing and talking. He had already sung the part of the Prince on the 1955 record of Christiane Legrand, which is why everyone in the studio was surprised when he offered to sing in the dwarfs' chorus. He changed his voice accordingly and nobody in the audience realized the trick. He worked many times for Disney as a singer or as a musical director.

Claude Gensac en 1962

The 35 year old actress who voices the Queen had started her screen career almost 10 years earlier as Michel Simon's maid in the film The Virtuous Scoundrel [La vie d'un honnête homme] where her salacious boss imagines her topless, serving tea. Claude Gensac shared the screen with Louis de Funès who also played a servant. She became famous in France as the wife of the latter in many films, like the series of Troops movies, or Oscar, Jo, etc. She brings a very aristocratic interpretation, icier than previous actresses in the part of the Queen.

Marie Francey in 1961

Since her voice sounds too young for the second part of the film, 63 year old Marie Francey becomes the voice of the hag. She also was Peg's voice in the French version of Lady And The Tramp and is among the pioneers of dubbing. She was the voice of Bette Davis, Madeleine Carroll, Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson, Thelma Ritter, etc.

Richard Francoeur

Richard Francoeur (or Frankeur), a 68 year old actor then has dubbed many movies too: his chameleon voice enabled him to be the voice of many different actors: refined George Sanders, adventurer Clark Gable or seductive Gary Cooper. Here he becomes Prof (Doc). He also dubbed actor Billy Gilbert, Sneezy's American voice, in the 1942 film: Arabian Nights, as well as Moroni Olsen, the American voice of the magic mirror, in 1944 for Buffalo Bill. Better still, in the 1954 movie, The Far Country, he dubs the actor Eugene Borden, the very one who voiced... Doc in first French version of Snow White! He also voiced Uncle Edgar (Ed Wynn) in Mary Poppins.

Raymond Rognoni

Raymond Rognoni, 70 years old at the time of the dubbing, holds the part of Joyeux (Happy). It isn't his first Disney experience: he is Peter Lorre's voice in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (where Richard Francoeur dubs Paul Lukas), and King Hubert in Sleeping Beauty. Part of the Comédie Française and Chevalier of the légion d'honneur since 1932 for his actions in the favor of child actors for whom he opened a school in Paris where his bust still stands. At the comedy contest of the conservatory, Robert de Fleerswrote about him on July 10, 1922 that he was "a big ball of sincerity and happiness." Could there be a better Happy?

Jean Daurand

Atchoum (Sneezy) is probably among the most familiar faces for a 1962 audience. In fact, Jean Daurand, 49 at the time of Snow White, is invited almost monthly on their TV screen since 1958 in the part of inspector Dupuy in the famous police series The Last 5 Minutes ["Les 5 dernières minutes"], a part that he will let go only in 1973. This series had started live and you could catch a glimpse of the actors changing clothes and running to assume their positions between scenes. The last episodes was broadcast in 1996! That's how popular it was!

Léonce Corne

68 years old in 1962, Léonce Corne is a familiar face and a familiar voice on the small and the big screen. That same year, he plays with Jean Gabin in The Gentleman From Epsom [Le Gentleman d'Epsom], but his figure appears in many French classics like We Are All Murderers [Nous sommes tous des assassins] by André Cayatte, Daybreak [Le jour se lève] by Marcel Carné, Father Goriot [Le père Goriot] by Robert Vernay, The Woman Who Dared [Le ciel est à vous] de Jean Grémillon, ou The Mystery of The Yellow Room [Le mystère de la chambre jaune] by Henri Aisner. In the dubbing department, he is Groucho Marx's French voice and did many parts in films by Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, etc.

Georges Hubert, 56 years old in 1962, is about to record his most famous role: he will be Q's French voice in the James Bond series. He also dubbed many parts in famous productions: The Ten Commandments, The Wrong Man, Journey To The Center Of The Earth, etc. In animation, he will be among the cast of Tintin and the Lake of Sharks. He also works for Yves Allégret, Pierre Colombier, Jean Renoir, and many others.



Now that a new main title is created, French artists can be credited, which hadn't been done before, even for the American actors.

Some of them are not listed though:

André Valmy

André Valmy, Walter Matthau's French voice (The Odd Couple) as well as Robert Mitchum's, is 43 when he gets the part of the hunter. He also does secundary parts in films for Henri Decoin, Yves Allégret, Henri-Georges Clouzot, André Hunebelle, Raymond Bernard, Christian-Jaque... The list of dubs he did is impressive. From Sissi to Saturday Night Fever or even Jaws, it is unlikely that a French moviegoer has never heard him. In animation, he is part of the cast of The Rescuers Down Under where he is Percival McLeach, and French children born in the eighties remember his character of Vitalis in the Japanese TV Series Homeless Child Remi, from Hector Malot's novel.

Serge Nadaud

Serge Nadaud, 56 years old in 1962, has played under the direction of Claude Autant-Lara, Julien Duvivier, Jean Boyer, but his voice work remains more important: he also sometimes directs dubbing sessions. He plays the part of the magic mirror. He also worked several times for the Belgian animation studio Belvision and played the villain Rastapopoulos in Tintin and the Lake of Sharks [Tintin et le lac aux Requins].He also was the voice of M in the James Bond films and was Spencer Tracy's French voice, but that is only a sample of his immense work.


On the poster (see above) designed in the Jean Fourastié workshop, the film is called an "admirable masterpiece". Athos film is the name of the company that releases the film that year. The characters are stylized and the tag line mirrors the makeover that the film just got: "Snow White comes back younger than ever!"

Other posters will also be used like a horizontal format where the Prince carried the young girl away in his arms under the eyes of the dwarfs (see above). The design of a 1958 American poster where Snow White, surrounded with dwarfs is drawn more faithfully to her film design is also recycled on newspaper ads.

Lobby card

A set of 20 lobby cards is offered to theater owners.

The film comes out on September 19, 1962 in 5 theaters in Paris. Here are the numbers of tickets sold during the run:






The film then comes out for a second exclusivity on February 1st at the Cinémonde Opéra (370 seats) and at the Royale and sells 9,986 tickets during the first week. The Cinémonde Opéra then sells 5,645 more in the second week, then 5,105 in the third, etc. And a total of 359,865 tickets are sold in 10 weeks in Paris alone during the exclusivity. 12 more neighborhood theaters still show the film after that and on March 22, 1963, the distributor reveals that 509,458 tickets have been sold.

Storm in Paris

Once again, the release of Snow Whiteis greeted here by a lot of white snow! The temperatures are amazingly low and during the first week, people tend to stay at home. On the TV news of December 17, the storm that fell on Paris is illustrated by an image of one of the film's ad that fell on the pavement because of the extreme wind. But an article in Le Film Français says that in spite of these awful weather conditions, in terms of ticket sales, "it's never been seen before".
The film also comes out in 50 provincial towns! Here are some figures (not complete) :




From November 17, 1962, at the Childhood Salon, Snow White was already there with the dwarfs: the same dwarfs costumes are found with a new Snow White on the Champs Elysées on December 7, for the Christmas celebration of the US embassy, where our friends entice the dazzled children around them to visit their country.

Salon de l'enfance

To promote the film, a partnership is made with Europe N°1 radio station which airs 5 or 6 messages a day for a month to ask the audience to go to the Champs-Élysées where a big contest of children's drawings is organized to the profit of the "40 millions de lumières" organization (40 million lights) : 50 stores each exhibit one drawing and sell 100.000 lights with a Snow White ballot paper for the best drawing. Those who list the best drawings in the order eventually chosen by the jury will win, just like the young artists, a trip to Disneyland - Hollywood. The presence of Snow White is announced and she will present gift to the injured children of the hospital of Garches. This event is also announced with a trailer that runs in 200 theaters from November 15. Europe n°1 receives 30,000 drawings. On Monday December 24, a cocktail at Maxim's is organized to exhibit the best of them. Among the members of the jury, there is Maurice Chevalier, sportsman Michel Jazy, artist Jean Carzou, poster designer Raymond Savignac, illustrator Jean Bellus and journalist Louis Merlin.

A new ally, not available in 1951, will help tremendously in the promotion of the film: television.
In fact, since November 5, 1961, Pierre Tchernia has created the show "L'ami public n°1" (Public Friend #1) on what is then the only black and white French television network. That very first episode opens with an instrumental version of the silly song, and the magic mirror appears at the eight minute.

The soup sequence

On December 7, 1962, in the show "Cinq colonnes à la une", a television report announces that "Snow White comes back" and offers a priceless document: a glimpse of the actors recording the new French version of the sequence when Snow White meets the dwarfs, after which, Pierre Tchernia brings back a 4 minute scene of Snow White which isn't in the final cut: the soup sequence. Naturally the scene isn't finished and is in English, but Tchernia briefly explains the action over the soundtrack.




On December 23, 1962, Snow White makes the cover of Télé Magazine (TV Guide) which proudly announces 4 Snow White related shows this week!
This Snow White festival begins that day at 2.30 pm, with the Tousistitis (spelled "Twistitis" in the program), a group of singing kids who perform in "Télé Dimanche" ("Sunday TV") where you can also see and hear Caravelli and his magical violins accompanying Lucie Dolène singing Snow White songs.



An instrumental record by Caravelli has actually been released, without Lucie Dolène's singing. At the Wednesday page, an ad for this record gives a list of the tracks: Sifflez en travaillant, un sourire en chantant, Un jour mon Prince viendra and Heigh Ho.
Another record will follow with both Caravelli and Lucie Dolène this time, just like in the show. The cover uses the same drawing as on the poster.In it, she sings Je souhaite, un chant, Un jour mon Prince viendra and Un sourire en chantant. Despite the fact that she is ow the official voice of the character, she sings reorchestrated versions of the songs, with alternate lyrics, this is not the original soundtrack of the film, which has never been released in France.
You can also purchase the Touistitis record with Sifflez en travaillant and Heigh Ho (pronounce "ayo") on it.

At 12.30 pm on Thursday 27, La séquence du jeune spectateur (The sequence of the young spectator), a show by Claude Mionnet presented by a puppet, deals with two movies: The Girl And The Legend starring Romy Schneider and "a really special film, a wonderful fairy tale"Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. On the program is also an ad for Le Journal de Mickey (Mickey's newspaper) which publishes a comic adaptation in color.

On December 29, at 8.30 pm, Pierre Tchernia presents Snow White for 15 minutes.

Walt Disney & Pierre Tchernia

On December 31, 1962, L'ami public n°1 follows Pierre Tchernia in his trip to California where he was invited at the Disney studios and Disneyland. The report shows him with Clarence Nash Clarence Nash, animators and Walt Disney himself. We are treated to 6 minutes of Snow White discovering the cottage and singing Whistle While You Work.

That same day, at 8.45, Isabelle Aubret (which had won France's third victory at Eurovision singing contest this past March) sings, disguised as Snow White, "Un jour mon Prince viendra" in the show "La grande farandole".The show opens with the seven dwarfs who are none other that the hosts Roger Pierre & Jean-Marc Thibault (a famous French comic duo), with Maurice Biraud, Jean-Claude Pascal (winner of the 1961 Eurovision contest for Luxembourg), Jean-Pierre Cassel, Gilbert Bécaud and Pierre Tchernia !

Isabelle Aubret releases a record of Snow White songs conducted by Gilbert Le Roy.


I mentioned it before, on December 9, Le journal de Mickey the first episode of the comic adaptation of Snow White. It is rather graphically rather similar to the 1938 version, but the adaptation is different. For instance, the meeting with the Prince does not involve a bucket anymore but he still goes to jail, a concept meant for the film but eventually abandoned.

A new storybook record is also record that year: an adaptation od Jean Baitzouroff, it is Dany Robin who tells the story on this recording which will be reedited many times with various covers. Sylvine Delannoy (The Bride Wore Black) is the Princess, Claude Nollier (Moulin Rouge) plays the Queen and Gaëtan Jor plays Grincheux (Grumpy), Atchoum (Sneezy) and the magic mirror. The remaining parts are held by François Timmerman, Roland Roessler (or Roland Koessler) and Fred Descamp (or Fred Descamps). Christiane Legrand's songs, recorded in 1955 are mixed into the story. Funny detail: the animals on the first page are actually Bambi and Thumper.

These same songs are released in the US, alternating with Tutti Camarata's for the album Snow White in French and English.

In 1964, a new edition of the first recording of the story of Snow White surfaces again: after its initial 1938 release on two 78 rpm discs, then its 1955 reissue on a 45 rpm, now a 33 rpm offers the story as told by Adrien Lamy starring Elyane Célis on its flip side. On the A side of the disc is the story of Alice in Wonderland starring Marie-Claire Marty.

In 1967 comes yet again a new version of the story told by Claude Nicot with Anna Gaylor as Snow White and Monique Martial as the Queen. The story starts like the film "il y avait une fois...". The illustrations are the same as in the Hachette book of 1951 in the "albums roses" collection. At the end of the story, the same recordings of Heigh Ho and Sifflez en travaillant sung by Christiane Legrand are offered.

In 1968, it is Caroline Cler who narrates the French version of the story "Les sept nains et la mine de diamants" (The seven dwarfs and the diamond mine). She does all the roles. On one of the drawings, the dwarfs hold sheet music entitled "You're never too old to be young", a song originally conceived for the film but one that went unused. It the American version of the disc, the dwarfs do sing that song as well as Music in Your Soup, another deleted number.

The records are not the only things that make the magic of the film last through the years. Extracts regularly appear on TV, now with the new French version.The magic mirror hosts a show on January  2, 1964  called "À nous l'an 2000" (The year 2,000 is ours).

S.V.P. Disney

For Christmas that year, a new concept will last until 1989 ! S.V.P. Disney proposes young viewers to call the show and to choose from a list, the extract of the Disney film that they want to see. The host of the show, of course, is Pierre Tchernia.

Mary Poppins Premiere

Amateurs of Disney still are treated to the show L'ami public numéro 1 on a regular basis and in the October 3, 1965 show 4 minutes of the silly song are presented. In the same show, Snow White herself attends the premiere of Mary Poppins and meets Walt Disney himself there. The commentator reminds us that the last big world premiere happened in 1937 for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The day after the death of Walt Disney, a short version of the soup sequence is broadcast in the show "Panorama, le magazine de l'actualité télévisé" on December 16, 1966, this time with a presentation by Walt Disney, interviewed by Pierre Tchernia. Twenty seconds of the silly song and a homage follow.

On December 30, 1966, for S.V.P. Disney, one of the first film chosen is, as often, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs and 5 minutes and 40 seconds of the discovery of the cottage are shown. On December 24, 1967, we have 4 minutes of the silly song.

On December 10, 1967, L'ami public n°1 opens with a brief extract of the frog clock ringing. But the amateurs of the film will have more: an amazing 6 minutes and 20 seconds follow with the Queen ordering the hunter to kill the Princess, the flight through the woods and the song With A Smile And A Song.
On March 31, 1968, Pierre Tchernia offers 3 minutes of Snow White in L'ami public numéro 1 with an animal theme: its is the song Whistle While You Work where so many animals help the heroin.
On October 13, 1968 : Pierre Tchernia offers the soup sequence again. We then get 1 minute and 25 seconds of the song I'm Wishing.



On December 25, 1968, it's time for S.V.P. Disney again and the show opens with a shot of figurines of the dwarfs. Pierre Tchernia is not surprised that "each year, the number one requested film is Snow White". And he offers the scene in the mine, but he explains that, since the film is so in demand during the holidays, all available French copies in Paris are now in movie theaters so all that's left is an English copy. For once, the dwarfs will sing in English on French TV.
This little speech proves that the film, even without a national release since 1962, is still occasionally shown in some theaters, especially at Christmas.
On December 25, 1969, we get the Whistle While You Work sequence. Surprisingly, it is actually the first French version that is presented. A late appearance for such a rare track, now!
On December 25, 1970, it has become a habit of seeing an image of Snow White behind the show's title card. Once more, "an enormous majority" of ballots for Snow White are satisfied by 3 minutes of the silly song.
On December 25, 1971, Lucie Dolène is once again the French voice of Snow White on Whistle While you Work for 4 minutes.
On December 25, 1972, for the first time, in spite of of a three minute extract of With A Smile And A Song, Snow White is not the first requested film. Pierre Tchernia explains that by the arrival of many great new features like The Jungle Book, and also by the fact that "Snow White may be somewhat forgotten since its last release", but he has good news: we will get to see her again (or maybe discover her) for Christmas 1973, an important year for the Disney studios who celebrate their 50th anniversary.

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For their 50th anniversary, the Disney studios want to to celebrate in a big way.

In September 1973, "Si Disney m'était conté"[Once Upon A Time Disney] is released in France. It is a package of shorts like Hawaiian Holiday starring Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, followed by "Le monde magique de Walt Disney World" a documentary about the Florida resort which has opened two years before that and is twice larger than Manhattan. The film stays 15 weeks on the French screens with 149,215 tickets sold.

Then comes The World's Greatest Athlete in November, One Little Indian in February 1974 and an Easter re-release of The Song of the South. The press release even announces a new feature for Christmas 1974 : Robin Hood.

But for the time being, the crowned jewel of Christmas 1973 is "the first and still the greatest of the great feature cartoons", Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.

On December 14, 1973, it is announced that new arrangements regarding foreign distribution have been made: if MGM was previously responsible, it is now la 20th Century Fox International which will oversee the Disney releases in Germany, Denmark, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Central America, Taiwan, Greece and Eastern Africa. CIC will take care of Brazil, the Middle East, Italy and Austria. Wometca is getting Puerto Rico and Amalgamated Theatres gets New Zeland.
Naturally, Buena Vista International takes charge in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan and France, under the name "Walt Disney Productions", which offices are located at 52 avenue des Champs-Elysées, in the old RKO building.

The new poster, available for theater owners at 40x50 cm, 120x160 cm, as a two-piece vertical 160x240 cm, or an eight piece horizontal panel of 400x300 cm, announces "The cartoon masterpiece" and features the studio's 50th anniversary logo.

Lobby card

9 color lobby cards are also available, as well as press photos and of course, a trailer. As complement, the shorts Les contes de ma mère l'Oie [Mother Goose Melodies?] and Hiawatha le petit indien [Little Hiawatha] are part of the package.

But this time, the already solid publicity campaign is coupled with a wider promotional operation. For that purpose, Jean Tomachot, head manager of the production company gathers the C.E.O.s of several big companies and the heads of the U.G.C. theater chain which will release the film on about 100 screens in the country, at Club 13, a popular restaurant among film professionals, to prepare a 6 month marketing campaign on Snow White.

As early as October, Euromarché supermarkets publicize the film with a 4 million franc budget and organize a contest to win 400 trips to Disney World at easter. The also sell boxes of Banania chocolate drink that also offer a contest where "21,000 prizes" can be won: the game of magic mirrors, which first prizes are a trip "in the land of Walt Disney" and 10,000 francs. 800 messages on several radio stations will announce the contest: Europe n°1, RTL, Radio Monte Carlo, Radio Andorre and Sud Radio.

From October 1 to December 4, a tour in 40 provincial towns is organized with the characters in costume so that children can see their heroes in real life before press screenings or at special events.

At the salon de l'enfance (Childhood salon) which takes place at the CNIT from October 27 to November 11, a million visitors can see the shows in the giant theaters on the theme of Snow White. The Snow White trailer is shown on a giant screen during intermission.



In November, the laughing cow offers Snow White stickers in their boxes of cheese. The film's characters can be found on Nova yogurts. For 3 months, the packaging of Knorr's mashed potatoes comes with a cardboard set and characters. From November 15, all Coca-Cola trucks have a Snow White poster on the back. Henkel decorate their boxes of Super-croix washing powder with scenes of the film and offer a promotional record of the story of Snow White recorded by Micheline Presle in their boxes of Dato. 8,000 notions store "Laines du pingouin" sell patterns of the characters to knit.

150 companies who bought the Snow White license in various domains like clothes, school supplies, toys, etc. flood the market with Snow White.


Hachette plans 18 different books, from the popular edition to the deluxe version with 300,000 copies for the first press. Records are announced for the end of the year. Some are old books that are being reprinted and others are new adaptations.

Hachette comic book

France soir

The comic adaptation is redrawn, published as a book, and also in color in Le journal de Mickey weekly from December 1, and in black and white in France Soir.

Naturally, more records are made and Le petit ménestrel company publishes Dany Robin's recording again with a new cover. This time even audio cassettes are made. François Périer's version is also reissued. Yet, in spite of an avalanche of new releases, the French original soundtrack can only be heard in theaters as no records are cut yet. Marc Laferrière also releases a 45 rpm where he plays the tunes of the film in a New Orleans jazzy version. On publie également l'enregistrement américain de Tutti Camarata pour l'occasion.

The record that has the privilege of featuring the official Snow White poster that year is the LP (and single) of Henri Salvador. On it is a song especially composed for the release and appropriately title "Blanche Neige et les sept nains". Other than the song Heigh Ho, that isn't even found on the single, none of the other songs of the album has anything to do with Snow White. The song "J'ai envie de Lucie" (="I want Lucie" maybe a nod to Lucie Dolène?) is even relatively inappropriate for a child to hear.

So why such a privilege then? At the time, Henri Salvador has a weekly Sunday show on TV, Dimanche Salvador, in which he generously promotes his songs, often aimed at a young audience. He will naturally become a kind of Disney ambassador and he, along with Pierre Tchernia, is the one who will talk most of the Princess on TV that year. He had even sung Some Day Your Prince Will Come on December 16, 1972 on the show Top à Joe Dassin.

Sheet music of Henri Salvador's song

All dressed in white with a matching top hat, he sings his Snow White song to a playback, with characters in costume behind him (he confuses Sneezy and Bshful), on October 7 and November 25 1973, and on January 1, and May 21, 1974.

On October 21, 1973, still in Dimanche Salvador, in the same conditions, he sings Heigh Ho.

Pierre Tchernia

December 2, 1973 TV Guide

But Pierre Tchernia is still very much present and is show L'ami public numéro 1 of December 2, 1973 is dedicated to Snow White. First he offers a 3,30 minute extract of the escape through the woods. Then Tchernia tells of his 1962 visit to the French dubbing studio. Images of that are shown again as well as his interview of Walt Disney and the now famous soup sequence.

But this will not be his only show: he is now host to a quizz show called Le dernier des cinq (Last of the Five), in which contestants must guess a film title according to clues. On December 23, a clip of the dwarfs washing is shown.
And on December 25, it is time for the usual Christmas show: S.V.P. Disney, where by popular demand, the silly song is shown.

Pierre Tchernia

All this should not make you forget the film itself: from November, special showings of the film are organized for handicapped children, as in Nice during the carnival which theme this year is "In Wonderland".

In Paris, the release is announced for December 5, 1973 in sixteen theaters. In the first week, the Rex skyrockets as the first theater in the city in terms of ticket sales (31,024) and Snow White is the second film in that department right behind The Man From Acapulco starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. There are similar results in Lille where the top films are, The Man From Acapulco, Snow White, The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob and Sugar Cookies!
Yet everywhere else, Snow White takes the first place of the box office, often way before its contestants, which gives it first place nationwide. The film is released in 12 cities and 40 theaters during this exclusivity.

Front of the Telstar theater

At the time, competition is tough: in December 19, as Rabbi Jacob ands its ninth week with 1,093,564 tickets sold, Snow White already sold 220,261 in two weeks. The little Princess also hs to fight the most famous secret agent on the planet with the release of Live and Let Die which steals first place in Paris, although the Rex stays at the top of the list thanks to the Disney film.

Magic Convention Theater front

On January 14, one can rad in La cinématographie française that Snow White is the "absolute record breaker of Walt Disney re-releases". "In 4 weeks, Snow White has met Rabbi Jacob in the (very private) club of films that made over 10 million francs of gross (...). Christmas week saw an advantage for My Name Is Nobody, but the Disney film took the first place back for Newyears with 3,420,146 francs".

Here is a sample of figurs:

	12/5	Du 6/12 au 12/12	From 12/13 to 12/19	From 12/20 to 12/26	From 12/27 to 1/02	From 1/03 to 1/08	From  1/09 to 1/15	From 1/16 to 1/22	From 1/23 to 1/29	From 1/30 to 2/05
Total (tickets + gross)	16,293 (FF163,281)	111,426 (FF2,286,216)	92,542 (FF2,035,816)	139,463 (FF2,329,865)	182,266 (FF3,420,146)	38,939 (FF1,057,496)	36,691 (FF495,220)	(FF275,127)	(FF153,867)
Combined Total (Paris tickets/ Country's gross)		127,719 (FF2,449,497)	220,261 (FF4,485,313)	359,724 (FF6,815,178)	541,990 (FF10,235,324)	580,929 (FF11,292,820)	617,620 (FF11,788,040)	636,190 (FF12,063,167)	647,164 (FF12,217,034)	657,088

List of Paris theaters (and surrounding towns):

	From 12/06 to 12/12	From 12/13 to 12/19	From 12/20 to 12/26	From 12/27 to 1/02	From 1/03 to 1/08	From 1/09 to 1/15
Rex	31,024	24,407	63,934	70,652	12,639	12,004
L'Hermitage	7,512	5,874		9,058	2,367	2,505
Miramar	7,853	5,955		10,058	2,384	2,540
Mistral	6,216	5,130		10,942	2,686	2,446
Telstar	7,565	6,015		11,282	3,085	3,228
Magic-Convention	7,344	5,205		7,552	1,856	1,609
3 Murat	3,436	2,357		3,854	1,037	-
Terminal-Foch	2,097	1,749		3,308	626	857
UGC Odéon	253	6,355		3,562	1,119	1,042
Cyrano Versailles	6,662	5,386		12,511	2,218	2,145
Carrefour Pantin	6,181	5,147		7,449	1,970	1,845
Palais du Parc	8,013	7,512		11,174	2,586	-
Artel Villeneuve	5,446	4,392		7,478	1,536	-
Artel Nogent						1,579
Alpha Argenteuil						2,347
Les Flanades						1,969
Hollywood Enghien	5,225	3,534		5,988	1,189
Dame Blanche	3,797	2,518		3,353	595	575
Royal St Germain	2,802	2,006		4,045	1,046

And now for provincial towns:

	From 12/05 to 12/11	From 12/12 to 12/18	From 12/19 to 12/25	From 12/26 to 1/01	From 1/03 to 1/08	From 1/09 to 1/15	From 1/16 to 1/22	From 1/23 to 1/29
Marseille (Capitole, Odéon, Majestic, K7).	24,025	19,135	16,412	28,680	9,367	4,218	1,682	1,330
Bordeaux (Ariel, Mondial)	9,398	10,212	11,149	14,484	4,489	1,891	1,189
Rouen (Club, Ariel)	7,317	5,861	5,993	9,525	3,072	1,478	-
Strasbourg (Capitole, Rit's)	12,588	9,835	8,136	10,792	4,090	1,211	-
Nancy (Lumière)	8,074	8,011	7,928	11,305	2,969	1,515	-
Lille (Métropole)	9,471	8,253	10,288	17,361	3,969	1,991	-
Toulon (Royal)	7,273	6,830	7,212	10,211	3,803	2,311	-
Toulouse (Variétés)	10,924	10,641	12,181	15,944	5,458	1,243	-
Lyon (Cinéjournal, Ritz, Zola, Duo)	17,020	16,487	17,552	30,583	8,917	4,709	-
Nice (Forum, Paramount, Concorde)	12,065	9,336	8,598	13,494	4,336	1,980	-
Metz (Ariel)	6,664	5,514	4,223	7,505	2,976	-	-

It is eventually once more an enormous success for Snow White, especially in the week between Christmas and Newyears where grand-parents who had loved the film as kids, and who had taken their own children to see it, are now gladly waiting two hours in the cold for the chance to show Snow White to their grand-children.

In the spirit of the 1939 Menier albums, and the 1951 Eclair albums, Vanderhout internationale S.A. offers a sticker album with the poster of the film on the cover. Pierre Tchernia writes the introduction and, this time, the stickers are not new drawings, they are actual stills from the film! Issued in Belgium and France, it is clearly a French-speaking company's initiative: the still of Snow White in the bedroom has been taken from a French copy of the film: on it, the dwarfs' names are in French!







As usual, the memory of the film is kept alive through various books, records and TV Shows well after the film has left the screen. Extracts will be shown on June 15, 1975 (The silly song) in the show Système deux, On December 26, 1976 with Michel Drucker as host of a special Christmas edition of Les rendez-vous du dimanche where Henri Salvador sings "La chanson rose" (The pink song) where he evokes Disney characters. The day before, S.V.P. Disney offers us Whistle While You Work once again.

Henri Salvador

On November 24, 1977, for the release of The Rescuers, Belgian singer Annie Cordy, who recorded the storybook, tells us of the films she loves and Snow White is among them: a clip of the magic mirror is shown.

Dorothée et William Leymergie en 1979

On December 25, 1977, Pierre Tchernia is back on the small screen to show us an extract of With A Smile And A Song after having expressed his surprise overt the fact that Dumbo was chosen before Snow White that year.
For Christmas 1978, it is the bedroom sequence that is shown on S.V. P. Disney. The year after that it is now Dorothée and William Leymergie who host the famous show and who offerus an extract of the dwarfs at the mine. In fact since May, these two have created a new clip how: Disney Dimanche [Disney Sunday].
Still in December, it is Jacques Trémolin who hosts Les visiteurs de Noël[Christmas visitors] with other Disney movie extracts like Grumpy sticking his tongue out to Snow White.

Dorothée in 1980

Dorothée and William Leymergie come back to show the washing song in S.V.P. Disney for Christmas 1980.  These past two years, Leymergie notices each time that, unlike previous years, Snow Whiteis once again no longer chosen first by spectators who are supposed to vote for their favorite film.
In 1982, Dorothée announces the extract of Cinderella by describing the dwarfs "singing their famous song: Heigh Ho"! She later acknowledges her mistake and the clip is shown later in the show.

S.V.P. Disney in 1980

Since early September 1979, Snow White is not seen quite the same way in France: a theater play called Elle voit des nains partout [She sees dwarfs everywhere], written and played by Philippe Bruneau, tells of the crazy and lustful adventures of a nymphomaniac Snow White (played by Claire Nadeau) whose costumes are clearly inspired by Disney. Colorful dialog is spoken in rhymes.
The play meets with so much success that a film is released in 1982 with Zabou Breitman in the title role and future French stars like Martine Lamotte, Thierry Lhermitte, Coluche, etc. In it, the rhymes disappear and so does the success.


In the record department, Rosy Varte and Maurice Vamby record several educational records in 1974. Actress Rosy Varte, at the time mostly a theater actress, later became famous in France when she starred in one of the first French TV sitcom Maguy, the French version of Norman Lear's Maude starring Beatrice Arthur. Blanche Neige apprend l'heure aux sept nains [Snow White teaches the time to the seven dwarfs], Blanche Neige et les sept gourmands [Snow White and the seven gourmets] where you can cook while listening to the record and Prof apprend l'alphabet à ses copains les nains [Doc teaches alphabet to his pals the dwarfs]. The three 45 rpm will later be published in a single LP..



In 1977, 10 years after it was issued, Claude Nicot and Anna Gaylor's version of the tale is reissued with a different cover showing Snow White discovering the dwarfs at the foot of the bed. The content of the disc is the same.








In 1981, conductor Robert Quibel, who is often seen on French TV then, makes an arrangement of two songs of the film, heavily inspired by Christiane Legrand's interpretation : Un sourire en chantant and Un jour mon Prince viendra. This time, Marie Myriam is the singer. She is, to this day, the last singer to have won the Eurovision song contest in 1977 for France. She also sings the French theme song of the animated TV series The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.
Songs of the film are irregularly sung on TV by Nicole Rieu in 1979 (Un jour mon Prince viendra), Karen Cheryl and Carlos in 1980 (Sifflez en travaillant)

If no records offers the actual French soundtrack so far, there is now a rather easy way to buy an extract of Snow White: super 8 film. Film Office now issues extracts of Disney films on that format for home viewing. The first Snow White extract is the Dwarfs' dilemma.It can be in black and white and silent, color and silent or color with sound depending on how much you're willing to pay. Funnily enough, the sound version features the first French version.

Now fans can own a piece of the film, but it is now time to raise the ever young girl from her deep sleep so that a new generation can discover her.

I want to thank Christian and Remi for their help and giving me access to their collection.
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One clue proves the high esteem in which the Disney studios holds Snow White after so many years and so many new features films: the re-releases in France (and other countries) almost always coincide with a special event. Naturally, if the 50 years of the studio were celebrated in 1973, it is now their sixtieth anniversary in 1983.

To celebrate their "diamond year", Snow White comes to crown a year with many re-releases : on February 2, comes The Island On the Top Of the World with French actor Jacques Marin. On March 23, Pinocchio brings out his nose again, then on August 17, a collection of shorts is reissued under the title Donald Duck's Frantic Antic [La fabuleuse histoire de Donald].

If all these films meet with success, it is rather disappointing compared to the previous year: Pinocchio is the one that worked best with 270,531 tickets sold, which brings it right under the score of the new feature released December 15, 1982: Tron, far behind the 700,849 tickets sold for a French favorite: The Aristocats.

A new marketing plan, comparable to the previous release, is imagined with a contest about all Disney films of the year that will end by a hopefully successful release of Snow White. It is Richard Dassonville, distribution manager of Disney films in France, who appears briefly on French TV to explain the strategy.

Again, a new poster is created especially for France. Other than the expected difference in sizes (15x25, 45x65), a big 8 panel horizontal version with a slightly different layout is designed (760x160), as well as an insert version with a different drawing adapted to the format: Snow White is standing in front of the dwarfs who are lined up to admire her.

On these posters and on the lobby cards (2 sets of 9 cards each), a diamond year logo appears.

Lobby card

"Le film français" trade magazine whose archives prove the continuing success of the film, uses the film's poster as a cover for its November 25, 1983 issue. The following weeks will reveal figures just as fantastic as before thanks to the 190 copies for France alone where Snow White is re-released on November 30, 1983.

Week 1: third place with 145,844 tickets, behind Never Say Never Again released on the same day (278,389), and The ComDads [Les Compères], already in its second week with 186,004 admissions. Once again, Snow White is up against 007, but the fight is not equal: these two other  films, other than the added attraction of new productions, benefit from a network of 60 and 55 theaters respectively, when the film of our little 46 year old Princess is, so far, only in 29 theaters. Yet its potential is already obvious: just like ten years before, the Rex theater hits the top of the chart with 34,451 admissions thanks to Snow White. As a reminder, in 1973, 111,426 tickets had been sold in 16 theaters during the first week.
In the main 12 provincial towns (59 theaters), there are 132,861 admissions. The total gross for France is 6,084,142 French francs.

Snow White in Lyon

Week 2: on can read: "4 films with over 100,000 admissions represent 42% of tickets sold for the 92 movies showing this week. (...) Even though kids are not yet on vacation, Snow White's figures keep going up, which is rather rare, and leaves us optimistic for the rest of its career." In fact, with 150,126 admissions, Snow White gets the second place at the box office, still after Never Say Never Again, and the Rex keeps its leadership position with 35,023 tickets sold in one theater alone. That same week, however, Snow White hits first place in province with 152,723 admissions, which makes a total of 285,384 for two weeks in 15 cities): the film earned 7,017,761 francs that week, and with a total of 13,101,903 francs, it becomes he highest grossing film of the week.

Snow White in Marseille

Week 3: in Paris, the film is ow showing in 31 theaters and keep its second place, but this time it faces a newcomer: Wargames, coming out this week in 39 theaters. But not only sales keep gong up (145,467), but the Rex is still on top with 40,071 tickets! Elsewhere the success is stable with 138,549 tickets and a solid first place for the film. Total for the week: 6,224,712 francs, so 19,326,615 francs in 3 weeks.

Mickey's Christmas Carol plays before Snow White

For week 4, Richard Dassonville and Walt Disney ask theater managers to offer a Christmas present to the audience: on December 25, the 190 theaters showing Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs will charge their Monday fee  (-30%). Coupled with the fact that the film is now available in 34 Paris theaters and the obvious Christmas boost, Snow White's success keeps growing: after getting first place for provincial France, it also gets first place in Paris in front of So Long, Stooge [Tchao Pantin] and Jaws 3-D [Les dents de la mer 3] both coming out this week with probably less Christmas appeal. These are the best results for Snow White since week 1.

Week 5: 1st place again with 7,386,676 francs!
Week 6: 4th place with 1,885,780 francs (57 theaters in 12 cities).

According to a report published years after that by Le film français, copies remained in circulation for 62 weeks and a total of 929,172 tickets were sold!!!

Here is some data I gathered from the first four weeks in Paris and surrounding towns:

	From 11/30 to 12/6 (1st)	From 12/7 to 12/13 (2nd)	From 12/14 to 12/20 (3rd)	From 12/21 to 12/27 (4th)
UGC Ermitage	4 408	3 832	3 101	3 893
UGC Odéon	3 667	2 953	2 491	2 571
Rex	34 451	35 023	40 071	40 525
UGC Convention	4 212	4 310	4 284	3 732
UGC Montparnasse	5 223	5 368	4 189	4 310
Mistral	4 547	4 324	3 330	4 189
La Royale	3 049	3 123	2 849	2 994
Napoléon	3 508	3 369	3 015	3 222
UGC Gobelins	5 363	4 977	4 858	4 213
3 Murat	2 233	2 159	2 046	2 277
Clichy Pathé				4 825
TOTAL PARIS	70 661	69 438	70 234	76 751
Cyrano Versailles	5 518	6 130	5 240	6 094
Vélizy	4 404	5 484	4 407	5 015
Ariel Rueil				2 632
Ulis Orsay	3 479	3 779	2 773	3 078
4 Temps	3 712	3 643	3 129	2 605
C2L St Germain	2 256	2 470	2 611	3 434
Artel Nogent	2 623	2 777	2 215	2 400
Méliès Montreuil				1 962
Artel Créteil	7 339	7 465	6 539	6 797
Artel Rosny	6 667	7 774	7 726	7 595
Artel Marne	4 992	4 826	4 487	3 940
Gamma Argenteuil	3 841	3 845	4 061	3 410
Français Enghien	3 838	4 478	4 462	4 888
Club Colombes	2 716	2 559		2 003
Carrefour Pantin	4 180	4 371		2 739
Paramount La Varenne	2 407	2 011		1 751
Buxy	2 957	3 390		2 020
Ciné Robespierre Vitry	3 792	3 207		2 371
Parinor	3 885	4 586		3 965
Gaumont Evry	3 374	4 563		4 079
Belle Epine Pathé				4 412
Pathé Champigny				2 767
Flanades	3 200	3 330		2 876
TOTAL SUBURBS	75 180	80 688		82 833

 You may remember that an extract of the film had come out on super 8 film for home viewing. Thanks to its success, a second extract was released: Whistle while you work with, unlike the first one, the second dubbing.

But this decade is a small revolution in the disc department: if the anglo saxon world has had a soundtrack record since the original release (actually the first soundtrack ever!), and if there are countless versions of the songs re-orchestrated and sung by a myriad of French singers, the French version has never been available on any format. In 1983, Adès records change that and release a disc and a tape version of the second French version of the film.
This release is quite unique in that, until then and even after that, the very rare extracts of Disney films that were available on any format were always accompanied by a voice over narration, and sometimes by re-recorded dialog. This time, the final mix of the film is offered as it is heard in theaters, the only drawback being that some scenes are shortened so that the entire recording could fit unto a 33 rpm record.

33 rpm of the condensed second French version

This is quite an homage to one of the greatest quality of that film: the clarity of its script and the simplicity of the story. No need for a narrator or any visual support to understand the meaning and appreciate the magic: the soundtrack alone, even incomplete, is enough to follow the story.

Tape version of the soundtrack

Yet old recording like François Périer's version of the story are being reissued. But new recordings are made for each release, and this time there are two of them! The LP with the film's poster on the cover was recorded by actor Bernard Giraudeau. This time, the actual music and songs from the film are used. However, dialogs are re-recorded by Isabelle Ganz, Louison Roblin, Gaëtan Jor, Roland Koessler, Raymond Loyer and Gérard Surugue. You may have noticed that two of them had already been part of the Dany Robin record, twenty years earlier.
Surprisingly, this version of the story is in fact no so new: these two actors aside, dialogs were also reused from the previous record although they were all re-recorded.
In the 45 rpm version, Marie-Christine Barrault does the narration and the music from the film is also used, but the dialogs, for which the actors are not credited are simply those of the Dany Robin record lifted right out of it with an occasional snippet of the actual soundtrack. Naturally, some of Christiane Legrand's songs which were mixed in Dany Robin's recording, are also used here. To recap it all, this disc mixes recordings from 1937 (the music), 1955 (Christiane Legrand), 1962 (dialogs of the second dubbing and Dany Robin's record), and 1983 (narration)!

The records by Rosy Varte and Maurice Vamby are also reissued with new covers.

Since the OST is now available, a single comes out with extracts from the original French soundtrack: The 7 dwarfs sing. On it is the Silly Song, and on the flip side is : Heigh-Ho and Dig Dig Dig (in reverse order).

As for every previous release, a company produces an album with pictures to collect, only this time, a specialist does it: the Italian publisher Panini. This company benefited from the invention of the sticker in the 1970s and developed the concept of their collections, mainly in the field of soccer, then in different domains depending on what licensed was acquired, and throughout the world thanks to a  network of subsidiaries who issue each album cheaply with the stickers sold in international packaging with the titles translated in several languages. Since 1977 when The Rescuers Panini album comes out in France, the publisher makes it a habit to issue an album adaptation of the Disney film in theaters at the time.

Pochettes de stickers multilingues

So in 1983, an album entitled Blanche Neige et les septs nains is available in newspaper stands. The 360 stickers are stills of the movie. It is a lucrative operation for Panini: the closer he gets to completing his album, the more stickers the collector has to buy as chances of getting duplicates increase. To finish the album almost always implies exchanging stickers with other collectors or requesting the missing ones from the home company by mail at a higher price (25 cents per sticker plus FF3.40 of shipping charges in a limit of 40 stickers). The original cost (that of the album) is only 2 francs, but each bag of 6 stickers retails at 1 franc.



As for books, edi-monde publishes the usual comic adaptation. Once again, the magazine Le journal de Mickey also includes a weekly section of the adaptation.
Marie Tenaille writes her version of the story for a large GDL book illustrated with big stills from the film. The second part of the book is composed of games for children (see below).
Fernand Nathan edition issues, through the France Loisirs store network, an adaptation of Cécile Lameunière with soft pastel color drawings which will be re-adapted in 1985 with a slightly different cover.


Other books are also reissued: the bibliothèque rose collection comes out regularly with a new cover every time: in 1982, in 1986, in 1989...

Snow White is ever present on television at the time and appears on the cover of the January 10, 1984 issue of TV guide "Télé star", which also contains an article about the release.
This time, the third network, FR3, benefits from regional offices who have an alloted time every evening to broadcast regional news or other shows and almost all of them announce the release of the film in their main city: on November 23, FR3 Rhône Alpes shows images of the preview organized in Lyon for young orphans.
In Marseille, On November 26, the same kind of event is organized with, every time, the presence of Snow White and the dwarfs themselves!

Poster of the Toulouse Disney posters exhibit

At the museum of postcards on November 30, 1983 on FR3 Toulouse, in the show La vie à plein temps, the release of Snow White is announced accompanied by an extract of the film as well as the short Mickey's Christmas Carol. This new Mickey Mouse film is indeed part of the Snow White program and is shown right before intermission. Best of all, a special exhibit celebrating the studio's 60th anniversary is taking place: the museum gathered a collection of 50 original Walt Disney posters and postcards and will show them for the next 3 months. In the December 23, episode of that show, host Danielle Magne invites the curator and children among which turbulent little Julien announces that his favorite character is Snow White.

On December 13, we find the characters in Normandy surrounding the journalist who announces the program of the evening: a film about drugs! Our friends come back after the news for a little dance.
In all these shows, the extracts are always the songs Heigh Ho and Whistle While You Work, where the same video title announces that this is a Walt Disney production.
On December 22, in the show Midi 2, this time on national TV, we attend a screening of the films with kids who are lucky enough to meet the characters afterward.

On March 10, 1985, during the show Au nom de l'amour Georges Moneron, second husband and widower of singer Lucienne Dugard calls host Pierre Bellemare and makes a moving request: he has almost no recordings of his beloved wife's voice and would be quite grateful if someone could make him a tape with some of her songs. Pierre plays the song "Some Day My Prince Will Come" for him on the set, a song for which his wife won the "grand prix du disque" award in 1938 and assures that he will send a tape and a batch of records to him.

The shows dedicated to Disney allow young viewers to see extracts of Disney classics at a time when video was still in its infancy. Among them, Disney Dimanche has been airing on Antenne 2 (the second network) since 1979 and Dorothée hosts and sing the title song. Disguised differently depending on which cartoon she introduces, she often has an occasion of presenting Snow White extracts: in the costume of the Princess on December 12, 1982, in the middle of bubbles, sitting on a giant piece of soap, she introduces the washing song. On April 3, 1983, with a beautiful white beard, she rides Sleepy's chariot through the Dwarfs' mine before they take over and sing.
On October 16, 1983, as the release of the film draws near, she comes dresses as a dwarf in front of the cottage to introduce the sequence of the departure of the dwarfs and a clip of Mickey's Christmas Carol is also shown. At the end of that same episode, we see Snow White making her pie.

On November 20, 1983, the show opens with Snow White meeting the dwarfs and ends with a montage of songs from the film.
On October 16, 1984, Dorothée is once again dressed as Snow White and follows the witch about to bring her apple to the Princess.
On November 11, 1985, hidden in a tree trunk, disguised as a dwarf again, Dorothée introduces the scene of Snow White escaping through the woods.

On March 29, 1987, she dances around the Queen's courtyard dressed as a buffoon. The next extract is of the magic mirror and the song "I'm wishing". On June 28, 1987, Marie Dauphin has replaced Dorothée as host of the show, and introduces the pie sequence again.

Marie Dauphin in 1987

Dorothée at the dwarfs' cottage in 1986

As usual, SVP Disney is the Christmas show hosted by Dorothée and William Leymergie. On December 25, 1983, Snow White is the star of the show. We learn that 400 millions people have seen the film and that it had to be translated into 13 languages: in that episode is an extract of Whistle While You Work in German (first dubbing), in Finnish, Greek and Arabic. On December 25, 1984, the dwarfs reluctantly show their dirty hands to Snow White. In 1985, she discovers the cottage. In 1986, singer Carlos replaces William Leymergie at Dorothée's side and the extract is the dwarfs sleeping. In 1987, it is Marie Dauphin and Alain Chauffour who host the show for the last episode. They offer the washing song. That year the film is briefly re-released.

Marie Dauphin at Christmas 1987

On July 17, 1987, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (the film premiered in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937), a special world release is organized. Since the last release dates back only 4 years in many countries, it is a symbolic limited release that takes place in France. It still represents 4000 theaters in the world according to the publicity material of the time, "even in the U.S.S.R. and China".

The famous Rex theater is faithful to the film that day and organizes a special showing of the film, announced on the news of the major networks TF1, FR3 and in newspapers. In the TV Guide "Ciné télé revue", we get a two page article (illustrated by the 1973 poster) as well as a promotional poster. However, in 1987, Sleeping Beauty was already released nationwide in France and 1983 was not so long ago, so apart from limited showings, Snow White made little competition that year as there was no official release.

Ciné télé revue issue of July 16, 1987

And yet, according to the Seattle Times, thanks to the fact that it was international, this release was the most profitable ever of the film. The studio offered Snow White a face-lift for her 50 years old so she would remain the fairest one of all. A restoration of the film was undertaken which the spectators could hear: the sound was remixed in Dolby Stereo.

But the project makes some people cringe: in order to adapt to the modern formats of projection (wider than the square of the original 35mm format), the film is restored and projected with a part of the image missing (at the top and bottom). The new French main title from 1962 was created according to that fact with a "margin" around the titles so they would not be hidden by the matte.
In a film where the heroin spends most of her time with characters half her size, it is a shame to erase 20 to 30% of the frame.
A the video market develops among the general public, the techniques available for professionals offer more and more incredible restoration possibilities. As so many other parents, the Walt Disney studios expect their precious little Princess to get what's best for her.

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An interesting article published in the December 1925 issue of Picturegoer aims at describing what a script supervisor was to the general public. The chosen subject is allegedly the "only one" girl in England that does it.
To a modern reader, it is incredible timing that this tiny person, which the article hints earns a decent living doing what she does, is interviewed at this specific time.

Alma Reville is not a "director" at the time, as the legend of the picture suggests, but she did work with all the directors mentioned and, more importantly, she worked on the successful Woman to Woman, on The Passionate Adventure and The Blackguard (read more about these films in this book). On these three films, she collaborated with a young ever more influent assistant director named Alfred Hitchcock. The episode related at the end of the article is non other that Hitchcock's first completed feature, The Pleasure Garden.

The director himself will tell the story of Alma meeting his star Virginia Valli at Cherbourg (read about it in this book).
Of course, the end of the article is especially funny: "she has never had time to get married". We all know that changed soon after that and the two lived happily ever after.
Today would have been Alma's 116th birthday.

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The circus has always been closely related with film. After all, weren't films first shown as a kind of circus attraction? It is only natural that, once it had earned its own respectability, it would go back to the source and pay homage to this world of sawdust.

Many circus men and women also turned to the small or silver screen at some time or another. In France, circus owner Jean Richard became one of the most famous Maigret on TV.
But way before TV even existed, even before the famous Charles Chaplin tackled the subject, one of the most famous circus families appeared on film.

A poster for the brother's circus act in Paris

You may remember that François Fratellini played a part early in 1923 in Sarah Bernhardt's last film: The Fortune Teller. Unfortunately, the famous actress died during the making of the film and by the time it was decided to resume shooting with a double, François' part as the clown of the story had to be recast with Jean-François Martial whose character had become a painter as a consequence.


However, François' fame was used in another film in which, not only he got to star, but more importantly, he appeared with both his brothers Paul and Albert with whom he successfully appeared at the Cirque d'hiver in Paris at the time.

Ironically, although the film was shot almost one year after the first, it was released on the very same day as The Fortune Teller, on October 31, 1924. That movie was appropriately titled Rêves de Clowns (Dreams of Clowns).

Maybe I have not read enough about it, but it seems that the film experience of the Fratellini brothers has somewhat escaped the interest of their biographers.

Albert, François & Paul

However, newspapers of the time were more interested: Jean Eyre explains the plot in Mon Ciné on November 13, 1924.
The famous brothers entertain a wild audience at the circus, but a single lady seated at the front remains sad and fails to laugh. The men question their popularity and fear that have lost their talent.
As they rest backstage, they have a dream: they perform the wildest tricks, the funniest acts, but that same woman is always there and keeps a serious face.
As someone wakes them up to go back on stage, they still try to entertain the girl when a famous aviator, back from a dangerous mission appears to the acclaim of the audience and the relief of the young girl who was only anxious for him all along.
The brothers, reassured that they were not the cause of her seriousness and proud that they have a hero among the public, gladly go on wit their act.

On set, from left to right: Madame Vigier, René Hervoin and camera operators Georges Asselin & André Raymond

Albert Fratellini gives the best summary, almost 30 years later: "Dreams of clowns is the story of Dolores Braga that goes to the circus, but doesn't get pleasure out of it.
She leaves her seat as the Fratellinis are still on stage and this incident strikes our imagination so much so that, in our dressing room, it becomes the subject of conversation that goes on in an unreal world.
Transported in the kingdom of dreams, we meet Dolores Braga there that proposes, to make her laugh - oh irony - to improvise a love declaration. Succcessively, the Fratellinis all try their luck. But the woman remains unmoved, in spite of the wildest jokes. Desperate , not knowing what to do, we start to cry and big tears start falling down our cheeks, making lines in our makeup.
Facing these grotesque masks, she eventually makes a feeble smile. But who caused it? We cannot agree on that, and our argument soon turns to a fight.
Suddenly the dream stops. Time for the show. To our surprise, Dolores Braga is back on her seat. A rumor spreads through the crowd. A man jumps through the seats and falls in the arm of the young girl.  
'Long live Maraval! Long live Maraval!' they yell.
He is a famous aviator who has just won the  Paris-Dakar-Aden-Paris raid, breaking all previous records.
He arrived 24 hours early on the schedule and rushed to Dolores whom he had promised to marry should he succeed.
The three clowns thus understand the attitude of the young woman who, anxious about the fate of her friend, could not share the joy of the spectators.
The film ends as Georges Maraval takes out three dolls out of his pockets, that look like the Fratellinis."

As early as July 19, 1924, Albert Bonneau publishes an article about the shoot in Cinémagazine. It takes place at the cirque d'hiver, an 18th century building in Paris that hosts a circus. At the time, the film is still called Rêve de Clowns (Dream of Clowns).

François confirms his busy schedule, presumably the very one that prevented him from completing the previous picture. After this one, they are supposed to tour the south of France and present the film there in the summer and when they return in Paris on August 29, they are due back at the cirque d'hiver. The following photography, taken on the set, is reproduced in the article. It shows, from left to right: François Fratellini, director Madame Vigier de Maisonneuve, unit manager Jacques Calamy, production secretary Miss Beermann, director René Hervouin, actress Yane Odoni, Paul Fratellini, Miss Marguett, camera operator André Raymond, Albert Fratellini & ditributor Félix Méric.

Cast and crew

His experience with "modern" movie-making is rather new and they brothers still have a hard time adjusting to the bright lights on the set. However, Sarah Bernhardt aside, they already filmed a few short subjects before WWI with Ferdinand Zecca and René Leprince among others. Albert Fratellini does write a few chapters about the films he remembers in his 1955 autobiography "We, Fratellinis". He mentions their collaboration with Max Linder, and three shorts, two of which are currently not listed on the Imdb: L'auvergnat dans son bain about a man who cannot find the right temperature of his bath and ends up flooding his neighbors' apartment, La prise de Port-Arthur and Motorcar and Cripple (October 28, 1906). The Pathé catalog adds Acrobatic Elephant (November 1905).

On September 19, 1924, Cinémagazine publishes another article about the film by Jean de Mirbel with little more information, except that the clowns' dressing room has been recreated in a studio.

The brother's dressing room recreated in the studio

On October 1, 1924, in Cinéa Ciné pour Tous, Norbert Lecourt blames the direction for the failure of the film. To him, the magic of the circus has not been faithfully reproduced.

Jean Chataigner writes a severe critic in Le journal on November 21, 1924: "a blunderer (who would deserve to be named as a punishment) made poor use of the Fratellini brothers' talent. Thankfully, they will come out unharmed of this bad and deplorable adventure."

However this "failure" was successful enough with the audience that copies were still shown years after that. There is evidence of a showing on February 27, 1926 in Cancale.

As late as 1927, on September 19, the film still plays in Arcachon.

On the CNC website, Dreams of Clowns appears as one of the restored films. According to that website, there are color sequences in the film (probably tints). In any case, this film still remains unavailable on video.

Albert, in his autobiography, has no illusion about the quality of the story but does write that it is the only film that is actually about them at the top of their game and he hopes that "perhaps it will be shown again when the three Fratellinis are only characters of legend"

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From it, we learn many things about how the movie and how it was shown : it ran every week day from 11.30 am until 9.30 pm and at 6 and 8.30 pm on Sundays.

The presentation of the feature was preceded by two educational shorts Fruits in Jamaica and Kings in Exile which surrounded the British Movietone news.
To Snow White enthusiasts, the real treasures are in the details revealed by the ads contained in the program. After the show, kids could go to Hamleys, also in Regent street, to buy a Snow White doll with her seven little friends which all came in several sizes.
Arthur Sanderson & sons Ltd. also produced wallpaper, nursery friezes, wrapping paper, etc. all featuring the characters of the film.


Last but not least, the valuable information contained on the back cover reveals that the famous original 3 record soundtrack of the film hit the shelves March 11, 1938, to coincide with the film's general release in the country the next day.
Some scenes were indeed later cut in countries like Sweden for instance, and to this day, scenes with the hag or in the forest still continue to impress youngsters. However the board's decision here only meant that children under 16 were to be accompanied by an adult and according to JB Kaufman's research, the decision was overruled by individual British counties anyway.
Articles about the film had started to appear in the British press months before the event and this one in Picturegoer even announces Bambi as the next feature as early as December 25, 1937.

The editor of the magazine even writes an open letter to Disney to explain the censorship board's initial decision the very day of the premiere.



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On April 14, 1924, Cinémagazine dedicates its cover and several pages to an artist that director Robert Saidreau "has just discovered" and that "has only been in British films so far": Edmée Dormeuil.
We learn that "she owns a theater in London", and that she "has made many pictures in England", and most importantly, that she is finishing her first French film at the Boulogne studios: The Strange Adventure.

She gives a little background, as mysterious new stars can do: from of military family, she was born in France, then studied in England to be a lawyer and likes shooting, horse and car riding, and has her own menagerie of monkeys, cats, dogs, turtles, etc. right at home. The 1924 reader understands that, in order to own a theater and to practice such expensive sports, Edmée Dormeuil's activities are necessarily lucrative and that they are in the presence of a bona fide star. As a matter of fact, she is nicknamed "the best dressed woman in London". Her hits? The Better 'Ole of Bruce Bairnsfather, "French plays" and "and a series of English films, which unfortunately never made it to France."

Such a shame!

In spite of the assurance of the journalist J.-A. De Munto that she is "quite pretty", he still establishes that she has a "funny face", unsuited to playing the femmes fatales that she wishes she could: she has "neither the look, nor the hair, or even the eyes..."
Thus Robert Saidreau has concocted a part in a comedy, which is what he is known for. She already expects to make another film with him, only this time she intends to cowrite the script, as she had done for her last film in England. In fact, after a careful read of the article, she appears to be a real one-woman-show: she co-writes her films, makes her own costumes, owns a theater... and the journalist ends up wishing that France "will treat her like a spoiled child" to which she very much seems accustomed. The pictures show her in various stages of undress, in her "London creations".

Alas, one would have a hard time finding much more information about this super star on both sides of the Channel. And if that and other magazines keep mentioning the film after it is done shooting, a curious silence falls upon it in movie newspapers which never announce its release.

The ball

Yet, on April 18, Cinémagazine brings us directly in the studio.
The cast (given in another article by Mon Ciné) follows:
Edmée Dormeuil: Suzanne
André Brunot: Le beau frisé ("Curly")
Pierre Etchepart: Paul de la Mainmise
Jean Magnard: André
Suzy Pierson, Georgette Lhéry, Andrée Warneck, Yvonne Favet, Solange Marchal, etc.It is Robert Gys who designs the production and the cinematographer is Amédée Morin. Exteriors are shot in Nice, interiors in Boulogne.

The ball

The set is of a ball from a bad neighborhood where apaches rule. Robert Saidreau teaches java to his mascot, and an old lady nicknamed Mirabelle (after a liquor) who gets a part in all of his films and strangely takes half the article. The last paragraph hastily mentions the star and we must wait until July 31, 1924, to find another article in Mon ciné magazine about the film which was slightly renamed for the occasion as A strange adventure. The journalist, not really focused indeed, talks about "Edmée Darfeuil". The director is apparently so busy that he rushes his explanation of the plot and the cast around him exchanges winks behind his back. They played a trick on him: they changed the time on his watch so they could leave early "to be in time for the theater". Since the work day is supposed to end up at 6, there is little chance that they would actually miss the curtain (for those who actually were on the stage), it sounds more like a chance to get out of a boring set.

André Brunot, a thief welcomed by Edmée

Strangely, the movie is a comedy: Suzanne, on the eve of her honeymoon,scandalizes her guest by kissing a man in a restaurant whom she recognizes as a wounded man that she had nursed in the past. Since the trip is not very well organized, the chosen hotel is fully booked and only when Suzanne makes a scandal are they given a room. Her husband thinks her wife is unladylike and wants to play a trick on her where he would appear as the hero and a friend would play a thief. Suzanne and her maid overhear the plot and the latter, accustomed to seedy places, will help ruin the plan. But a real apache replaces the fake one...

Edmée Dormeuil points a gun at André Brunot

If the director/script writer is so uneasy, it is because his story is not exactly completely new. As a matter of fact, it is a thinly disguised remake of one of his own films, Beware of you maid, released in 1920 and that still played in the colonies as late as 1922 at least. This problem catches the eyes of the distributors, Les films Legrand, who, once the film is in the can, refuse to release it. Another strong motive for them to act that way is that the star is appallingly bad in it. The strange adventure will never be seen on the screen.

Theodore Owen

Now why would you shoot a film without the prior consent of the distributor? Why take a chance on an unknown 28 year old ingenue? That is where lies the key to this mystery. It so happens that Edmée Dormeuil is not just anybody.
Born Edmée Georgette Juliette Claudine Nodot in Le Havre, France on April 6, 1896 from a town official and a nursery school director mother. She gets a study certificate at 16 and goes to England to learn the language. For a living, she gives lessons of literature. She meets Theodore Charles Owen, a rich trader of tea and rubber, aged 60, with two children. He marries her in Kensington on February 8, 1915 and so the marriage cannot be annulled, Edmée adds four year to her age.

The modest little girl from Le Havre is now incredibly rich, and she is allegedly presented to the King. Though she firmly intends not to waste her youth. In March 1917, at the Sloane Square, she playes Miquette et sa mère with Fernande Depernay, Georgette Meyrald, Emile Rouvière, André Randall, Fernand Léane, Lucien Mussière, Saint Vallon and Jean Maréchal.

At the Oxford theater, from August 4, 1917, she plays the part of Victoire in The Better 'Ole, a musical comedy based on a comics character. The plays lasts until November 23, 1918 but Edmée is replaced halfway by Peggy Foster. She then plays French classics at the Théâtre des alliés of J. T. Grein, as announced in The Tatler issue of February 6, 1918. Ads announced that she acts at the Duke of York theater but, again, no titles are given. She is in 1919 film: The odds against her, probably financed by her own money since she has the main part. On November 12, that same year, she appears at the Victory Ball costumed as grape.

 She also is repeatedly unfaithful to her husband. He files for divorce in 1920 and the co-respondent is Samuel Inglety Oddie. The procedure was most likely annulled but Theodore makes his wife sign a promise that she will give a third of his Ceylon property, Marakona Estate, to each of his children, Ruth et Reginald Owen,when he dies. In exchange, it seems that he gives his wife her freedom and avoids a scandal.

Mrs. Owen keeps fooling around with a coroner, and then an Argentinian named Gregorini and she goes to France to live with him at 11 rue Lesueur in Paris. She decides to become a movie star in her native country the only way she knows how: she gives FF70,000 to an impresario, M. Dante, to get her a starring part in a film. The script, sometimes referred to as The double misunderstanding, is a model of vaudeville comedy hastily assembled to satisfy Edmée's whim by Robert Saidreau from an already made film, which he naively hoped no one would notice. The script is shot under the title The strange adventure. Once confronted with the refusal of the distributors to release the film, Edmée demands her money back which she obtains in November 1928 from a court that awards her an extra FF 5,000. One month after that, she appears once again in the papers because she loses a valuable necklace, 1.5 million francs worth. An honest seamstress, Mme Rejeade, finds it at La Madeleine church and brings it back to her, therefore earning the £560 reward from the insurance company. Edmée wastes millions and her money is melting.

Edmée and her found necklace

In the meantime, major events happened: on December 5, 1925, Robert Saidreau, who has made other films since, dies. It probably did not make it easier to clarify the case. Edmée becomes Lady Owen when her husband is knighted January 19, 1926 after the colonial exposition of 1925 where his work was much praised.

On March 22, 1926, Lord Owen dies. Not only Edmée is officially free of her actions, but her husband leaves her a $35,000 allowance and all of his fortune, i.e. "several millions". She conveniently forgets to share the fortune as arranged.

M. Dante appeals, arguing that he did get her a part. In 1932, the verdict is confirmed, but Edmée's status has very much changed, and she cannot attend the trial in person.

The star of a bad script

In fact, Gregorini leaves to Argentina in January 1930. Edmée probably feels lonely and in the hope of turning back the clock, she consults a beautician on July 22, 1929: doctor Gastaud is specialized in weight loss and it is exactly what she needs. She seduces him and covers him in presents: a FF14,000 radio, a necktie pin with a FF44,000 pearl, a clock... Edmée buys his love, as she does the rest. She also pays for romantic escapades in Cannes, Deauville, and London... and eventually loans FF100,000 to her lover. Officially, the sum must help him enter politics. It is actually an excuse to justify his absence and the man uses it to improve his office.

The romance turns into a nightmare for the doctor when Lady Owen pretends to be pregnant. Of course, the doctor is a married man and in order to ease her into a break up, he gives her back the money. When he finally breaks up with her on July 23, 1930, Edmée buys a gun, takes several drinks to work up a courage and goes to Marly at the doctor's home and she shoots his wife, Léonie Gataud, 4 times. She then waits for the police to come get her. Mme Gataud survives but Edmée still goes on trial which instruction lasts from July 1930 until February 1931.

Edmée poses for the camera

On February 24, 1931, Georges Claretie writes, for the Figaro, an account of the entrance of Edmée at the trial and its disastrous effect for her image: the "Lady" looks like "a common girl" who smiled at the audience and bowed like an actress, while showing off her belly as if to pretend that she was pregnant. Her peroxide hair shocks him, as her outrageous makeup which does not improve as the hours pass. He sums up his impression: "a tramp." He then describes her apparent joy when the 14 photographers shoot her under every angle and she does indeed look like she is showing off on the pictures. Smiling for the camera, she poses with her chin resting on her hand. This is unmistakeably the big part she wanted. Le petit parisien even reveals that she sent invitations to the trial! "Do not mention my weight gain" are the words that she is supposed to have written to the press.

The jury finds her guilty and she is sentenced to 5 years in prison. She exits with a smile. Her cell in St Lazare nonetheless more comfortable that the one in Versailles: she pays another convict to be her maid and receives support mail. On September 1931, the President of the Republic enables her to administrate her own estate. It is from her cell, on February 1932, that she learns her victory on appeal against the impresario of her born-dead film.

After less than three years, she gets out of the Haguenau prison, where she had been transferred, on March 14 1933, and after a short stay in Paris, she goes back to London to look for "peace and forgetfulness" as the newspaper put it. It seems that it was too boring a plan as she reappears on September in Paris from Bulgaria and announces that she intends to become a plane pilot.

She also writes. In a typical move, and probably to generate some much needed cash, she publishes her autobiography, scandalously titled Flaming Sex, where details of sex suits in tiger skin are mixed with suggestive or tasteless pictures, like the one with her hand covered in jewels, holding a revolver. Then comes another book: The Sleepless Underworld. In her 1924 Cinémagazine interview, she claimed she had already wrote one called My soul unadorned, which apparently was not published.

"My hand, the hand that used to pet children and animals..."

The children of the late Lord Owen remind themselves to her: Ruth Bryan Owen, who became United States Minister to Denmark, and Theodore Henry Charles Owen both sue Lady Owen on July 1934 for failing her duties of executrix and they estimate their share to be $10,000 now.

In 1936, a forgotten lady.

Edmée also develops a new hobby: gambling. She squanders away all of her fortune at the roulette, on the races, etc. Soon, she goes bankrupt.

On November 1936, the reporters catch her in front of the London Bankruptcy Court because she is one million pounds in debt. We learn that she once possessed up to £80,000 worth of jewelry. She produces a bathing suit which she claimed cost her £200 as evidence that her creditors overcharged her.

Lady Edmée Owen dies on January 13, 1983 in Kensington.

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That's all for today, folks!