Jean Gabin Book: Fall 2010 Update

Note: Blogspot.com dates this article as having been written on October 21st, the date I began it, but today, the day I am finishing it, it is actually November 29th.



This photo is a screen capture of Jean Gabin in director Julien Duvivier's 1936 classic, La Belle equipe. In France, La Belle equipe is considered to be one of the top films of the '30s, yet it is almost completely unknown in the United States.



I hope everybody's fall is going very well. Thank you again to everybody who has bought my book WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO, and to those who have recommended the book to others. I can't believe this is my first blog entry since May 29th, exactly half a year ago.

I have spent the past year re-writing and re-editing WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR for a possible 2011 edition (3.0), as well as completing work on my follow-up to my Gabin book, a children's book which should be available in the Spring of 2011, so I will keep everybody posted.

Here are some Jean Gabin Updates from the past summer and early fall:


NINTH ANNUAL SACRAMENTO FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

On Saturday June 27th and Sunday June 28th, I attended the ninth annual Sacramento French Film Festival, where I hosted screenings of two great Jean Gabin movies, 1937's Pepe Le Moko and 1969's The Sicilian Clan. Both of the films were screened two times each, once on Saturday and again on Sunday, and I really enjoyed meeting all of the rabid Jean Gabin fans, and fans of French cinema, in Northern California. I would like, one more time, to thank the festival's founders and programmers, Cecile and John Downs, for making me feel very welcome. The event was notable, too, because it was held a stone's throw from the state capital at the Crest Theater, one of Sacramento's oldest, and most prestigious art-deco movie theaters. The Crest was built in the 1920s by the Loew's theatrical family, and its first incarnation was as a vaudeville house; John Downs even took me behind the movie screen and showed me the original dressing rooms. The Crest Theater features more than nine hundred seats, and about three hundred seats were filled, for each of the four screenings of Jean Gabin films.



A POSSIBLE THIRD PRINTING OF "WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR" IN 2011 + A NEW PROJECT

This year, I have been completing my follow-up to WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR, an illustrated children's book which should be available for purchase in Spring 2011. I have also been going through World's Coolest Movie Star, line by line, for a possible 2011 Third Edition ("3.0"), which will include updates, line-by-line deletions and additions, and additional photographs which were not available to me during the book's first two printings. I am always open to reader suggestions, because I see this book as a collaboration between myself and my readers; if you have any ideas for how I can improve my book, they are very welcome, and I would be happy to read them. Please email me at author@jeangabinbook.com.


"LE JOUR SE LEVE" SCREENPLAY SELLS AT LONDON AUCTION FOR $300,000.00 (U.S.)

Back in June, I happened to read that an original screenplay for the 1939 Jean Gabin classic, Le Jour se leve, featuring hand notations made by the film's screenwriter, Jacques Prevert, fetched $300,000.00 (U.S.) at a London auction. At about the same time, when I was scouring eBay for rare Jean Gabin merchandise, I happened to come upon this incredible, one-of-a-kind poster for Le Jour se leve:


This Le Jour se leve poster is not only one of the best posters for a Jean Gabin movie I have ever seen, but it might also be one of the greatest movie posters I have ever seen, period. And it's only selling for $4,000.00 on eBay. (Anybody want to spot me 4K so I can buy it?)




MESRINE: A NEW FRENCH GANGSTER MOVIE

In September 2010, a new French gangster film was released in the U.S., director Jean-Francois Richert's two-part epic, Mesrine, starring Vincent Cassel as France's most notorious 1970s' gangster. I haven't seen the film yet, but some critics have been comparing it very favorably to Jean Gabin's old gangster classics from the 1950s, Touchez pas au grisbi and Razzia sur la chnouf. The four-hour Mesrine, which was released both in France and in the U.S. in two parts, as Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Mesrine: Public Enemy #1, also features the very striking actress Cecile de France, who is also currently on view in director Clint Eastwood's loathesome new soaper, Hereafter. I have not yet seen Mesrine, but I am looking forward to it. Here in Los Angeles, The New Beverly Cinema will be screening both parts of the film, for one admission price, on December 22 and 23.

























WARNER BROS. DEVELOPING NEW ANIMATED "PEPE LE PEW" FEATURE, BASED ON THE "PEPE LE MOKO" CHARACTER IMMORTALIZED BY JEAN GABIN AND CHARLES BOYER

About three weeks ago, the erstwhile Ain't It Cool News.com announced that Warner Bros. Pictures is currently in active development on a feature-length animated film, no doubt in "the miracle of 3D," which will be based upon the studio's classic cartoon skunk, Pepe Le Pew. As Jean Gabin fans know, the voice and likeness of the unctuous skunk are based upon the characterizations of the legendary French gangster Pepe le Moko, as portrayed by Jean Gabin in the eponymous film from 1937, as well as by Charles Boyer, in that film's American-made 1938 remake, Algiers. Hopefully, this new animated feature will bring some attention to Jean Gabin's original character.























POSTER FOR NEW MOVIE THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010) EMULATES THE LOOK OF THE FRONT JACKET OF MY BOOK WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUME TWO (2008)

On October 2nd, 2010, director David Fincher's great new film The Social Network, the story of Facebook's wunderkind-founder Mark Zuckerberg was released, to enormous critical acclaim. Now, one might be led to believe that there are no connections between the movie The Social Network and my book about Jean Gabin, World's Coolest Movie Star... but think again.

Here is the front jacket of my book World's Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin, Volume Two, which was released by Allenwood Press in July of 2008,and beneath it, is the poster for the new movie The Social Network, as released in late September 2010:








Question: Do you think that the designer of The Social Network poster ripped off his design from the cover of my book, World's Coolest Movie Star? On both my Gabin book and the movie poster, you'll notice that the title words steer clear of the subjects' eyes and mouths... hmmm... but maybe it's all just a coincidence...?




ROGER EBERT RESPONDS TO MY EMAIL!

On September 30th, Roger Ebert wrote an essay on his blogsite in which he stated that his favorite French gangster movie is 1954's Touchez pas au grisbi, starring Jean Gabin. In his article, Ebert credited Jean Pierre Melville as having directed Grisbi. I left a comment in the comment space under Ebert's article, reminding him that it was Jacques Becker who, in fact, directed that film, and not Melville. The following day, Ebert corrected his mistake in his article, and he also responded, briefly (in one sentence) to my comment, as you can see, if you scroll down to the end of Ebert's article and read the twelfth comment down on the list:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/09/start_out_with_the_first_one.html


















ELI WALLACH WINS HONORARY OSCAR, MENTIONS JEAN GABIN AS INFLUENCE

On November 16, The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science held its annual Governor's Awards in Los Angeles, presenting lifetime achievements to four individuals who have made great strides in entertainment. Historian Kevin Brownlow and director Francis Ford Coppola won two of the awards.

A third award was presented to avant-garde director Jean-Luc Godard, who did not attend the Hollywood ceremony. In the days and hours leading up to the event, Hollywood pundits debated about whether Godard should, in fact, receive this award, because the filmmaker had reportedly once referrred to somebody as being 'a dirty Jew.' (When asked about this, Godard responded that when he used the phrase 'dirty Jew,' he was just referencing the line that Jean Gabin's character spoke to Marcel Dalio's character at the end of Jean Renoir's seminal film, La Grande illusion.) This author doesn't believe Godard to be anti-Semitic, especially in view of the fact that, in 1986, Godard directed a forty-minute documentary about Woody Allen, Meetin' W.A. , and one year later, Allen was part of the ensemble cast of Godard's English-language feature, King Lear.

On a more positive note, a fourth Governor's Award was presented to the amazing American character actor Eli Wallach, who is ninety-five years old. Interviewed for the Los Angeles Times on November 6th, Wallach cited the French actors Jean Gabin, Louis Jouvet -- Jean Gabin's co-star from 1936's classic Les Bas-fonds -- and Jean-Louis Barrault as his major influences:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/07/entertainment/la-ca-eli-wallach-20101107

Eli Wallach is still going strong at the age of ninety-five, most recently having appeared, briefly, in two movies this year -- Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer and Oliver Stone's Wall Street II: Money Never Sleeps, and hopefully he will be around forever.



Legendary Eli Wallach. ("If you want to shoot, shoot! Don't talk!")


Finally, I was scouring my hard drive this week and I discovered three great stills of Jean Gabin and Sophia Loren, together on the set of the criminally unknown 1974 film which in France is called Verdict, and in the U.S., A Jury of One. Reportedly, seventy-two year-old Gabin was ready to retire at this point,but Loren refused to do the film unless Gabin signed on to be her co-star. In these photographs, you'll see Jean Gabin, Sophia Loren, an unknown 'groovy' bearded man and, in the third photograph, the picture's director, Andre Cayatte. In 1939, a younger Cayatte was one of the screnwriters of Gabin's classic, Remorques.






























Happy Holidays. More soon!

Charles Zigman,
Author,
WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO.

11-29-10
Older Posts Below:

9th Annual Sacramento French Film Festival Honors Jean Gabin on June 26-27, 2010!

Sacramento Honors World's Coolest Movie Star Jean Gabin with a Two-Film Tribute.


If you plan on being in Northern California between Friday, June 18th and Sunday, June 27th, 2010, why not head to the 9th Annual Sacramento French Film Festival (www.sacramentofrenchfilmfestival.org)?

Held at the historic Crest theater, this two-weekend festival will screen eight new French films and four great classics.

Two of the classics, director Julien Duvivier’s 1937 masterwork Pepe Le Moko and Henri Verneuil’s 1970 The Sicilian Clan star none other than the great French movie legend Jean Gabin.

Charles Zigman (me!), author of the new book World’s Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin, Volumes One and Two, will be on-hand to introduce the two Gabin films, and if you miss Pepe Le Moko and Sicilian Clan on Saturday the 26th (Pepe Le Moko screens at 11:00am, and Sicilian Clan unspools at 1:20pm), both films will be repeated on Sunday the 27th – Sicilian Clan at 10:15 am and Pepe Le Moko at 1:00pm.

At the time this posting goes to press, Mary Moncorgé, granddaughter of Jean Gabin, is also scheduled to make an appearance at one or more of the screenings.

On Sunday, author Zigman will even host un Petit Dejeuner – a French breakfast in honor of Jean Gabin – prior to the 10:15 am screening of The Sicilian Clan.

There’s also an Opening Night Reception on Friday, June 18th and a Closing Night Party on Sunday, June 27th.

More more information about the Festival (including a full screening schedule), to purchase tickets, and to learn about a great hotel to stay at if you visit Sacramento, go to
www.sacramentofrenchfilmfestival.org.

The Crest Theater is at:
1013 K Street
Sacramento, CA 95814-3803
(916) 442-5189




Looking forward to meeting you at the Crest Theater for The Sacramento French Film Festival!

Give Jean Gabin for Mother's Day... and Save 50% (at Barnes and Noble.com)

If you wanted to buy author Charles Zigman's two-volume book WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, but you felt that the cost was too prohibitive, here's some good news for you.

Each of the two volumes of the filmography/biography WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR -- Volume One (Gabin's Early Life, 1904 to 1953) and Volume Two (Gabin's Later Life, 1953 to 1976) -- retail at $39.95, so if you buy both volumes, you pay $79.90. That's a lot of money, in the present, or in any, economy.

But between now and May 10, 2010, if you're a paid member of Barnes and Noble's Book Club, with an up-to-date membership number on your B&N membership card, each of the two volumes is only $19.97, when you buy on line at www.barnesandnoble.com.





Here's how the 50% discount breaks down:

Each of the two volumes of WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR retails at $39.95.

Barnes and Noble is already offering the book to ALL customers at 10% off ($39.95).

If you're a currently-enrolled member of Barnes and Noble's Book Club, and you enter Coupon Code D7P3D8K during the on-line checkout process, Barnes and Noble.com will lower the price by an additional 40%, bringing the cost of each volume all the way down to $19.97. When you buy both volumes you're saving about $40.00.

If you already own Volume One, and you haven't yet purchased Volume Two, this fifty- percent discount might hopefully be some extra incentive. If you don't own either of the two volumes yet, this is the best time of all to get them.

Barnes and Noble.com is also providing free postage on the books.

Jean Gabin, star of La Grande illusion and Pepe Le Moko, has always been considered to be one of Europe's greatest movie stars -- a true giant in cinema, his importance, in Europe, commensurate with that of Humphrey Bogart or Spencer Tracy. (In fact, Gabin has been called 'The French Bogart' and 'The French Tracy.') While Gabin has always had an incredible cult following in America, true stardom has eluded him here. Hopefully, this book will redress the balance.

WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO, are now 50% off at Barnes and Noble.com, through May 10, 2010.

Buy them today!

(PS, Barnes and Noble will only let its members take the discount on one book per order, so to order the two volumes, please place two separate orders.)

Jean Gabin: Spring 2010 News, Includes 50% Discount on Jean Gabin Book

Hope everybody is having a nice spring. Sorry I have not updated this blogsite lately. Here are some recent Jean Gabin odds-and-ends for Spring 2010:


HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY TO MICHELE MORGAN.
1. On March 1, 2010, the luminous French actress Michèle Morgan turned 90. Morgan, who lives in Paris, co-starred with Jean Gabin in 1938's Le Quai des brumes, 1939's Le Recif de corail, and 1952's La Minute de verite, and their love scene together in Quai des brumes remains one of the most memorable scenes of that nature in the history of French cinema. In the 2008 film Atonement, a character is even seen in a movie theater, watching Jean Gabin and Michele Morgan on screen together.



A NEW FILM OPENS IN L.A. AND N.Y., DIRECTED BY SON OF FAMOUS JEAN GABIN COLLABORATOR.
2. There's a new French movie playing in the U.S., Un Prophete (A Prophet), a contemporary gangster movie which opened up in New York in Los Angeles on February 26th, and it's still playing. The film was even nominated for an Academy Award, in the Best Foreign Language Film category, however it lost out to an Argentine film, director Juan Jose Campanella's El Secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Her Eyes). Still, this great French movie is definitely worth seeking out. It should be expanding to more cities as this blog posting is going to press.

Un Prophet is relevant to this website because the film's writer and director is 58-year-old Jacques Audiard. Jacques Audiard's late father, Michel Audiard, wrote eighteen of Jean Gabin's ninety-five films -- Gas-Oil (1955), Le Sang a la tete (1956), Le Rouge est mis (1957), Maigret tend un piege (1958), Les Miserables (adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel, 1958), Le Desordre et la nuit (1958), Archimede, le clochard (1959), Maigret et l'affaire Saint-Fiacre (1959), Rue des Prairies (1959), Le Baron de l'ecluse (1960), Les Vieux de la vieille (1960), Le President (1961), Le Cave se rebiffe (1961), Un Singe en hiver (1962), Le Gentleman d'Epsom (1962), Melodie en sous-sol (1963), Le Pacha (1968), Sous le signe du taureau (1969), and Le Drapeau noir flotte sur la marmite (1971, also directed by Audiard). Audiard Sr. also wrote a five-minute television film for Gabin in December of 1960, which was broadcast in France, for Christmas. Here is the website for Un Prophete: http://www.sonyclassics.com/aprophet/






LOS ANGELES JEAN RENOIR FILM FESTIVAL FEATURES THREE FILMS STARRING JEAN GABIN.
3. In March and April 2010, the Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is screening a nineteen-film tribute to the legendary humanist director, Jean Renoir. This screening includes three films which Renoir directed, starring Jean Gabin. On Saturday March 13th, it's 1955's French Cancan (which also features the Mexican actress Maria Felix); On Friday March 19th, it's La Bete humaine (1938), based on the novel by Emile Zola, and starring Gabin with Simone-Simon; and on Friday March 26th, it's perhaps the most well-known French film ever made, Renoir's anti-war classic La Grande illusion (1937), which co-stars Gabin with Pierre Fresnay, Marcel Dalio, and Eric von Stroheim. All films begin at 7:30pm and are part of double features. For the full schedule, address of LACMA, and prices, please go to http://www.lacma.org/programs/FilmSeriesSchedule.aspx




THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE IN LOS ANGELES WILL SCREEN GLENN FORD'S REMAKE OF A JEAN GABIN CLASSIC ON SATURDAY APRIL 10TH, 2010.
4. On Saturday April 10th 2010 at 9:15pm, the American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theater at 6712 Hollywood Blvd., will unspool a rare 35-mm print of Human Desire, director Fritz Lang's rarely shown American 1953 remake of Jean Renoir's 1938 classic, La Bete humaine. In this fast-paced American remake, Glenn Ford plays the role which Jean Gabin played in the earlier film, and Gloria Grahame assays the role that was originally played by Simone-Simon. Lang's entertaining remake is a very good companion piece to the original Renoir/Gabin version, and it also happens to feature a powerhouse performance by Broderick Crawford as Grahame's paranoid, jilted husband. This screening will be part of the American Cinematheque's 12th Annual Film Noir Festival, programmed by Eddie Muller, and twenty-four other Noir classics will be screened, mostly as double-features, between April 2nd and April 18th, 2010. For more information about the screening of Human Desire, and about other films in the 12th Annual Festival of Film Noir, be sure to visit http://americancinematheque.com/mastercalendar.htm






















TWO-VOLUME JEAN GABIN BOOK IS HALF OFF UNTIL APRIL 12, 2010, FOR BARNES AND NOBLE BOOK CLUB MEMBERS ONLY, WITH CHECK-OUT CODE W4U9C8A.
5. If you're a member of Barnes and Noble's book club, you can buy the book WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN for fifty percent off. Barnes and Noble.com is already discounting Volume One and Volume Two of the book at 10% off, and if you enter coupon code W4U9C8A at checkout, they are taking an additional 40% off. Since you may take the discount only on one book per order, it is suggested that you place two separate orders -- one order for Volume One and the second order for Volume Two -- if you want to take the discount on both books. B&N is also offering free postage. Remember, this is ONLY for PAID MEMBERS of Barnes and Noble's book club. Until April 12, 2010, each volume is only $19.97, in lieu of the usual $39.95. Basically, with this discount, you're getting two volumes for the price of one. Click on the title of this article to go right to the Barnes and Noble.com Jean Gabin Book Page.


Have a wonderful spring.

Charles Zigman,
Author,
WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN,
VOLUME ONE: TRAGIC DRIFTER (ISBN #978-0-9799722-0-1) and
VOLUME TWO: COMEBACK/PATRIARCH (ISBN #978-0-9799722-1-8).
www.jeangabinbook.com

50% OFF JEAN GABIN BOOK THROUGH 3/29/10, BARNES AND NOBLE.COM BOOK CLUB MEMBERS ONLY! ONE WEEK ONLY!

BULLETIN:

Spring into daylight savings time with 50% off on the book WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO, by Charles Zigman. Normally, each of the two volumes sells for $39.95, but through March 29, 2010, you can buy BOTH volumes for a total of $39.95 -- or $19.97 each.


SPRING SPECIAL FOR MEMBERS OF BARNES AND NOBLE BOOK CLUB, ONLY: Between now and March 22, 2010, members of Barnes and Noble.com's Book Club may take 50% off of the book "World's Coolest Movie Star," by entering coupon code U7J7W8J during the checkout process. (B&N is offering 10% off, plus the coupon code entitles you to take an extra 40@% off.) Free postage is included, as well.

Click on the title of this article and you will be taken directly to the WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR page on Barnes and Noble.com.

IMPORTANT: Please note that this discount applies to Barnes and Noble Book Club members ONLY. You may only take the fifty percent discount on one book in each order, so to order both Volume One and Volume Two at the fifty percent discount, you must place two separate orders.

Until March 29, 2010 buy WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR at $19.97 instead of the usual $39.95!

WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR is the first book in the English language about the amazing French movie legend Jean Gabin. It is part biography and part filmography and features more than 200 photographs, many of which have never appeared in print. Brigitte Bardot and Michele Morgan have contributed forewords to the book and Gabin fan David Mamet has supplied an Appreciation.

Thank you for your interest in Jean Gabin.

WWW.JEANGABINBOOK.COM

When Trevor Howard Met Jean Gabin

Trevor Howard, that finest of British film actors.


Part of the joy of maintaining this blogsite – which, I admit, I don’t do as much as I should – includes the fact that, on occasion, I receive very nice fan mail for my two-volume filmography/biography, World’s Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin (www.jeangabinbook.com) – of course, World's Coolest Movie Star is the very first English-language book about France’s greatest film actor. Even better, sometimes a reader of my book will relate to me an anecdote about Gabin with which I had been previously unfamiliar.

Yesterday, I was delighted to receive just such an email from Michael Pointon, a television producer who, back in the 1980s, interviewed one of the greatest of all British film stars – the legendary Trevor Howard, who will be familiar to you from such films as Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter (1945) and Lewis Milestone's Mutiny on the Bounty (1962).

In his email, Pointon illuminates me as to a meeting between Trevor Howard and Jean Gabin, which transpired in Paris. I was not aware that these two fine thespians had ever met, so I thank Mr. Pointon for sending me the email.

Here is that email:



“Dear Mr Zigman,

I am enjoying your comprehensive, meticulously-researched and warmly enthusiastic Jean Gabin book. I have been a follower of Gabin’s work for many years, and such a work is long-overdue.

It's clearly a labor of love on your part, and I have an anecdote you may not have heard that might be of use.

I have worked in radio and television documentaries for many years, and one of my assignments, in the early ‘80s, was to interview Trevor Howard, who is probably Britain's finest screen actor.

After asking Howard all of the usual questions and talking with him about his long career, I decided to ask him who his favorite cinema actors were. He instantly named Spencer Tracy and Jean Gabin, two actors to whom his own work had been compared.

Howard was a remarkably reserved man and it had taken a long time for me to persuade him to consent to an interview – probably something he had in common with Gabin. I never thought of asking if he'd actually met Gabin so, to my surprise, some years after his death, one of his biographers wrote of an encounter between Howard and Gabin which has the ring of truth: It seems that Howard was in Paris to publicize a movie he'd made and, as was his wont, he was drinking in a bistro with the film’s producer. Suddenly, to his surprise, a trenchcoat-wearing man crossed the darkened room towards his table, thrust his hand towards Howard, and introduced himself by name, very simply: “Gabin.” Howard stood up in surprise, grasped the outstretched hand, and replied, just as simply, “Howard.” Apparently Jean Gabin and Trevor Howard embraced and left the bistro together – and the producer of Howard’s film didn't see him again for another two days!

Somehow this feels true and, in fact, Howard’s producer related the incident to author Terence Pettigrew. This anecdote is referenced in Pettigrew’s book, TREVOR HOWARD: A PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY...


Kind regards and best wishes,

Michael Pointon”



France's Jean Gabin, the World's Coolest Movie Star.


World’s Coolest Movie Star: The Complete 95 Films (and Legend) of Jean Gabin, Volumes One and Two, is available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and it may also be ordered at a bookseller near you. You may take 40% off the book at Barnes and Noble.com between now and February 10, 2010, when you enter coupon code U4C7L7Y at checkout. (Barnes and Noble is offering the book at 10% off already, so this coupon code entitles you to an extra 30% off. You can only get the discount on one book per order, so to get the discount on each of the two volumes, simply place two orders. These books are postpaid.)

Film Director/Author Florence Moncorgé-Gabin, Daughter of Jean Gabin, Visits a French Film Class

Film director/author Florence Moncorgé-Gabin, daughter of Jean Gabin, teaches a Film History course in Mordelles, France on January 19, 2010.



The website Ouest-France (www.ouest-france.fr) reported on January 20th, 2010 that forty-four students in Mordelles, France (in Brittany, in the northwest) at the private L'Immaculée high school had some very good fortune on Tuesday the 19th: Their guest speaker was Florence Moncorgé-Gabin, a great filmmaker and author who also happens to be one of the two daughters of the legendary French movie actor, Jean Gabin.

Florence Moncorgé-Gabin, who began as a script-girl on a number of films in the '70s and '80s, including her father's final film, 1976's L'Année sainte , directed her own feature film in 2008, the heart-wrenching pastoral epic Le Passager de l'été ( The Passenger of the Summer.)

Moncorgé spent the afternoon inculcating the students, in the Cinema and Literature course, with a love of great French films which are thematically similar to her own film, director Claude Berri's 1986 film adaptations of Marcel Pagnol's Jean de Florette and Manon des sources. As she told the journalist from Ouest-France, "Hopefully, watching these films will motivate the students to experience and appreciate [other relevant] authors like Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, and Alexandre Dumas." The students were apparently taken by Ms. Moncorgé-Gabin's friendliness and accessibility, a hallmark of her father's on-screen persona.

Florence Moncorgé-Gabin has written two books about her father, 2002's Quitte à avoir un père, autant qu'il s'appelle Gabin (If You Have to Have a Father, It Might as Well Be Gabin) and 2004's Gabin hors champ (Gabin, Off-Camera), co-written with her brother, Mathias Moncorge.


Ms. Moncorgé's 2002 book, a memory of what it was like to be Jean Gabin's daughter. The English language translation of the book's French title is, If You Have to Have a Father, It Might As Well Be Gabin.


Lionsgate films has made Ms. Moncorgé-Gabin's film, Le Passager de l'été, available for you to watch on-line right now, with English subtitles, at Amazon.com, as a digital download ONLY. You can download the film for one day for $2.99, or you can download it and keep it forever for $9.99. Click on the title of this article and it will take you directly to the Amazon.com page to watch the film. Unfortunately, downloading is the only way to watch the film, at present, with English subtitles; there is no DVD to buy.

2010 Begins with a New Jean Gabin DVD Release: It's 1966's Gabin/Robert Stack Team-Up, Action Man (AKA, Le Soleil des voyous)

Jean Gabin and Robert Stack in the fun 1966 heist thriller Action Man (Le Soleil des voyous). It will be available on DVD, in North America, on January 26, 2010.



Happy New Year from www.jeangabinbook.com. Thank you to everybody who gave (and received) my book, WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN, VOLUMES ONE AND TWO, for the holidays.

2010 starts out with a brand new Jean Gabin DVD release, available in an English languge version for the first time on home video:

It's director Jean Delannoy's Le Soleil des voyous (Action Man), a fun, engaging "one-last-heist picture" from 1966 which co-starred Gabin with Elliott Ness himself -- t.v.'s Robert Stack!

I'm pleased to announce that this fun Technicolor thriller is pure fun for fans of Jean Gabin, Robert Stack, as well as for anybody who enjoys great heist movies. In Action Man, Gabin and Stack heist a military payroll with tragic results for one of the two stars, but I won't reveal which one until you catch the movie.

Le Soleil des voyous (Action Man) is one of the six films which Delannoy, a distant French cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, directed with his friend Jean Gabin in the lead. A literal English translation of the title Le Soleil des voyous is something like, "Sun Over the No-Goods." You can see why the American distributors re-titled it, Action Man!

Action Man, at this point, will only be available on DVD as part of a two-DVD/four movie set issued by VCI Entertainment, which VCI has entitled, "The Action Man Collection." The other three features in the set, none of which I have yet seen, do NOT have Gabin in them. The other three titles in the package are:

Peking Blonde (1967) -- An international intrigue thriller with Edward G. Robinson and Mireille Darc;
The Big Game (1967) -- soldier-of-fortune picture with Stephen Boyd, Cameron Mitchell, and Ray Milland; and
The Day of the Wolves (1972) -- bank-robbery western, starring Richard Egan, Martha Hyer, and the American comedian Jan Murray.

As far as I can tell, the print of Action Man which will be available in this package will be dubbed into English; normally, like any serious cineaste, I prefer subtitles over dubbing, but I actually saw this English-dubbed version in 2004when I began researching my Jean Gabin book (UCLA had/has a 16-millimeter print in its Film Archives), and I remember the dubbing as being quite acceptable, bordering on very, very good. Jean Gabin is one of those actors for whom the voice is a big part of the persona, but, from what I remember, whoever dubbed his voice into English did a serviceable job.



Even though Jean Gabin is the first-billed star of Action Man, VCI Entertainment, distributors of the U.S. DVD, neglected to put his picture on the box; this is understandable, however, in view of the fact that Gabin is less known in America than Robert Stack.



I have never seen the French-language print of Action Man, but I would love to, because, famously, Stack did all of his dialogue in French; Robert Stack, as I have mentioned in my Jean Gabin book, grew up on military bases throughout France, so he spoke the language fluently. Here is a five minute clip from the French print of Le Soleil des voyous/Action Man. About four-and-a-half minutes in, you will hear Stack speaking fluent French:



The mob sends thug Robert Stack to bust up Jean Gabin's bar/restaurant in Action Man (1966). When Stack arrives, he is surprised to find that the bar is owned by his good friend and war-buddy Gabin -- the American and the Frenchman fought together in Indochina, in the '50s! It won't be long before Gabin and Stack are teaming up, to get the goods on the mob.


In fact, here is a six minute interview Stack gave to French television in 1966, in which he expresses his great admiration for Jean Gabin. More of Stack speaking French:

http://www.ina.fr/art-et-culture/cinema/video/I00012196/robert-stack-47-ans-elliott-ness-est-un-grand-admirateur-de-jean-gabin.fr.html


I am looking forward to reporting on more Jean Gabin news and events in 2010, as well as telling you about my new projects.


Sincerely,

Charles Zigman,
author,
WORLD'S COOLEST MOVIE STAR: THE COMPLETE 95 FILMS (AND LEGEND) OF JEAN GABIN,
VOLUMES ONE AND TWO.
www.jeangabinbook.com