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
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