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Maurice Dekobra

Writing

Biography

Maurice Dekobra (26 May 1885, Paris – 1 June 1973, Paris) was a French writer. His real name was Ernest-Maurice Tessier. Viewed as a subversive writer in the 1920s and 1930s, he became one of the best-known French writers between the First and the Second World Wars. His books have been translated into 77 languages, and he has been described as an early example of an international best-seller writer. This is particularly true of his best known work, La Madone des Sleepings (1925). In spite of this, and the publication of a biography by Philippe Collas in 2001, he was declared a "total unknown" in 2005, though the republication of La Madone des Sleepings by the publisher Zulma in 2006 has increased awareness of him, at least in France. At the age of 19, he started his career as a trilingual journalist – French, English, German. During the 1914–18 War he was attached as liaison officer/interpreter first to the Indian army, and later to the United States army. The contacts he made at this time ignited his passion for travel. He attributed the origin of his pen name to an episode in North Africa when he saw a snake charmer with two cobras. Allegedly he began thinking of the "deux cobras", which led him to De-kobra, then Dekobra. The term 'dekobrisme' was coined from his fiction, which used journalistic features in his novels. He chose to live in the United States from 1939 to 1946. Upon returning to France, he started writing whodunits. One of these, Opération Magali (1951) won the Prix du Quai des Orfèvres. Some of his novels were made into films. Source: Article "Maurice Dekobra" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Known For

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6.0

No description available.

Samedi soir

1971
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9.0

The series adapted for television some true tales from press correspondents from around the world.

Overseas Press Club - Exclusive!

1957
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7.0

A wealthy man pretends to be a starving artist to gain the affections of a young painter.

Latin Quarter

1929
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8.0

No description available.

Liebe geht seltsame Wege

1927
La Madone des sleepings
6.0

Lady Diana Winham is beautiful, wealthy and a widow, so she's courted. She travels Europe in luxury trains, earning her nickname. One of her riches, a uranium deposit in a South American country, attracts the attention of international secret agents. Lady Diana is at the center of a spider's web, with the French, British and Germans all trying to get their hands on her. Helped by the love of Armando, whom she met in San Miguel, she gives the deposit to her secretary Gérard as a reward for his services.

La Madone des sleepings

1955
Hell Is Sold Out
6.0

A supposedly dead writer suddenly turns up to confront the young woman who is using his penname.

Hell Is Sold Out

1951
Soupçons
9.0

"Poisoner" - After her fiancé is arrested Claire finds herself alone and forced to find work. She is hired by a country squire, Etienne de Montenoy, as the tutor of his goddaughter. It does not take long before Montenoy falls for her but a little longer before the young woman, reluctant at first, understands Etienne loves her truly and then requites his love. Etienne lives so happily with her that he decides to make her his heir. Shortly after, he is murdered by poison...

Soupçons

1956
Latin Quarter
6.5

A wealthy banker, bored with his life, heads to the Latin Quarter of Paris where he pretends to be a struggling artist. He falls in love with a student from the Sorbonne and moves into the same boarding house as her while continuing his pretence of poverty.

Latin Quarter

1939
Operation Diplomatic Passport
7.0

The daughter of a foreign diplomat in Paris is courted by two men. One of them entrusts her with a harmless commission for Poland, as she has a diplomatic passport. But it's a trap, and the girl is forced to work for Eastern spies.

Operation Diplomatic Passport

1965
Siren of the Tropics
5.5

Marquis Sévéro, a rich, lazy Parisian, wants to divorce his wife so that he can marry his own goddaughter Denise. But Denise herself loves André Berval, an engineer employed by the marquis. Filled with jealousy, the marquis sends André to the Antilles, to prospect some land he has just acquired. He promises André that he can marry Denise if he is successful in the tropics, but he then writes to Alvarez, his manager at the site, asking him to prevent André from ever returning to France. The brutal Alvarez forms an instant hatred for André when the engineer breaks up Alvarez's attempt to rape Papitou, a beautiful native girl. Papitou becomes devoted to André, and protects him against Alvarez's schemes. But she faces a crisis herself when she learns that André plans to marry Denise.

Siren of the Tropics

1927
The Roundup is for Tonight
8.8

Three sketches that all start in the police station, where Léa, La Pintade and the brigadier himself tell their little stories. The story of Danielle, who bamboozled the impresario Mortimer so well that he made her his wife; the story of the sad little Simon, deprived of a father and unable to stand the mockery of his friends; and the story of the daughter of an ex-convict who - by golly - steals a statue on the day of her First Communion.

The Roundup is for Tonight

1954
Gambling Hell
6.8

In Macao, where places of pleasure and arms trafficking are concentrated, a tragedy opposes an adventurer and his daughter whom he has brought up in ignorance of his profession. She is torn from her environment and saved from tragedy by a young journalist who loves her.

Gambling Hell

1942
Madonna of the Sleeping Cars
8.0

Lady Diana Wynham, a crumbling aristocrat, entrusts her new secretary, Prince Séliman, with a daring mission on whose success will depend the survival of her fortune.

Madonna of the Sleeping Cars

1928
Friends and Lovers
4.9

British Army captain Geoff Roberts carries on an affair with Alva, the wife of the cruel Victor Sangrito. Sangrito, however, is well aware of the affair, as he uses his beautiful wife to lure men into romance with her, then blackmailing them to save their careers.

Friends and Lovers

1931
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10.0

Middle-aged teacher Nadia experiences increasing social exclusion and paranoia as society begins to exclude her and her husband, Ange, in disturbing ways complicated by her difficult family history and her troubled relationship with her son, Ralph, and his family.

Change of Heart

1928
Morals at Midnight
10.0

Berlin, the center of pleasures and kingdom of small virtues. From all over Germany, young night owls come to burn themselves cheerfully in its lights, to drown in its champagne and fill its boxes and restaurants until dawn.

Morals at Midnight

1930
Yoshiwara
8.5

Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.

Yoshiwara

1937
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8.0

No description available.

Prince or Clown

1928