Sacha Guitry
Directing
Biography
Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry (21 February 1885 – 24 July 1957), known as Sacha Guitry, was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the boulevard theatre. He was the son of a leading French actor, Lucien Guitry, and followed his father into the theatrical profession. He became known for his stage performances, particularly in boulevardier roles. He was also a prolific playwright, writing 115 plays throughout his career. He was married five times, always to rising actresses whose careers he furthered. Probably his best-known wife was Yvonne Printemps to whom he was married between 1919 and 1932. Guitry's plays range from historical dramas to contemporary light comedies. Some have musical scores, by composers including André Messager and Reynaldo Hahn. When silent films became popular Guitry avoided them, finding the lack of spoken dialogue fatal to dramatic impact. From the 1930s to the end of his life he enthusiastically embraced the cinema, making as many as five films in a single year. The later years of Guitry's career were overshadowed by accusations of collaborating with the occupying Germans after the capitulation of France in the Second World War. The charges were dismissed, but Guitry, a strongly patriotic man, was disillusioned by the vilification he received from some of his compatriots. By the time of his death, his popular esteem had been restored to the extent that 12,000 people filed past his coffin before his burial in Paris. Guitry was born at No 12 Nevsky Prospect, Saint Petersburg, Russia, the third son of the French actors Lucien Guitry and his wife Marie-Louise-Renée née Delmas de Pont-Jest (1858–1902). The couple had eloped, in the face of family disapproval, and were married at St Martin in the Fields, London, in 1882. They then moved to the then Russian capital, where Lucien ran the French theatre company, the Théâtre Michel, from 1882 to 1891. The marriage was brief. Guitry senior was a persistent adulterer, and his wife instituted divorce proceedings in 1888. Two of their sons died in infancy (one in 1883 and the other in 1887); the other surviving son, Jean (1884–1920) became an actor and journalist. The family's Russian nurse habitually shortened Alexandre-Pierre's name to the Russian diminutive "Sacha", by which he was known all his life. The young Sacha made his stage debut in his father's company at the age of five. Lucien Guitry, considered the most distinguished actor in France since Coquelin, was immensely successful, both critically and commercially. When he returned to Paris he lived in a flat in a prestigious spot, overlooking the Place Vendôme and the Rue de la Paix. The young Sacha lived there, and for his schooling he was first sent to the well-known Lycée Janson de Sailly in the fashionable Sixteenth arrondissement. He did not stay long there, and went to a succession of other schools, both secular and religious, before abandoning formal education at the age of sixteen. ... Source: Article "Sacha Guitry" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
At Theater tonight is a TV show broadcasted from 25th August 1966 to 21st September 1985. The show is broadcast plays recorded in two or three days, during public performances at the Théâtre Marigny on the Champs-Élysées, or sometimes Edouard VII theater.
At Theatre Tonight
Series based on the short French farces written by Georges Feydeau, Eugène Labiche, Marc Michel and Sacha Guitry. All of them include mistaken identities and impeccable timing.
Ooh La La!
Produced for television by Claude-Jean Philippe, the « Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma », recounts the history of French cinema from its birth to the beginning of the 1960s. With commentary read by Jean Rochefort.
Encyclopédie audiovisuelle du cinéma
The film follows the life of Napoleon from his early life in Corsica to his death at Saint Helena. The film is notable for its use of location shooting for numerous scenes, especially at the French estates of Malmaison and Fontainebleau, the Palace of Versailles, and sites of Napoleonic battles including Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Napoleon
American multi-millionaire Michael Brandon marries his eighth wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broke French Marquis. But she doesn't want to be only a number in the line of his ex-wives and undertakes her own strategy to tame him.
Bluebeard's 8th Wife
On the death of the famous singer Maria Malibran, Countess Merlin retraces the main lines of the unusual destiny of this young woman entirely devoted to her art.
La Malibran
Witty narration follows the history of Versailles Palace; founded by Louis XIII, enlarged by autocratic Louis XIV, whose personal affairs and amours, and those of his two successors, are followed in more detail to the start of the Revolution, after which the story is brought rapidly up to date. A huge cast plays mainly historical persons who appear briefly.
Royal Affairs in Versailles
A home movie version of the Dumas play. A young woman becomes a courtesan and tragedy befalls her. Appearances are made by many socialites of 1920s Paris and New York.
Camille: The Fate of a Coquette
Jean-Gaspard Deburau is a very successful mime, the most famous in his category. One day, he falls head over heels in love with Marie Duplessis, a courtesan better known as "La Dame aux Camélias". But he soon realizes that he is but a number in her long list of lovers. He will find comfort in devoting his time teaching his art to his son Charles.
Deburau
Hopes and love and ambitions and friendship in a group of young jazz-loving Parisians.
Rendezvous in July
In the 1980 French countryside, farmer Jojo and his ill-tempered wife Lulu hate each other, though their respective interests speak against divorce. The only thing that keeps the oppressed Jojo from murder is the threat of the guillotine...
A Crime in Paradise
Désiré is hired by Odette Cléry as a valet. She is the mistress of Félix Montignac, Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones. Désiré is assisted by Adèle, the cook, and Madeleine, ‘Madame’s’ maid. The summer holidays take this little group to Deauville, to a holiday villa. But here’s the thing, Désiré is a man whose appearance, self-assurance and profession—which is, in fact, hereditary—are not entirely in keeping with his tastes and mindset. As the son, grandson and great-grandson of a servant, he derives genuine pleasure from obeying—and indeed, Désiré says so himself: ‘Serving is a marvellous thing. It means having the right to be without a will...’ But, alas! Every coin has two sides, and his only real taste lies in his mistresses. Adapted from the play of the same name by Sacha Guitry, premiered at the Théâtre Édouard VII (Théâtre de Sacha Guitry) in Paris’s 9th arrondissement on 27 April 1927.
Désiré
Julie and Désirée Clary are courted by the brothers Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte. Joseph marries Julie and Napoleon is affianced to Désirée. When Napoleon breaks the engagement and marries Joséphine de Beauharnais, Désirée becomes involved with General Bernadotte.
Mlle. Desiree
Historical film directed and written by Sacha Guitry follows the the history of Paris from its founding through the significant events in the city's history.
If Paris Were Told to Us
The film is a 125-minute, black-and-white biography of French priest and diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), who served for 50 years under five different French regimes: the Absolute Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Constitutional Monarchy. Its title comes from one of the main historical nicknames for Talleyrand, that he shares with demon king Asmodeus and English poet Lord Byron.
The Devil Who Limped
Jojo’s ambition is to become a gangster, but to be admitted into a gang he has to prove himself by committing a daring act. To that end, he kills someone in broad daylight, not knowing that his victim is an actor who is playing a scene in a film directed by a cranky film-maker (Darry Cowl). The murder is caught on film, leading Commissaire Bernard (Michel Simon) to think that the killer will be easy to find. Sure enough, Bernard soon makes his arrest, a clown from a circus, but then he faces an almost insurmountable problem. The clown has an identical twin, who is also a clown with the same circus. Both men claim to be innocent…
Three Make a Pair
Is it because his father was a groom that Adhémar Pomme has a long horse head and a horse- toothed smile? Maybe but the fact is that his head has invariably caused laughter whatever the circumstances, which is the tragedy of his life. After having worked as an undertaker, a theater prompter, a casino bouncer, and so on, and failing at each job, he applies out of desperation to an institution where those rejected for physical reasons can hide and live together. But Adhémar immediately starts... laughing at them and gets kicked out as a result! In the end though, he finds his way as a circus artist.
Adhémar or the Toy of Destiny
Two strangers split a sweepstake prize to go on a fake honeymoon with predictable results.
Lucky Partners
Nicole Védrès' chronicle of Paris from 1900 to 1914 is brought to life through the use of original material, all authentic, secured from more then 700 films belonging to public and private collections. A few of the celebrities of the time shown are Enrico Caruso, Sarah Bernhardt, and Maurice Chevalier.
Paris 1900
Nine Bachelors is a 1939 French comedy film directed by Sacha Guitry and starring Guitry, Max Dearly and Elvire Popesco.[1] An opportunist dreams up a new scheme to make money when the French government passes a law forbidding foreigners from living in France. It's French title is Ils étaient neuf célibataires.