LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Jacques Feyder: Films
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From the cleverness of Jacques Feyder’s Carnival in Flanders to Gérard Depardieu’s flamboyant Cyrano de Bergerac, a variety of serious and humorous themes will be explored during the remaining films in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute’s winter film series. The series explores life in the time of Claude Lorrain, the artist featured in the current special exhibition Claude Lorrain—The Painter as Draftsman: Drawings from the British Museum on view through April 29. Films are free and held on selected Fridays at 4 pm.
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As it developed, the German version as directed by Jacques Feyder was quite a different film from Clarence Brown's English-language treatment. German actors were imported to play the supporting roles, with Salka Steuermann (later Viertel) replacing Marie Dressler as Anna's salty dockside cohort, Marthy; Theo Shall filling Charles Bickford's role as virile seaman Matt; and veteran German star Hans Junkermann taking over from George F. Marion as Anna's sailor father.
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A good place to start is with a short article written by Feyder in 1923 and published in Der Internationale Film of Vienna.* In this piece Feyder presents his version of a problem facing the European cinema and proposes a solution. The problem, according to Feyder, is that no European country can afford to produce films solely for its national audience. Economic realities maintain that any major feature film—costing, per Feyder’s estimate, at least one million Austrian crowns—must be sold and appreciated in numerous countries. Only in America—whose films occupied by 1923 a substantial and increasing share of European screens—can the national market satisfy the costs of feature filmmaking. For this reason, American films can be made “without the least attention to foreign tastes.” These same films, aiming only to please the American public, have known the greatest and most durable success the world over.
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From this situation Feyder fashioned a film full of sly and subtle comment on human foibles, designed with lavish elegance, at all times a feast for the eye. Feyder, himself a Belgian, created a monument to the great visual artists of his country. The film was a crowning jewel in the great flowering of the French cinema of the 1930s. The designs of Lazare Meerson and the costumes of Benda come alive with the superb acting Feyder extracts from his players. The subtle and delicate humour, the gentle implications of the dialogue, are epitomized in the sly performance of Louis Jouvet as the Duke's chaplain. Needless to say, the Flemish ladies thoroughly enjoy the elegant manners of the Spaniards while their menfolk look helplessly on. There is a little sadness in the air as the Duke and his army leave.
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Rózsa's score for Feyder's picture, KNIGHT WITHOUT ARMOUR (starring Dietrich and Robert Donat) was greeted with much praise, and soon he was invited to join the staff of Korda's company, London Film Productions. His first big international success was THE FOUR FEATHERS, but his next score ran into trouble when the director, Ludwig Berger insisted on another composer. Korda then suggested that Rózsa write some new songs and play them in an office next to Berger's. That did it: Berger capitulated, and Rózsa scored his picture, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD.
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In making this film, of course Feyder trod on the toes of his fellow countrymen. The reaction was much like that of the Irish to The Playboy of the Western World and chauvinistic sensibilities were not easily smoothed. But the success of the film was universal, and Feyder was established as a great director.
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