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The History of French Cinema: 1938

4/1 -

Following UFA’s refusal to produce his film, Quai des Brumes, Marcel Carne relocates to France and begins shooting with Jean Gabin, Michel Simon and Michele Morgan. [ADD]

20/1 -

Film pioneer Emile Cohl dies at an old people’s home in Villejuif after a candle sets his beard on fire. [ADD]

21/1 -

Another pioneer of the cinema, Georges Melies, dies in Paris at the age of 76.   His funeral, which takes place four days later at Pere Lachaise cemetery, is attended by joint-founders of the French Cinematheque, Georges Franju and Henri Langlois. [ADD]

2/2 -

Jean Renoir’s Marseillaise, ‘the film of the union of the French nation against a minority of exploiters, the film of the rights of man and of the citizen,’ made to commemorate the 150^th anniversary of the French Revolution, is released.   Financed by trade unions, the film stars Pierre Renoir and Lise Delamare. [ADD]

9/2 -

25,000 lights and 1500 metres of neon lighting festoon the façade of the Olympia movie theatre on the boulevard des Capucines in Paris on its opening night. [ADD]

16/2 -

Jeff Musso’s The Puritan, adapted from a story by Liam O’Flaherty becomes the second winner of the Prix Louis Delluc.   Jean-Louis Barrault, Viviane Romance and Pierre Fresnay star. [ADD]

15/3 -

Marcel Pagnol supervises the construction of his new studios in Marseilles which include three sound stages. [ADD]

15/4 -

Marcel Pagnol’s Le Schpountz (from Slavonic slang for simpleton) is released.   It stars Fernandel as a movie-mad grocer who is the victim of a practical joke played on him by a visiting film crew.   The film, allegedly based on a true story, also stars Orane Demazis and Fernand Charpin. [ADD]

26/4 -

Christian-Jacque’s Les Disparu de Saint-Agil (Boys School) is released.   The film stars Erich von Stroheim, Michel Simon, Armande Bernard, Robert Le Vigan, Serge Grave, Jean Claudio and Marcel Mouloudii. [ADD]

4/5 -

Jean Gremillon’s L’Etrange Monsieur Victor (The Strange Mr. Victor) is released.   It stars Raimu, Madeleine Renaud, Pierre Blanchar and Viviane Romance. [ADD]

6/5 -

The Sud film company announces it is to finance three historical epics to be directed by Abel Gance.   The films will tell the stories of Christopher Columbus, Spanish theologian Ignatius Loyola and 11^th-Century Castilian knight, Cid Campeador. [ADD]

18/5 -

Marcel Carne’s Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows) is released.   Adapted by Jacques Prevert from Pierre Mac Orlan’s novel, the doom-laden tale of the love of a young girl for an army deserter on the run for murder stars Jean Gabin, Michele Morgan, Michel Simon and Pierre Brasseur. [ADD]

23/5 -

Danielle Darrieux returns to France after completing work on The Rage of Paris in Hollywood for Universal. [ADD]

23/6 -

Over 150,000 people see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in seven weeks at the Marignan Theatre in Paris. [ADD]

Jun -

Declining cinema attendances result in a reduction in admission fees.   Premiere cinemas lower their prices to FF12, while third-run and lower charge just FF3.50. [ADD]

15/7 -

The Fédération Internationale des Archives de Film (FIAF) is established by Henri Langlois.   Its headquarters are in Paris, although its first Congress will be held in New York.  Founder members are The National Film Archive (London), the Reichsfilmarchiv (Berlin), the Museum of Modern Art Film Library (New York) and the Cinémathèque Française (Paris). [ADD] 

1/8 -

Abel Gance, Roger Hubert and Pierre Angenieux obtain a patent for the Pictographe, a device for improving the quality of shots requiring depth of field. [ADD]

10/8 -

Julien Duvivier returns to Paris after shooting The Great Waltz in Hollywood with Fernand Gravey. [ADD]

25/8 -

The Societe nouvelle des establissements Gaumont (SNEG) is founded. [ADD]

7/9 -

Marcel Pagnol’s La Femme du boulanger (The Baker’s Wife) receives its first public screening at a cinema in Marseilles specially renamed Le Cesar for the occasion, after the character played by the lead, Raimu, in Pagnol’s Marseilles trilogy.  Ginette Leclerc (in a role originally intended for Joan Crawford) and Fernand Charpin also star. [ADD]

19/9 -

Marcel Carne begins shooting Hôtel du Nord in the Billancourt studios. [ADD]

19/9 -

Following the French withdrawal from the Venice Film Festival in protest at the awarding of the Mussolini Cup to Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, a group of critics and filmmakers headed by Philippe Erlanger, Robert Favre Le Bret, and Louis Lumiere, come up with the idea of an international film festival to be held in France.   Approval of their plan by Jean Zay, the Minister of Education and Arts results in Biarritz, Vichy, Algiers and Cannes putting forward their proposals to host the festival. [ADD]

6/10 -

Marc Allegret’s Entrée des artistes (The Curtain Rises) is released.   The film stars Louis Jouvet and Odette Joyeux. [ADD]

7/12 -

Max Ophul’s Werther, based on the novel by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, is released.  Shot in black-and-white, but with its exterior shots projected in blue, the film stars Pierre Richard-Willm and Annie Vernay. [ADD]

16/12 -

Marcel Carne’s Hotel du Nord, from a screenplay by Henri Jeanson and Jean Aurenche, is released.   The atmospheric story, about a suicide pact between two lovers, stars Jean-Pierre Aumont, Annabella, Louis Jouvet and Arletty. [ADD]

23/12 -

Jean Renoir’s La Bete Humaine is released.   In this moody, fatalistic tale adapted by Renoir from Emile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart novels, Jean Gabin stars as Jacques, a train driver who witnesses a murder committed by Severine (Simone Simon) and her husband (Fernand Ledoux). [ADD]

23/12 -

Marcel Carne’s Quai des brumes beats off competition from Les Disparus de Saint-Agil, l'Etrange Monsieur Victor, Entrée des artistes, Hôtel du Nord and La Bête humaine to win the third Prix Louis Delluc. [ADD]

Other Key French Films of 1938

Les gens du voyage (Jacques Feyder)  [ADD]

History of Cinema: 1938