Foreign Cinema: French Stars

9 months ago 14th Jan 13:58

This week FemaleFirst has been looking at the rise of French cinema, and year on year it seems to be breaking more and more into the mainstream and gaining a worldwide audience.

We continue this theme by looking at some of the country's biggest stars that have helped the French film industry become what it is today.

Jean Gabin was a major star kicking off his career at nineteen, it would go on to span over four decades, in a string of minor roles. But the First World War halted his acting as he completed his military career before returning to the theatre big screen and then the big screen in silent movies.

But by 1930 he had made the transition into talking pictures making a dozen movies in the short space of four years with recognition coming in 1934 for his role in Maria Chapdelaine.

With further success in La Bandera it wasn't until 1937 and the movie Pepe le Moko that Gabin received worldwide fame and this led to a role in Jean Renoir's big screen masterpiece la Grande Illusion, an anti-war film that was a massive box office hit and Hollywood came calling.

He turned down all his Hollywood offers until the Second World War when he moved to America after the German occupation of France. But Hollywood was not as successful a move as he hoped that it would be as being difficult to work with seriously damaged his reputation.

Gabin faced more problems back at home when he was fired from Les Portes de la Nuit and his career looked to be in tatters. However in 1954 he made a successful comeback in Touchez pas au Grisbi and his career once again flourished.