Happy Birthday, Jacques Tourneur! Born today in 1904, this French-born Hollywood film director was known chiefly for his classic film noirs and a series of macabre, low-budget horror features that he made for RKO Studios.
Born in Paris, France, Tourneur was the son of French film director and screenwriter Maurice Tourneur. At age ten, Jacques moved to the United States with his father.
Years later, it was here that he started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk in various silent films.
Tourneur worked on the films of his father in the United States and then later in Paris. At the beginning of his career, Tourneur began work as an editor and assistant director. This was where Jacques made his directorial debut in the early 1930s.
This was the French black and white drama film 'Tout ça ne vaut pas l'amour' ('All This is Not Worth the Love').
The opening is clearly reminiscent of the overture of 'The Leopard-Man' (about twelve years before!), and the plot's displaying of the negative forces at work in romance seem to wave at 'Cat People', in an un-frightening but not un-cruel way.
Three years later, Tourneur went back to Hollywood in 1934 where he had a contract with MGM Studios.
While working as the second unit director on American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive David O. Selznick's 1935 American black and white drama film 'A Tale of Two Cities'.
The film had been based off of Charles Dickens' 1859 historical social criticism fiction novel of the same name.
In 1935, he returned to America, making shorts and B features at MGM. This was before hitting his stride with several brilliantly understated features for Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter Val Lewton at RKO.
Four years later, Tourneur made his feature debut as director with the 1939 American black and white crime/drama film 'They All Come Out'.
While in Hollywood, Tourneur was usually addressed by his anglicized name "Jack Turner", a literal and phonetic translation of his name in English.
It would be in Hollywood where Tourneur had inherited his father's gift for atmospheric, evocative compositions and put it to good use in westerns, film noirs, and thrillers.
After Tourneur was dropped by MGM in 1941, he was picked up by Lewton to film several acclaimed low-budget horror films for RKO Studios.
The most notable are the two that he directed after his debut feature. This included the 1942 American black and white horror/fantasy film 'Cat People' and the 1943 American black and white horror/drama film 'I Walked with a Zombie', with Lewton producing both.
The former film tells of Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a New York City--based fashion designer who hails from Serbia, of whom begins a romance with marine engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith).
After the couple gets married, Oliver becomes concerned about Irena's notion that she is cursed and may transform into a large cat in the heat of passion.
Confiding in his beautiful assistant, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), about his marital issues, Oliver unwittingly triggers Irena's curse, with tragic results.
Retrospective reception of the original film has been varied. Some modern critics have described the film as being too subdued for the genre and have deprecated the quality of the acting.
Others have praised the film's atmosphere and sophistication, with Roger Ebert describing it and the other Val Lewton productions as landmark films of the 1940s.
Upon release, 'Cat People' was later considered to be a B movie and didn't have a very big budget, yet the style of lighting and cinematography gave it an edge that has been imitated countless times.
For a B picture with a running time of seventy-three minutes made on $135,000, 'Cat People' became RKO's top grosser for 1942, bringing in $4 million.
The latter film tells of Canadian nurse Betsey Connell (Frances Dee), of whom is hired to care for Jessica Holland (Christine Gordon), a woman on a Caribbean sugar plantation, who has a bizarre condition.
The mysterious affliction baffles Betsy but when she falls for Jessica's husband, Paul (Tom Conway), she is determined to make him happy by curing his wife.
However, in her quest, Betsey is drawn into the island's dark culture of voodoo and zombies and begins to uncover the Holland family's sinister secrets.
'I Walked with a Zombie' had been based off of American writer and columnist Inez Wallace's article of the same name. The film also partly reinterprets the narrative of Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel Jane Eyre.
One month later, Tourneur directed the 1943 American black and white horror/psychological thriller film 'The Leopard Man'.
It is one of the first American films to attempt an even remotely realistic portrayal of a serial killer (although that term was yet to be used).
After 'The Leopard Man', Tourneur was promoted to the A-list at RKO, directing such films as the 1947 American black and white noir/crime film 'Out of the Past' (billed in the United Kingdom as 'Build My Gallows High') and the 1948 American black and white drama noir/thriller film 'Berlin Express'.
The former is the third and final film of which Tourneur is best known for directing.
It was based off of American novelist and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring's (using the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes) 1946 mystery fiction book Build My Gallows High. Mainwaring also wrote the film's screenplay.
The film tells of the quiet life of small-town gas station owner Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). However, it is interrupted when a figure from his shady past, small-time crook Joe Stephanos (Paul Valentine), recognizes him.
Stephanos' boss, crooked gambler Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas), had hired Jeff to track down Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), a girlfriend who shot Whit and made off with $40,000 of his.
Jeff and Kathie eventually fell in love, but she later leaves him to go back to Sterling, of whom now wants Jeff to settle a few old scores.
Today, film historians consider 'Out of the Past' a superb example of film noir for its complex, fatalistic storyline, dark cinematography, and classic femme fatale.
During the 1950s, Tourneur became a freelance director, filming excellent various genre films. These included 'Stars is my Crown' (1950), 'The Flame and the Arrow' (1950), 'Anne of the Indies' (1951), 'Way of a Gaucho', (1952), 'Wichita' (1955), 'Nightfall' (1957), and 'Night of the Demon' (1957).
Tourneur's last films both starred Vincent Price, being 'The Comedy of Terrors' (1963) and 'City Under the Sea' (1965), released as 'War-Gods of the Deep'. The latter film was based off of Edgar Allan Poe's 1831 poem "The City in the Sea".
After his final days in working for film, Tourneur began directing television episodes. These included one-episode Bonanza (1959–1973), one episode of The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), The Alaskans (1959–1960) and eleven episodes of The Barbara Stanwyck Show (1960–1961).
Tourneur's final director credit was for an episode of the American action fiction drama television series T.H.E. Cat, airing on December 30, 1966. Afterwards, he retired and returned to France.
In directing television episodes, Tourneur stated: "Largely, I hate doing television; it's horrible. It's against everything I believe in; if you don't bring some of your individuality and some of your experience and sensitivity to bear on a subject, you don't get more than a mechanical result."
Eleven years later, Tourneur passed in Bergerac, Dordogne, France on December 19, 1977. He was 73.
Five years later, Paul Schrader ('Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters')directed the 1982 American erotic horror thriller film 'Cat People'.
n the early 1980s, Universal Pictures hired Schrader to remake ‘Cat People’. The remake was announced and began shooting in 1981.
According to American cinematographer and film director John Bailey, Schrader paid homage to the stalking scene in the original with a scene featuring Annette O'Toole's character jogging through a park as she appears to be stalked.
Bailey and Schrader also remade the swimming pool scene. Bailey recalled that the two carefully studied the original scene, taking note of how the shadows reflected against the pool.
Bailey stated that the pool sequence was the most similar of the homages, remarking that the primary reason for this was that "we didn't think we could do it any better".
Schrader has said, in relation to the erotic and horror aspects of ‘Cat People’, that the film "contains more skin than blood".
He has described the film as being more about the mythical than the realistic. He has likened the relation between Oliver and Irena to Dante and Beatrice, putting the female on a pedestal.
In 1991, 'Out of the Past' was added to the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
In 1993, 'Cat People' was selected by Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Of 'Cat People', Roger Ebert wrote in March 2006: "It had renewed the careers of its producer Val Lewton, its director Jacques Tourneur and its star, the French actress Simone Simon; it inspired ten more macabre titles from Lewton's production unit and was copied all over Hollywood -- because it was scary, and because it was cheap. What was hard to copy was its artistry."
As a filmmaker, Tourneur directed masterpieces in many different genres, all showing a great command of mood and atmosphere.
He was a master of macabre suspense of whom had hit his peak in the 1940s with such atmospheric gems as the low-budget Val Lewton-produced horror classics.
Torneur had been active from 1931–1965.
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