La Galerie des monstres

La Galerie des monstres ("the gallery of monsters") is a 1924 French drama film directed by Jaque Catelain, set against the background of a circus in Spain. It was produced by Cinégraphic, the production company of Marcel L'Herbier.

La Galerie des monstres
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Directed byJaque Catelain
Produced byCinégraphic
Marcel L'Herbier
Written byJaque Catelain[1][2]
StarringJaque Catelain
Lois Moran
Jean Murat
CinematographyGeorges Specht
Distributed byLes Grandes Productions Cinématographiques
Release date
  • 26 September 1924 (1924-09-26) (France & Spain)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent (French intertitles)

Plot

In a town in Spanish Castile, a young man, reluctantly living with a roaming band of gypsies, and a local orphan girl want to marry, but when the girl's grandfather forbids their plan, they decide to run away together. A few years later, they have become Riquett's, a clown, and Ralda, a dancer, in a travelling circus which arrives in Toledo. Despite being still in love and having a young child together, the couple's situation is made unhappy by continual attempts to break them apart: by Sveti, a false friend in love with Ralda, by Flossie, an American dancer who constantly flirts with Riquett's, and especially by Buffalo, the tyrannical director of the circus, who lusts after Ralda. Others in the troupe include a giantess, a dwarf, a mermaid, and a bearded lady.

When Buffalo's attempts to seduce Ralda are rejected, he provokes a lion and releases it from its cage on to the stage where Ralda is dancing. She is badly mauled, but Buffalo claims it was just a small accident and forces Riquett's to continue with his act. Madame Violette, the downtrodden wife of Buffalo, has witnessed the true story and secretly helps the couple to escape with their child. Once they are safe, she denounces her husband.

Cast

Production

The film was financed by Marcel L'Herbier's production company Cinégraphic and it was the second to be directed by the actor Jaque Catelain, following the relative success of his previous film Le Marchand de plaisirs. In December 1923 L'Herbier offered the project to Catelain, provided that within a fortnight he could produce a scenario which should be set in a circus or menagerie.[1]

In addition to Catelain in the leading role, the cast included the film début of the American dancer and actress Lois Moran who was only 15 at the time. Jean Murat also appeared in one of his earliest film roles, and Kiki de Montparnasse made a short appearance as a circus dancer. Alberto Cavalcanti was the assistant director as well as contributing to the set designs along with Djo Bourgeois. In his supervisory role for the production, Marcel L'Herbier was credited for "direction artistique".[3][2]

Filming then began in February 1924 with location shooting in Spain, in Toledo, Pedraza and Segovia, where much of the landscape was covered in snow. The remainder of filming took place at Studios Éclair in Épinay. The large number of characters and extras (plus circus animals) made the process a difficult one for Catelain as actor/director, and despite the film's warm reception it contributed to his decision to limit his role to acting in the future.[1][2]

Reception

The film received a preview screening for the "Amis du Cinéma" at the Artistic-Cinéma in Paris on 18 May 1924. It was then released simultaneously in France and Spain in September that year, with a positive reception.[2]

For the central sequences of Riquett's frenetic dance on stage and the lion's attack, the film used montages of rapid editing, sometimes almost subliminal, to create a complex impression of parallel action or thought (a technique which was also employed in other 'avant-garde' French films of the period such as La Roue, Cœur fidèle, and L'Inhumaine).[4] These devices were variously received in reviews, either as over-elaborate and distracting[5] or as dynamic and essential.[6][7] The film was also released in Japan in 1925 and made an impact there: when the film magazine Kinema junpô asked its readers to vote on the best films of the year, La Galerie des monstres achieved first place.[8]

A 4K restoration of La Galerie des monstres from the original negative was carried out by the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) in 2019.

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References
  1. Jaque Catelain. Jaque Catelain présente Marcel L'Herbier. (Paris: Jacques Vautrain, 1950) pp. 80-81.
  2. Marcel L'Herbier. La Tête qui tourne. (Paris: Belfond, 1979) pp. 110-111.
  3. La Galerie des monstres at Ciné-ressources [retrieved 23 May 2020].
  4. Review by René Jeanne, in Paris-Soir, 13 sept. 1924, p.5 : "Indiscutablement ce film est, du moins en ses moyens d'expression, un film d'avant-garde" ("assuredly this film is, at least in its means of expression, an avant-garde film").
  5. Review by André Tinchant, in Cinémagazine, no.20, 16 mai 1924: "... nous ne ferons plus alors qu'une restriction, quant à la qualité de cette œuvre, qui atteindrait presque la perfection si elle n'était pourvue d'une technique quelquefois trop riche, trop étourdissante, et ce fatalement à la dépense de la simplicité et de l'émotion" ("...we will make only one reservation, as to the quality of this work, which would almost attain perfection if it had not been provided with a technique that is sometimes too rich, too overwhelming, and inevitably at the cost of simplicity and emotion".
  6. Review by Jacques Parsons, in Paris-Midi, 17 juin 1924, pp.1-2: "...un très bon film ... le mouvement et le rhythme impérieusement nécessaires" ("...a very good film ... movement and rhythm masterfully necessary".
  7. Marcel L'Herbier. La Tête qui tourne. (Paris: Belfond, 1979) p. 111: "...la salle goûta fort la dynamique de ce spectacle" (".... the audience greatly relished the dynamics of this display").
  8. Aaron Gerow. A Page of Madness: Cinema and Modernity in 1920s Japan. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2008) Chapter 2: Taishō and Its Cinema (pp. 7-11): "The list of the best ten films released in 1925 voted by the readers of the leading film magazine, Kinema junpô, was topped by Jacques Catelain and Marcel L’Herbier’s La Galerie des monstres and Alexandre Volkoff’s Kean (both 1924), two French films imbued with the film culture of ciné clubs and film purism that in film history is loosely called French Impressionism."


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