The wonderful exploits of Nick Carter [Robert Saidreau - Chapter 2]

To read the first chapter of this essay on the work of director Robert Saidreau, click here.

A director of crime movies?

In volume 1 of their Histoire du Cinéma which deals with French Cinema from 1895 -1929, René Jeanne and Charles Ford retain the name of Robert Saidreau among the directors of the Eclair studios, but unlike Le Film magazine, they do not place him in comedy, but "specialized in crime films".
They claim in particular that it is he who directs the popular series of Nick Carter films with Pierre Bressol in the title role, to compete with Nick Winter made by Pathé. On this point, they are quite confused: it is of course Nick Winter, created two years later, who parodies Carter, and not the other way around.

Nick Carter, first series

On Ciné-ressources, we can read that a series of six films Nick Carter, the king of the detectives was indeed shot with Pierre Bressol in 1908. The six films would have been directed by Victorin Jasset. These are, with their release date:

• Le Guet-apens (September 18, 1908)
  
• L'Affaire des bijoux (September 22, 1908)
  
• Les Faux-monnayeurs (October 6, 1908)
  
• Les Dévaliseurs de banque (October 20, 1908)
  
• Les Empreintes (October 27, 1908)
  
• Les Bandits en habit noir (November 15, 1908)
  

On a poster which promotes this first series, there are indeed two of these titles (The bank robbers and The bandits in black clothes) but is also mentioned "The walled man", perhaps an alternative title for one of the films.

Nick Carter returns

The site also retains six other later titles, it would actually appear to be two series of three films, first Nick Carter's New Feats also attributed to Jasset:

• En danger (March 4, 1909)
• Le sosie ou Une mission périlleuse (March 11, 1909)
• Le club des suicidés (Septembre 20, 1909)

and The marvelous exploits of Nick Carter (still from Jasset):

• Les dragées soporifiques (27 septembre 1909) 
• Nick Carter acrobate (30 janvier 1910)
• Le mystère du lit blanc (29 décembre 1911) 

The last title is an unexpected one called Max against Nick Winter, which was released by Pathé on May 31, 1912, with Max Linder. We are surprised that it is Bressol who replaces Georges Vinter in the role at the competing producing company. Maybe a mistake?
After this title, it seems that Bressol devoted himself to his recurring character of Nat Pinkerton until the start of the war.

Zigomar

In any case, Éclair replaces him in the role with Charles Krauss, who had already participated in The Exploits, and now plays the detective in:

• Zigomar, roi des voleurs (September 14, 1911)
• Zigomar contre Nick Carter (March 22, 1912)

In fact, on the YouTube channel of the EYE Filmmuseum, there is a Dutch version of De bende van Z (The Z gang), titled Zigomar vs Nick Carter. 

 

You guessed it, the series is now that of Zigomar, played by Alexandre Arquillière, and Nick Carter plays second fiddle. Impossible to determine the director by viewing the copy, even though it retains its period titles. By the way, the film shows a frame-by-frame animation sequence of the furniture of Zigomar's gaming house which commands admiration in a crime serial!
Another detail amused me. When Zigomar applis his makeup in front of the mirror, like Fantômas, unlike a convention admitted later, the spectator does not see his face in the mirror (the actor actually uses it), but the studio lights which then dazzle the camera.

 

Yet the authors persist further in the same book by mentioning the achievements of Saidreau's comedies as being a renunciation of "the detective films of its beginnings". In this at least, they seem partially informed because Le Film magazine, although it never clearly mentions that Saidreau directs comedies, twice insists that his films mix "gaiety" and "comedy" with other qualities. It is therefore more than likely that, even if he is indeed responsible for the direction of crime films, he has already made a specialty of comedy.
But if Victorin Jasset is so attached to the series, what do the authors have to say about this director?
They talk about his collaboration on "10 reels" in collaboration with Marcel Vibert, the most remarkable of which would be Au pays des ténèbres (1912). Imdb only retains two titles including this one. Besides that, they lend him the direction of the Zigomar series.

Zigomar at the Grand Cinéma Plaisir

Jean Tulard, for his part, attributes everything to Jasset and Jean Mitry also retains him as director of Nick Carter.
Françoise Ménager, President of the Manège de Givet, in an interview on France 3 on March 8, 2016 affirms that the author of Zigomar, Léon Sazie, sued Éclair, dissatisfied with Jasset's overly free adaptations.
We have 3 hypotheses left:

• There is at least one more Nick Carter series, directed by Saidreau
• The attribution to Jasset of at least one of these 3 series is wrong
• René Jeanne & Charles Ford are wrong in their attribution

Another series?

Let’s examine the first theory. We find in La Cinématographie Française of August 9, 1919 the summary of a drama in four parts, a Union-Eclair exclusive, entitled The drama of the villa Mortain in which we find the name of our famous detective Nick Carter. However, if we are to believe the imdb, Pierre Bressol plays in it and directs the film!

 Ciné Pour Tous announces for March 26, 1920 the release of the film A Drop of Blood, with Pierre Bressol in the role of Nick Carter. It is specified that it is about a "dramatic vision of Messrs. Étienne Michel and Pierre Brissol. Should we deduce from this that they are screenwriters, directors or both? On January 17, 1920, La Cinématographie Française seemed to have answered this question: "scenario of MM. Michel et Bressol. ”, But also“ Bressol has finished his very beautiful dramatic film. ” So, in the case of Bressol, it seems that he takes on both tasks.

On May 8, 1920, a corporate advertisement in La Cinématographie Française presented these two films as a "Nick Carter series".

It is entirely possible that this is an achievement by Robert Saidreau, uncredited. But no evidence comes to support this hypothesis, and the supposed paternity of Saidreau of Nick Carter is evoked by Ford and Jeanne in a paragraph which deals with pre-war cinema.

Let us quote all the same, to be as exhaustive as possible, the American productions, clearly not carried out by him, but which do take again the character. On May 24, 1919, a film entitled Jack, the king of detectives, exclusive to Cinématographes Harry appeared in La Cinématographie Française which gave a detailed summary including Nick Carter. However, it appears to be an adaptation of an American film. It is therefore very possible that a detective character was renamed Nick Carter in French titles.

On July 24, 1920, La Cinématographie Française also announced a series of Nick Carter films by Broodwell Production Cie, the first episode of which was supposed to be The Hundred Thousand Dollar Kiss. It's actually Broadwell Productions and the movie in question is called $ 100,000 Kiss with Thomas Karrigan in the lead role who will indeed play the detective 14 times.

Jasset or Saidreau?

Concerning the second hypothesis, it is difficult to attribute a film formally to a director before 1918. In fact, the credits and posters, when they exist, do not mention them. And the film reviews so useful for understanding the History of Lost Films have not yet been created. The cinema is then still largely an attraction of fairs, badly regarded and very little present in the press which is limited at best to announce the title of a screening.

Finally, concerning the third hypothesis, and the possible error on the part of the authors of the encyclopedia, one is astonished that a personal friend of Saidreau made such an error. But anything is possible. In any case, it seems certain that Saidreau's talent was not limited to the crme genre or even to comedy as we will see in the following chapters.

To read the next chapter on the work of director Robert Saidreau, click here.

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That's all for today folks! See you soon !