Jack [Robert Saidreau - Chapter 20]

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

A drama by Alphonse Daudet with Max de Rieux

Modernized adaptation of Alphonse Daudet's novel for Vitagraph, his latest film, released after the death of its director, who here departs from his favorite genre. Jack is indeed a melodrama in which the main character is persecuted to death. We follow him from his childhood, where he is played by the child actor Jean Forest, as an adult, played by Max de Rieux, whom I recently mentioned as the director of one of the versions of La belle Meunière by Marcel Pagnol. Max is interviewed in Comoedia on April 3, 1925: "I am going, with Jack, to leave the classes where the cinema seemed to assign me a place. I am already all in my new role which particularly appeals to me; it is a character. that I 'feel' and that my joy is great to achieve under the able direction of Robert Saidreau."

 

Max de Rieux is indeed already known on the screen with two main roles in prestige films. One is another adaptation by the same author, directed by André Hugon: Le petit chose, and the other is Les Grands by Henri Fescourt. His next film to be released has already been shot: How I Killed My Child by Alexandre Ryder.
If we are to believe Le Gaulois of June 8, 1923 (which announces the shooting) and Comœdia of April 3, 1925 (which announces the upcoming presentation), he also shot with the same André Hugon a film entitled Le saphir blanc with "A . Toulout "(Jean?), And Mlle Gray (Florence, Irma, Minia, Sylvia?) From a short story by Raymond Genty. But I can no longer find any trace of this film beyond these two publications. Still, the jack-of-all-trades actor, already very active on stage, will soon go behind the camera to direct his own films.
The other actors are, as usual and in part, used to working with Saidreau: André Dubosc is returning for at least the 4th time, Yanne Exiane for the second and will end her career on the screen here, just like Suzanne Balco and Émile Garandet who collaborate with the director for the third time.

Thérèse Kolb has apparently never played in Saidreau's films, but she shared the screen with him in Blanchette, where she played the mother.
Among the newcomers, however, we must point out Alexiane, noticed in Le lion des Mogols and that we will see again in The Chess Player, Roger Tréville who will make a career in the early French talkies, then in dubbing as the voice of James Stewart and Robert Mitchum. Finally, of course, two musketeers from Henri Diamant-Berger's films: D'Artagnan - Jean Yonnel (Twenty Years After) and Porthos - Thomy Bourdelle (The Three Musketeers).

Shotting

Before being able to embark on this adaptation, we learn in Paris Midi on February 13, 1925 that Saidreau has just dealt with Daudet's heirs. By April 2, casting is basically done. One actress mentioned in particular is a mysterious "Mme Ruez". L'Intransigeant adds Jean Forest to the list on April 4 and announces the iminence of the shooting. On May 9, we are confirmed that it has been started a month ago and that the interiors were done in Épinay-sur-Seine.

It seems that the filming continues at the castle of Étiolles. It may be that this is the Château du Parc de la Pompadour, which we find online was bought in 1908 by an owner who had it destroyed. If so, the building was still standing in 1925.
The exteriors are then planned in Indret, an island located at the time in the Lower Loire, today in the Atlantic Loire, where there is an old foundry and where the novel is located. On May 30, the exteriors are completed according to L'Intransigeant. According to Le Petit Parisien, it has been a done deal since August 1.

Yonnel, Dubosc, Forest, Exiane and Saidreauon the set of Jack

Release

Paris Midi on October 28, 1925 tells us that the film will be screened at the Marivaux in Brussels and throughout Belgium on Friday (therefore October 30, 1925). Which means that it was therefore exploited in Belgium before France, where the corporate presentation only takes place on November 24, 1925 according to Paris Midi.
 
But lo and behold, on December 5, 1925, Robert Saidreau died. The press of the time says he was 50 years old, although he seems to have only been 48.
 
It was not until January 22, 1926 that Jack came out at the Palais des Fêtes and the friend of the director René Jeanne estimated in Le Petit Journal released that day that "Jack will certainly experience a good emotional success.". We then find the film on March 21, at the Eden in Vincennes, and on April 23 at the Odeon in Marseille.
Meanwhile, on February 20, 1926, a journalist from L'Intransigeant regretted that Saidreau's name did not even appear on a poster of the film he saw.
On November 6, 1925, in Cinémagazine, one can admire a beautiful poster of the film reproduced in  on a double page where the name of Saidreau is clearly visible.

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

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