
Directing
Marcel L'Herbier
Born 1888-04-23 · Paris, France
Marcel L'Herbier (1888-1979) was a French filmmaker who achieved prominence as an avant-garde theorist and imaginative practitioner with a series of silent films in the 1920s. His career as a director continued until the 1950s and he made more than 40 feature films in total. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked on cultural programmes for French television. He also fulfilled many administrative roles in the French film industry, and he was the founder and the first President of the French film school Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC). In 1921, only three years after his first film, Marcel L'Herbier was voted by readers of a French film magazine as the best French director. In the following year, the critic Léon Moussinac marked him as one of the filmmakers whose work was most important for the future of cinema. In this period, L'Herbier was linked with filmmakers such as Abel Gance, Germaine Dulac and Louis Delluc as part of a "first avant-garde" (Impressionism) in French cinema, the first generation to think spontaneously in animated images.
Acting credits
9.0Flora Nys, a poor flower girl of Paris faces hard times. Her rent overdue, Le Baron, the landlord, oppresses her and puts before her a shady proposition. Indignantly she orders him out of her room. When she takes up her flowers, preparatory to going forth to sell them, she discovers that Le Baron has trampled on them. Tempted by her poverty she steals a fur in a department store.
Infatuation
1918
8.0A documentary about the making of L'argent, the epic silent film directed by Marcel L'Herbier. The film shows the details of many of the more complicated moving camera shots.
Autour de l'argent
1929
Behind the camera
7.0Comtesse Della Gentia and her lover Paul attempt to seduce and blackmail a rich neighbour Juan, who is in love with a naïve young friend of theirs, Clarisse. Their plot fails; the Comtesse kills herself at a ball, and her lover re-covers her face with its mask.
Le Carnaval des vérités
1920
7.0Comtesse Della Gentia and her lover Paul attempt to seduce and blackmail a rich neighbour Juan, who is in love with a naïve young friend of theirs, Clarisse. Their plot fails; the Comtesse kills herself at a ball, and her lover re-covers her face with its mask.
Le Carnaval des vérités
1920
6.0An indigenous uprising in British controlled Iraq threatens the route to India, as a lobe triangle develops among the expatriates.
The Imperial Road
1935
7.0Adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, the film portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.
L'Argent
1928
7.0Adapted from the novel L'Argent by Émile Zola, the film portrays the world of banking and the stock market in Paris in the 1920s.
L'Argent
1928
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Le marchand de plaisirs
1923
6.9A famous singer Claire Lescot, who lives on the outskirts of Paris, is courted by many men, including a maharajah, Djorah de Nopur, and a young Swedish scientist, Einar Norsen. At her lavish parties she enjoys their amorous attentions but she remains emotionally aloof and heartlessly taunts them. When she is told that Norsen has killed himself because of her, she shows no feelings. At her next concert she is booed by an audience outraged at her coldness and she decides to visit the vault in which Norsen's body lies.
The Inhuman Woman
1924
6.6Denise Moret joins her husband, Pierre, in Mongolia where he works as a civil engineer. One night she loose a lot of money on the roulette and therefore is forced to borrow money from Prince Lee-Lang. The Prince immediately begins to flirt and make advances towards Denise. Advances she rejects.
Forfaiture
1937
7.0A woman suffers ill repute when she deserts her husband for a fling with an adventurer and gives the lover jewelry to pay the hotel bill. Will the husband be understanding and forgive her?
The Scandal
1934
7.0A woman suffers ill repute when she deserts her husband for a fling with an adventurer and gives the lover jewelry to pay the hotel bill. Will the husband be understanding and forgive her?
The Scandal
1934
6.3A scandalised Frenchman returns from Africa where he has been involved in illegal trading of mines (resulting in the deaths of many African miners). His bourgeois family are wary of the shame that he will bring so he must try to redeem himself and his family's name.
The Adventurer
1934
6.0The film opens with the overthrow of the Czar during the 1917 Russian revolution. The family of General Count Svirsky (Roger Karl) cower in their home, certain that the mobs of angry peasants will tear them apart. But even in this moment of crisis, Svirsky can find time to murder the young officer who has been having an affair with Countess Svirska (Emmy Lynn). The Countess knows what has happened, but she loyally remains with her husband as they escape to the safety of the French Riviera. It is here that the Countess meets Henri de Cassel (Jaque Catelain), the “living image” of her dead lover.
Le Vertige
1926
6.0The film opens with the overthrow of the Czar during the 1917 Russian revolution. The family of General Count Svirsky (Roger Karl) cower in their home, certain that the mobs of angry peasants will tear them apart. But even in this moment of crisis, Svirsky can find time to murder the young officer who has been having an affair with Countess Svirska (Emmy Lynn). The Countess knows what has happened, but she loyally remains with her husband as they escape to the safety of the French Riviera. It is here that the Countess meets Henri de Cassel (Jaque Catelain), the “living image” of her dead lover.
Le Vertige
1926
No synopsis available yet.
Villa Destin
1921
6.7In Granada in Spain, Sibilla works as a dancer in a squalid cabaret called El Dorado, struggling to earn enough to care for her sick child. The boy's father Estiria, a prominent citizen, refuses them both help and recognition, fearful of jeopardising the engagement of his adult daughter Iliana to a wealthy nobleman. Iliana however slips away from her engagement party to meet her real lover Hedwick, a Swedish painter. Sibilla, in desperation after a further rejection by Estiria, sees an opportunity to blackmail him by locking the lovers overnight in their meeting-place in the Alhambra.
El Dorado
1921
6.7In Granada in Spain, Sibilla works as a dancer in a squalid cabaret called El Dorado, struggling to earn enough to care for her sick child. The boy's father Estiria, a prominent citizen, refuses them both help and recognition, fearful of jeopardising the engagement of his adult daughter Iliana to a wealthy nobleman. Iliana however slips away from her engagement party to meet her real lover Hedwick, a Swedish painter. Sibilla, in desperation after a further rejection by Estiria, sees an opportunity to blackmail him by locking the lovers overnight in their meeting-place in the Alhambra.
El Dorado
1921
5.7Adrienne Lecouvreur is an acclaimed actress who falls in love with Polish prince Maurice de Saxe, only to be poisoned by a jealous rival while Maurice is away at war. The film was a co-production between the two countries, and was made at UFA's Berlin Studios. It was based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé about the life of the eighteenth century actress Adrienne Lecouvreur.
Adrienne Lecouvreur
1938
5.7Adrienne Lecouvreur is an acclaimed actress who falls in love with Polish prince Maurice de Saxe, only to be poisoned by a jealous rival while Maurice is away at war. The film was a co-production between the two countries, and was made at UFA's Berlin Studios. It was based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé about the life of the eighteenth century actress Adrienne Lecouvreur.
Adrienne Lecouvreur
1938
6.0After the death of her mother, Germaine moves in with her father in a small town near the Rhône river. She falls in love with a young man, Alban, already engaged.
The Flood
1924
19th Century Russia. State prosecutor Fedor Andreiev is presiding over the trial of a man who murdered his wife's lover. Despite a robust defence from the brilliant young lawyer Serge Rostoff, the accused man is found guilty and will be deported to Siberia. Having spoken to the condemned man, Fedor Andreiev sees a disturbing parallel with his own life...
Nights of Fire
1937
19th Century Russia. State prosecutor Fedor Andreiev is presiding over the trial of a man who murdered his wife's lover. Despite a robust defence from the brilliant young lawyer Serge Rostoff, the accused man is found guilty and will be deported to Siberia. Having spoken to the condemned man, Fedor Andreiev sees a disturbing parallel with his own life...
Nights of Fire
1937
6.2A vamp seduces a banker and breaks with him when she's obtained all that she wanted.
Prometheus, Banker
1921
6.2A vamp seduces a banker and breaks with him when she's obtained all that she wanted.
Prometheus, Banker
1921
7.4An experimental short from 1923 France which offers silent narrative in diverse, optical multi-exposures and severe close-ups offering dense montages which create psychological constructs that unfold a Parisian love affair which turns into a threesome of great emotion and consequences. Also notable for using Antonin Artaud as the male lead.
News Item
1923