Claude Laydu

Acting

Claude Laydu

Born — Died

1927-03-10 — 2011-07-29

Place of birth

Etterbeek, Belgique

Known for

Acting

Credits

20 titles

Claude Laydu ([klod lɛjdy]; 10 March 1927 – 29 July 2011) was a Belgian-born Swiss actor on stage and in films. He was renowned for his performance in his film debut in the role of the young priest in Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951), which has been described as one of the greatest in the history of film. Laydu was born and grew up in Brussels. He moved to Paris to study at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts. He became a member of Madeleine Renaud and Jean-Louis Barrault's company at the Théâtre Marigny, when he was selected by director Robert Bresson for his first role in a film, as the titular young priest in Diary of a Country Priest, based on the 1936 novel of the sa…

Known for

Bonne nuit les petits poster
6.4

No synopsis available yet.

Bonne nuit les petits

1962

Diary of a Country Priest poster
7.5

An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.

Diary of a Country Priest

1951

We Are All Murderers poster
6.7

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We Are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.

We Are All Murderers

1952

The Dialogue of the Carmelites poster
7.4

This drama about the Carmelite order of nuns is set during the French Revolution. A young woman seeks refuge with the Carmelites because she is terrified of dying during the upheaval. The longer she associates with the nuns the more she is transformed by their faith and devotion. 

The Dialogue of the Carmelites

1960

Heart of the Casbah poster
7.3

Maria-Pilar is the new wife of an Algerian gangster whom the police have just arrested. The son of a first marriage arrives in Algiers from which he has remained far away for a long time. His stepmother, charmed by the teenager, gradually experiences a devouring passion, against which Michel tries in vain to fight: he loves a young girl, Sylvie. Mad with jealousy, his stepmother singles him out for his father's vengeance by distorting the truth. Michel does not escape his father's fury, but when the woman's deception becomes known, Maria-Pilar is strangled to death.

Heart of the Casbah

1952

Attila poster
5.4

Attila, the leader of the barbarian Huns and called by the Romans "The Scourge of God", sweeps onto the Italian peninsula, defeating all of the armies of Rome, until he and his men reach the gates of the city itself.

Attila

1954

Film credits

1950s · 14 titles

Diary of a Country Priest poster
7.5

An inexperienced, sickly priest shows up in the rural French community of Ambricourt, where he joins the community's clergy. But the locals don't take kindly to the priest, and his ascetic ways and unsociable demeanor make him an outcast. During Bible studies at the nearby girls school, he is continually mocked by his students. Then his attempt to intervene in a family feud backfires into a scandal. His failures, compounded with his declining health, begin to erode his faith.

Diary of a Country Priest

1951

We Are All Murderers poster
6.7

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We Are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.

We Are All Murderers

1952

Heart of the Casbah poster
7.3

Maria-Pilar is the new wife of an Algerian gangster whom the police have just arrested. The son of a first marriage arrives in Algiers from which he has remained far away for a long time. His stepmother, charmed by the teenager, gradually experiences a devouring passion, against which Michel tries in vain to fight: he loves a young girl, Sylvie. Mad with jealousy, his stepmother singles him out for his father's vengeance by distorting the truth. Michel does not escape his father's fury, but when the woman's deception becomes known, Maria-Pilar is strangled to death.

Heart of the Casbah

1952

Attila poster
5.4

Attila, the leader of the barbarian Huns and called by the Romans "The Scourge of God", sweeps onto the Italian peninsula, defeating all of the armies of Rome, until he and his men reach the gates of the city itself.

Attila

1954

I Was a Parish Priest poster
7.4

A young priest encounters major problems in the diocese where he must preach the word of the Lord, mainly as a result of hatred caused by differences in classes

I Was a Parish Priest

1953

Trip to America poster
6.5

As part of the fascination in post World War II France with American culture, a young French couple here travel to the US to see for themselves the prosperity they have heard about.

Trip to America

1951

Symphony of Love poster
7.2

It is a biopic portraying the life of the composer Franz Schubert.

Symphony of Love

1954

Price of Love poster
5.4

Because he loved a trainer named Suzy too much, honest Pierre Menard wasted his life and died. Innocent, but implicated in the ransacking of a jewelry store, he receives a five-year residence ban, which he ignores, only to find himself reduced to joining Paulo's sinister gang. The police finally arrest him and force him to become an informer if he doesn't want to leave Paris. He accepts and signs his death warrant.

Price of Love

1955

Napoleon Road poster
5.7

A greedy advertising executive wants to attract the tourists into a small village:he claims Napoleon slept in the local inn on his was back from Elbe island.

Napoleon Road

1953

Good Lord Without Confession poster
6.0

Stuck in a loveless marriage, bourgeois industrialist Francois falls in love with Janine, another man's wife. Francois sets up Janine as his mistress, and she, mercenary soul that she is, likes the set-up so much that she continues the relationship even when her own husband returns from WW II. In the long run, however, Janine is the loser in the situation.

Good Lord Without Confession

1953

The Road to Damascus poster
8.0

Saul De Tarse is a Roman soldier who is making rough all over. He arrives at the Golgotha when the apostles remove the cross. He ruthlessly persecutes the Christians, even though they are his own friends.

The Road to Damascus

1952

Rasputin poster
6.5

Gregory Iefommovich Raspoutine is a monk with healing powers and a liking for debauchery who manages to insinuate himself into the court of the Romanoffs thanks to Princess Dikvona. Being the only person able to heal he son of Czar Nicolas II and Czarina Alexandra from his hemophilia, he becomes a very powerful man, which infuriates many.A group of nobles, determined to save the monarchy, start conspiring to murder him.

Rasputin

1954

The Wheel poster
6.6

Pierre is an engine driver who adopts a small girl, a WWI orphan. A widower, he sees in her the image of her mother.

The Wheel

1957

Altair poster
9.0

In the military academy of the Nisida Air Force a new course begins which sees among the new recruits called "chicks": Giorgio, forced by his father after he squandered millions at the gaming table; De Montel son of a general, Mario who wants to follow in the footsteps of his father who died in combat; Antonio who declares himself Neapolitan while coming from the province and Ugo who comes from the north.

Altair

1956

Series credits

Behind the camera