The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (105 page)

In the last few years, he has gathered no credits—which does not mean he is idle. But it may be that the great advances in digital filming left him dismayed.

Philippe de Broca
, (1933–2004), b. Paris
1959:
Les Jeux de l’Amour/Playing at Love
. 1960:
Le Farceur/The Joker
. 1961:
L’Amant de Cinq Jours/Infidelity;
“La Gourmandise,” episode from
Les Sept Péchés Capitaux
. 1962:
Cartouche;
“La Vedette,” episode from
Les Veinards
. 1963:
L’Homme de Rio/That Man from Rio
. 1964:
Un Monsieur de Compagnie
. 1965:
Les Tribulations d’un Chinois en Chine
. 1966:
Le Roi de Coeur/King of Hearts
. 1967: “Mademoiselle Mimi,” episode from
Le Plus Vieux Métier du Monde
. 1968:
Le Diable par le Queue
. 1969:
Les Figurants de Nouveau Monde
. 1971:
La Poudre d’Escampette
. 1972:
Chère Louise
. 1973:
Le Magnifique/How to Destroy the Reputation of the Greatest Secret Agent
. 1975:
L’Incorrigible
. 1977:
Julie Pot de Colle; Tendre Poulet/Dear Inspector
. 1978:
Le Cavaleur
. 1979:
On a Volé le Cuisse de Jupiter
. 1981:
Psy
. 1983:
L’Africain
. 1984:
Louisiane
(TV). 1985:
La Gitane
. 1988:
Chouans!
. 1990:
Sheherezade
. 1991:
Les Clés du Paradis
. 1993:
Regarde-Moi Quand Je Te Quitte
(TV); 1995:
Le Jardin des Plantes
(TV); 1996:
Le Veilleur de Nuit
(TV). 1997:
Les Hommes et les Femmes Sont Faits pour Vivre Heureux … mais Pas Ensemble
(TV);
Le Bossu
. 2000:
Amazone
. 2002:
Madame San-Gêne;
2003:
Y Aura Pas École Demain
(TV);
Un Amour en Kit
(TV); 2004:
Le Menteur
(TV);
Vipére au Poing
.

In his first three films, de Broca kept us breathless with a furiously gay comic tenderness that never allowed bedroom frolics or adulterous intrigue to lose sight of emotional reality. His tone was that of a sprinting Ophuls, and the great pleasure of the films lay in their elaborate frothiness. The lighthearted view of playacting sexuality that so occupied the New Wave was never more imaginatively done than in
Les Jeux de l’Amour
or
L’Amant de Cinq Jours
. Sheer exuberance, agility, and an eye for pretty, surrendering women—the character of his actor, Jean-Pierre Cassel—flowed out of de Broca’s movies. But the accelerator was plainly full on. There were fears, even then, that when he drew breath de Broca might stumble and begin to imitate his own gaiety. So it turned out, and it was exacerbated by the international success of films like
That Man from Rio
and
King of Hearts
. The latter film had a prodigious reputation in America, and a marvelous idea—a lunatic institution becoming an image of sanity amid war. But that is a facile vision with the increasing ponderousness of de Broca’s actual execution. In slowing, he showed that his talent was all a matter of pace. Those early films, I suspect, are still darting and touching. But Belmondo in
That Man from Rio
is too impressed by the idea of being an amateur, joky James Bond; while
King of Hearts
is struck solemn by the greater significance implicit in it. A dissipated talent is sad to see, but the early achievement may last because of its very modesty and the engaging exhibitionism of Cassel. When the cinema of charm is assessed, de Broca must always be remembered.

Le Bossu
(with Daniel Auteuil) was his swashbuckling swan song. He had a child by Martha Keller (they made
le Diable par le Queue
together) and was married to Margot Kidder and Valerie Rojan.

Olivia de Havilland
, b. Tokyo, 1916
The older sister of Joan Fontaine, de Havilland has had a career with a turning point. It came in 1943 when her seven-year contract with Warners lapsed. She wanted to be free, but the studio claimed that, in having refused a part and being suspended, she had incurred a six-month penalty. For two years, she and Warners were engaged in litigation, from which the actress emerged victorious. A major test case (advancing the earlier case between Warners and Bette Davis), the decision radically altered the pattern of de Havilland’s own career.

She was the child of British parents who separated when she was five. The mother took Olivia and Joan to California, and while still at college Olivia was chosen by Max Reinhardt to play Hermia in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(35). Warners signed her and worked her hard for seven years as the romantic interest in costume adventure pictures, most notably as Errol Flynn’s damsel in
Captain Blood
(35);
The Charge of the Light Brigade
(36);
The Adventures of Robin Hood
(38);
Four’s a Crowd
(38);
Dodge City
(39);
Santa Fe Trail
(40)—all directed by Michael Curtiz—and in Raoul Walsh’s
They Died With Their Boots On
(41).

In addition, she played opposite Cagney in
The Irish in Us
(35, Lloyd Bacon); Fredric March in
Anthony Adverse
(36, Mervyn Le Roy); and Brian Aherne in
The Great Garrick
(37, James Whale). She provided decorative support in
Call It a Day
(37, Archie Mayo);
It’s Love I’m After
(37, Mayo);
Gold Is Where You Find It
(38, Curtiz);
Wings of the Navy
(39, Bacon); and
Raffles
(40, Sam Wood).

She worked hard behind the scenes to secure the part of Melanie in
Gone With the Wind
(39, Victor Fleming), and she got a supporting actress nomination. Then, gradually, she made more impact at Warners, especially in Walsh’s
Strawberry Blonde
(41), Huston’s
In This Our Life
, and Elliott Nugent’s
The Male Animal
. Loaned to Paramount, she was excellent in Mitchell Leisen’s
Hold Back the Dawn
(41); while at RKO she was in
Government Girl
(43, Dudley Nichols). She finished at Warners with Norman Krasna’s
Princess O’Rourke
(43) and as Charlotte Brontë in Curtis Bernhardt’s
Devotion
(46).

Once free from Warners and the courts, she made
The Well-Groomed Bride
(45, Sidney Lanfield) and Robert Siodmak’s
The Dark Mirror
(46)—playing twins—before coming to her best film, Mitchell Leisen’s
To Each His Own
(46). Not only did she appear more beautiful than ever before, but the change to a world centered on the female disclosed a warmth and gentleness that Warners had never bothered about. She won the best actress Oscar and went on to major dramatic roles in Litvak’s
The Snake Pit
(48)—a lurid but innovatory examination of madness—and as Catherine Sloper in Wyler’s
The Heiress
(49), for which she won her second Oscar.

Independence could have hardly anticipated better rewards, but in the event she seemed to lose her appetite for films. In 1955, having married the editor of
Paris Match
(her second husband), she moved to Europe and her films became strangely assorted: Henry Koster’s
My Cousin Rachel
(52); Terence Young’s
That Lady
(55); miscast in Kramer’s
Not as a Stranger
(55); delightful in Krasna’s
The Ambassador’s Daughter
(56); reunited with Curtiz for
The Proud Rebel
(58); opposite Dirk Bogarde in Asquith’s
Libel
(59); very good in Guy Green’s
Light in the Piazza
(62); horribly harrowed in
Lady in a Cage
(64, Walter Grauman); enjoying herself in
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte
(64, Robert Aldrich); inexplicably present in
The Adventurers
(69, Lewis Gilbert); as the Mother Superior in
Pope Joan
(72, Michael Anderson); and
The Swarm
(78, Irwin Allen).

She was in
The Fifth Musketeer
(79, Ken Annakin), and then she settled for roles in royal TV:
Murder Is Easy
(82, Claude Whatham); playing the Queen Mother in
The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana
(82, Peter Levin); in the Helen Hayes role, opposite Amy Irving, in
Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna
(86, Marvin J. Chomsky); and
The Woman He Loved
(88, Charles Jarrott) as Wallis Simpson’s aunt.

Dino de Laurentiis
, b. Torre Annunziata, Italy, 1918
Since the end of the Second World War, de Laurentiis has striven to be the most “international” of Italian film producers. But despite an assiduous pursuit of major directors and subjects, both mythological and modern, he has seldom coincided with the significant moments or movements within Italian cinema.

He worked in a variety of minor capacities before becoming a producer during the German Occupation. In the immediate postwar years he produced several successful films featuring Silvana Mangano, whom he married in 1949. In the early 1950s, he formed a partnership with Carlo Ponti that involved their using both Rossellini and Fellini. But
Ulisse
marked his serious venturing out into the world market for epics:
Il Bandito
(46, Alberto Lattuada);
La Figlia del Capitano
(47, Mario Camerini);
Bitter Rice
(49, Giuseppe de Santis);
Il Brigante Musolino
(50, Camerini);
Napoli Milionaria
(50, Eduardo de Filippo);
Anna
(51, Lattuada);
Guardie e Ladri
(51, Steno and Mario Monicelli);
Europa ’51
(52, Rossellini);
Dov’e la Liberta?
(53, Rossellini);
La Lupa
(53, Lattuada);
Mambo
(54, Robert Rossen);
La Strada
(54, Fellini);
La Romana
(54, Luigi Zampa);
Gold of Naples
(54, Vittorio de Sica);
Ulisse
(55, Camerini);
La Donna del Fiume
(55, Mario Soldati);
War and Peace
(56, King Vidor);
Nights of Cabiria
(57, Fellini);
The Sea Wall
(58, René Clément);
Tempest
(58, Lattuada);
Fortunella
(58, de Filippo);
Five Branded Women
(60, Martin Ritt);
La Grande Guerra
(60, Monicelli);
Il Gobbo
(60, Carlo Lizzani);
Il Giudizio Universale
(61, de Sica);
The Best of Enemies
(62, Guy Hamilton);
Barabbas
(62, Richard Fleischer);
Il Mafioso
(62, Lattuada);
Il Boom
(63, de Sica);
The Bible
(66, John Huston);
Lo Straniero
(67, Luchino Visconti);
Barbarella
(68, Roger Vadim);
Bandits in Rome
(68, Alberto de Martino);
A Brief Season
(69, Renato Castellani);
Waterloo
(70, Sergei Bondarchuk);
The Deserter
(71, Burt Kennedy);
The Valachi Papers
(72, Terence Young);
Serpico
(73, Sidney Lumet); and
Death Wish
(74, Michael Winner).

It was around this time that Laurentiis advanced on America in the hope of being the last authentic tycoon. He has certainly been active, and he has had no qualms about balancing exploitation, middle-of-the-idiot entertainment, and arty “risks”:
Mandingo
(75, Fleischer), big-business Southern melo-miscegenation;
Three Days of the Condor
(75, Sydney Pollack);
Face to Face
(75, Ingmar Bergman);
Lipstick
(76, Lamont Johnson);
Buffalo Bill and the Indians
(76, Robert Altman), after which he fired Altman from the projected
Ragtime; Drum
(76, Steve Carver), a sequel to
Mandingo
from which the new snob Dino removed his name, but not his lifeline;
The Shootist
(76, Don Siegel); the amusing remake of
King Kong
(76, John Guillermin), which he produced personally;
Orca … Killer Whale
(77, Michael Anderson);
The White Buffalo
(77, J. Lee Thompson);
King of the Gypsies
(78, Frank Pierson);
Hurricane
(79, Jan Troell); and
Flash Gordon
(80, Mike Hodges).

He produced
Ragtime
(81, Milos Forman),
Conan the Barbarian
(82, John Milius),
The Dead
Zone
(83, David Cronenberg), and
The Bounty
(84, Roger Donaldson), and then he moved to America, set up studios in North Carolina, and founded DEG (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group). The venture was short-lived, but it produced
Dune
(84, David Lynch);
Year of the Dragon
(85, Michael Cimino);
Tai-Pan
(86, Daryl Duke); and
Blue Velvet
(86, Lynch), which was actually set in North Carolina and testified to either the generosity or the sleepiness of Dino. He has since produced
Desperate Hours
(90, Cimino); and
Body of Evidence
(93, Uli Edel)—thus, from Mangano to Madonna.

Age has not diminished him, or his enthusiasm for movie sensation. He has produced
Army of Darkness
(93, Sam Raimi);
Assassins
(95, Richard Donner);
Slave of Dreams
(95, Robert M. Young) and
Solomon & Sheba
(95, Young), both for TV;
Unforgettable
(96, John Dahl); the enterprising
Breakdown
(97, Jonathan Mostow);
U-571
(00, Mostow); and the delectable
Hannibal
(01, Ridley Scott), which was doing big business at the time he was given the Thalberg Award.