Georges Lautner

Biography: life and films

Georges Lautner is a name that is scarcely known outside his native France, but for two decades the films he directed were among the most popular to be screened in French cinemas, and many now rate as all-time classics, endlessly repeated on French television. A modest man, Lautner never had any pretensions of being a great film auteur. He was happy to make films that would appeal to a mainstream audience, be they ebullient comedies or polished policiers featuring the biggest stars in France. In the course of a filmmaking career that spanned 34 years, Lautner made over forty films and attracted a total of 60 million cinemagoers. He may not have been well thought of by the critics, he may not have been showered with prizes, but his contribution to French cinema is hard to overlook.

Georges Lautner was born in Nice, France, on 24th January 1926. His father, a jeweller and flying enthusiast, died in an aeroplane accident when he was 12. He grew up in Paris with his mother Renée Saint-Cyr, who was enjoying success as a film actress (she later appeared in 11 of Lautner's films). It was thanks to his mother's profession that Lautner developed a keen interest in cinema at an early age. Not long after the Liberation, he began taking on odd jobs in film studios and ended up working as a set decorator on Léon Mathot's La Route du bagne (1945).

In 1947, Lautner's attempts to break into cinema were interrupted by his military service. Assigned to the Service Cinématographique des Armées, he gained valuable experience of filmmaking. Back in civilian shoes, he soon found employment as an assistant director, on films that included Sacha Guitry's Le Trésor de Cantenac (1950), Jean Dréville's Horizons sans fin (1953) and Robert Darène's Les Chiffonniers d'Emmaüs (1955). He appeared in front of the camera for the first time in André Zwoboda's Capitaine Ardant (1951), but, owing to his natural timidity, he soon realised that an actor's life was not for him.

It was in 1958 that Georges Lautner made his directing debut, with La Môme aux boutons (1958). Even though the film was a failure, its producer, Maurice Juven, saw promise in Lautner and gave him a second chance with Marche ou crève (1960), a film that fared somewhat better at the box office. It was on this film that Lautner first worked with the actor Bernard Blier, who appeared in seven of his subsequent films, including his first hit, Le Monocle noir (1961).

Le Monocle noir served as a kind of prototype for a large chunk of Lautner's subsequent output as a director - an entertaining comedy-thriller that ruthlessly parodied a popular genre (in this case, the espionage thriller). The film featured an aristocratic spy, Théobald Dromard, a.k.a. The Monocle, who was played to dapper perfection by Paul Meurisse - the first in a trilogy of Monocle films directed with flair by Lautner.

After the more serious crime-drama Le Septième juré (1962), which allowed Bernard Blier to prove his credentials as a dramatic actor, Lautner had his first major success: Les Tontons flingueurs (1963). This exuberant gangster parody attracted an audience of over three million in France and, with a superb cast headed by Lino Ventura and Francis Blanche, it soon became one of the enduring classics of French cinema. This was the first time that Lautner worked with the great film dialogist Michel Audiard, who collaborated with him on another 13 films over the next two decades, including some other fine thriller spoofs: Les Barbouzes (1964) and Ne nous fâchons pas (1966). In the 60s, Lautner's genre of preference was comedy, and other hits included Des pissenlits par la racine (1964), which marked the start of his long collaboration with actress Mireille Darc, the star of ten of his films.

With Le Pacha (1968), Lautner moved away from comedy and brought a startling modernity to the traditional gangster film, which was enjoying a resurgence of popularity in France. Although the film courted controversy with its graphic violence and meticulously staged heist sequence (one of the best that French cinema has given us) it was another box office hit, and helped its lead actor, Jean Gabin, to redefine his screen persona in the last stage of his remarkable career.

In 1970, buoyed up by his successes in France, Lautner had high hopes of making a name for himself in Hollywood. His first American film, Road to Salina, had a prestigious cast, including Rita Hayworth and Mimsy Farmer, but it was to prove a dismal flop. Disheartened by this failure, Lautner returned to France, and the genre he was most comfortable with: comedy. After such light-hearted romps as Il était une fois un flic (1971) and La Valise (1973), Lautner was again tempted by the prospect of directing serious thrillers. With Alain Delon as his leading man, he helmed two fairly respectable entries in the policier genre: Les Seins de glace (1974) and Mort d'un pourri (1977).

Flic ou voyou (1979) marked another turning point in Lautner's career - his first collaboration with the phenomenally popular actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and the start of his most successful phase as a mainstream film director. Belmondo's star presence brought with it a blockbuster budget, and Lautner used this to create some of the most visually extravagant thrillers of the period. After Flic ou voyou, Lautner directed Belmondo in Le Guignolo (famous for its insane helicopter stunt over Venice) and then Le Professionnel (1981), his most successful film (one that attracted an audience of 5.2 million in France).

As the kind of films he had been making for the past few decades steadily declined in popularity in the 1980s, Lautner found success increasingly elusive. He had a few hits towards the end of his career, most notably La Maison assassinée (1992), a suspenseful drama starring Patrick Bruel, but flops were more commonplace. After the failure of his final collaboration with Jean-Paul Belmondo, L'Inconnu dans la maison (1992), Lautner decided to retire from filmmaking. Since, his films have taken on a new lease of life, first on video, then on DVD, finding an ever-growing audience outside France. After a long illness, Georges Lautner died in Paris on 22nd November 2013. Judging by the media reaction to his passing, with prominent figures paying tribute to his achievements, he is unlikely to be forgotten any time soon. The man who brought us Les Tontons flingueurs has earned his little slice of immortality.

Filmography

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