Marc Allégret

Biography: life and films

Marc Allégret had two great passions in his life: photography and filmmaking, and he excelled in both. In a career that spanned four decades, he made around sixty full-length films and showed a particular aptitude for finding and developing new talent. Many of the actors he worked with early on in their careers went on to become major stars of French cinema: Raimu, Michèle Morgan, Simon Simone, Gérard Philipe, Bernard Blier and many others. Whilst much of Allégret's film work is overlooked, some of his films have endured and are now highly thought of; others deserve the benefit of a fresh reappraisal.

Marc Allégret was born on 22nd December 1900 at Basel in Switzerland. His father, Élie Allégret, was a protestant minister who was engaged as a private tutor to the young André Gide. From the age of 15, Allégret became fascinated by Gide and, despite the fact that the writer was thirty years his senior, the two pursued an intense love affair that lasted for a full decade. Allégret studied in Paris to become a lawyer, but his real passion was still photography. He accompanied Gide to the Congo, where they worked together on a documentary entitled Voyage au Congo (1927), financed by the film producer Pierre Braunberger. It was at this point that Marc Allégret ended his affair with Gide and discovered his true vocation: to become a film director.

Working for Braunberger, Allégret began by making several short films, including some with the future star Fernandel, notably La Meilleure bobone (1930). He was assistant to Robert Fleury on Le Blanc et le noir (1931) and Augusto Genina on Les Amours de minuit (1931). Allégret's first solo feature as a director was Mam'zelle Nitouche (1931), which starred Raimu, one of the actors he worked with most frequently. He subsequently directed Raimu on La Petite Chocolatière (1932) and Marcel Pagnol's Fanny (1932). On many of his early films, he employed his younger brother Yves as an assistant. In 1938, he married the actress Nadine Vogel.

Allégret's first truly inspired film was Lac aux Dames (1934), an adaptation of a popular Vicki Baum novel which effectively partnered rising stars Simon Simone and Jean-Pierre Aumont. This film typifies the raw romanticism and visual elegance that characterise the best of Marc Allégret's cinema. After this, Allégret would only make two films of comparable maturity and technical excellence: Sous les yeux d'Occident (1936) and Entrée des Artistes (1938), both of which are striking in their cinematic artistry and modernity.

In the 1930s, Allégret worked with some of the biggest stars of the day, including: Jean Gabin on Zouzou (1934); Pierre Fresnay and Michel Simon on Sous les yeux d'Occident (1936); and Raimu on Gribouille (1937), with Michèle Morgan in her first important screen role. During the Occupation, he made several comedies, including: Félicie Nanteuil (1943) with Micheline Presle and Les Petites du quai aux fleurs (1944) with Odette Joyeux and Gérard Philipe in an early role. After directing Fernandel and Simone Simon in Pétrus (1946), he made three films in Great Britain: Blanche Fury (1948), Maria Chapdelaine (1950) and Blackmailed (1951), after which he resumed his career in France with Julietta (1953), which starred Jeanne Moreau and Jean Marais.

In 1955, Marc Allégret courted controversy by directing L'Amant de Lady Chatterley, the first screen adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's most scandalous novel, with Danielle Darrieux in the lead role. This was the last of Allégret's great films - for most of his subsequent career, the director would be content with making populist comedies, such as Sois belle et tais-toi (1958), which brought together Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo for the first time at the very start of their careers. For much of the 1950s, Allégret was an easy target for the outspoken young critics of the time, who saw his work as outdated and irrelevant. (Meanwhile his brother Yves was enjoying critical acclaim as a director.) Allégret was one of the most prominent casualties of the French New Wave and he ended his career making documentaries. After the failure of Le Bal du comte d'Orgel (1970), he gave up filmmaking altogether. He died three years later, on 3rd November 1973 in Paris. He was buried at the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles, France.

Marc Allégret's most important legacy is not the films he made, many of which are now held in high esteem and have become classics of French cinema, but the vast array of talented individuals he nurtured and guided towards stardom. Fernandel, Raimu, Jean-Louis Barrault and Joséphine Baker all had their screen debuts in Allégret's films; Simone Simon, Michèle Morgan, Bernard Blier, Gérard Philipe, Louis Jourdan and Daniel Gélin are just a few of the actors who owe a debt of gratitude to Allégret for recognising their potential and helping to develop their talents to the fullest. Likewise, it was through his influence and attention that his assistants Yves Allégret and Roger Vadim were able to make a name for themselves as film directors. But Marc Allégret was far more than a talent spotter; he was also an accomplished and sensitive filmmaker in his own right, and brought a distinctive charm and aesthetic to each of his films. Like so many filmmakers whose reputations were trodden into the mud amidst the hysteria of the French New Wave, his rehabilitation is long overdue.

Filmography

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