Entente cordiale (film)

Entente cordiale
Directed by Marcel L'Herbier
Produced by Max Glass
Bernard Natan
Written by André Maurois (book)
Starring Gaby Morlay
Victor Francen
Pierre Richard-Willm
Music by Roger Bernstein
Marcel Lattès
Cinematography Marc Fossard
Theodore J. Pahle
Edited by Raymond Leboursier
Distributed by Comptoir Français du Film (CFF)
Release date
 3 April 1939[1]
Running time
 110 minutes
Country France
Language French

Entente cordiale is a 1939 French drama film directed by Marcel L'Herbier and starring Gaby Morlay, Victor Francen and Pierre Richard-Willm.[2] The film depicts events between the Fashoda crisis in 1898 and the 1904 signing of the Entente Cordiale creating an alliance between Britain and France and ending their historic rivalry. It was based on the book King Edward VII and His Times by André Maurois. It was made with an eye to its propaganda value, following the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and in anticipation of the outbreak of a Second World War which would test the bonds between Britain and France in a conflict with Nazi Germany.

Cast

Production

Entente Cordiale was the third in Marcel L'Herbier's series of "Chroniques filmées" (following La Tragédie impériale and Adrienne Lecouvreur, both in 1938) in which he dramatised historical subjects in a manner "very close to reality"[3], albeit reluctantly combined with some romantic fiction.[4]

Filming took place at the Studios de Saint-Maurice (south-east of Paris) in January & February 1939, and it was ready for its gala première in April before representatives of the French and British governments.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Jaque Catelain présente Marcel L'Herbier. Paris: Jacques Vautrin, 1950. p. 124. The gala première took place at the Marignan cinema in Paris on 3 April 1939, in the presence of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Ambassador of Great Britain. Other sources (IMDB, Ciné-Ressources) cite a release date in France of 21 April 1939.)
  2. ↑ BFI Film, TV, People database: "Entente cordiale (1939)".
  3. ↑ Laurent Véray [ed.]. Marcel L'Herbier: l'art du cinéma. Paris: Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, 2007. p. 283: "une leçon d'histoire, très proche de la réalité".
  4. ↑ Marcel L'Herbier. La Tête qui tourne. Paris: Belfond, 1979. p. 271: "[Max] Glass insistait, hélas, pour qu'on y insérât une historiette d'amour franco-anglaise. C'était la tare inguérissable de la production des années 30."
  5. ↑ Marcel L'Herbier. La Tête qui tourne. Paris: Belfond, 1979. p. 272.
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