The Fortune Teller

Lili Damita and Georges Melchior

Last month, actor Paul Walker died before he could complete filming of Fast & Furious 7. Yet Universal already announced that the film would still be released. You may think this is a rather tactless commercial scheme, but the fact is, this is what usually happens when the star of a film dies midway through the production.

Bela Lugosi was replaced by director Ed Wood's chiropractor on his last film Plan 9 from Outer Space when he died.

Sarah in Mothers Of France

In 1923, the most famous international star ever, Sarah Bernhardt, decided to star once again in a feature film. She had initially appeared in primitive films in the teens that proved immensely popular and no doubt helped to promote the then new medium of cinema. Since then, she had moved on from these crude visual adaptations of her stage successes to original script especially designed for the screen and her persona like Mothers of France.

La voyante (The Fortune Teller) would be written by her friend Sacha Guitry (who would also appear in the film) and she insisted it would have to be filmed inside her own apartment, boulevard Pereire, in Paris France. She was then 78 years old and had lost a leg since 1915. She had to act lying or sitting down.

Notice Charlot I, the monkey, also seen in Vidocq.

A new production company "Films Abdoré", was created especially for this film by A. Dornès. American director Leon Abrams would direct the film (some modern sources claim he was helped by Louis Mercanton, French friend of Sarah's but I could find no contemporary record of that and an article by Mercanton written right after her death does not mention his involvement in the film).

Sarah puts on sunglasses between takes to protect her eyes from the strong light projectors

Mary Marquet & Harry Baur

The story was that of Jean Detaille (played by Georges Melchior, who had gained fame thanks to the part of Fandor in the Fantômas movies), who appears too friendly with his mother-in-law in the eyes of his politician father (played by the excellent Harry Baur, who will later be Jean Valjean in Raymond Bernard's recently restored version of Les Misérables). He is thrown out of the house over a misunderstanding when his father confuses an embrace with the simple gesture of turning the pages of the sheet music the lady is reading from while playing the piano. Disoriented, Jean is mugged while walking the streets. Pierrot, a clown, rescues him and offers him shelter. In the same building lives an old fortune-teller, Madame Gainard (Sarah Bernhardt), nicknamed 'the witch'. The mother-in-law, in the hope of finding Jean, consults the psychic who eventually solves everyone's problems: Jean marries his sweetheart Suzanne (Lili Damita, before she became Mrs. Errol Flynn who dubbed her 'Tiger Lily') who also happens to be Madame Gainard's daughter, and his father gets out of some political trouble. All's well that ends well...

Except the film. Unfortunately on March 26, Sarah, who was so famous for her death scenes, actually died of a kidney failure after two days of agony and production stopped before her scenes could be completed. She was given a grandiose funeral at the Madeleine church as she had requested. Her 1915 film, Jeanne Doré, which had never seen a proper release in France until then, was presented April 6, 1923 as "her last film" which was obviously a double lie: she had starred in Mothers of France after that, and the fate of La voyante was still unsettled.

The May 24, 1923 edition of Mon Ciné magazine announces that the owners of the main theaters of Paris attended a screening of the unfinished film at the Artistic Cinema theater, rue de Douai, and it was decided then that the film could be completed using a body double (actress Jeanne Brindeau is announced as "Jane Brindeau" in the June 7 edition of that same magazine) and by using outtakes of Sarah.

Actress Pâquerette, who plays the plump kind-hearted janitor in the film, gave an informative interview to Mon Ciné magazine published July 5, 1923 where she reveals that the actors had to share the screen with a monkey and an elephant. She also mentions someone named Baudet among the cast (listed as "Mr. Baudry" in another article). She remembers coming to Sarah Bernhardt's apartment with two trucks parked outside for electricity, and that the great actress recognized her instantly: they had met once before on a voyage back from the USA 25 years before that. Apparently, she was so vivacious that her on-set nurses had to order her to be silent so she would not tire too much. Yet her eyes who fascinated the director were those of a 20 year-old.

Pierrot the clown is played by a very special personality of the circus world: François Fratellini of the famous Fratellini family, still active today. The man appeared later in Dream of Clowns (Rêve de clowns) along with his two brothers and Georges Melchior. That film was actually released on the very same day as La voyante because of the delay caused by Sarah's death.

Admirers stand in line to pay their last homage in front of Sarah's home (on the left)

That film may be the reason why Fratellini eventually had to drop the part: an article published in the October 2, 1924 edition gives a slightly different synopsis where the clown is replaced by a painter, André Reynaud (played by Jean-François Martial according to the article and by Philippe Richard according to the Cinémathèque Française records), also in love with Suzanne, whose loss of his loved one to Jean is somewhat sweetened by the fact that he gets a prize for his paintings and new professional opportunities open for him. François Fratellini confirmed in a July 18, 1924 interview for Cinemagazine that he gave up the part after the actress' death. It is indeed the "painter" version that was released in the theaters on October 31, 1924.

Lily Damita, Jean-François Martial and Georges Melchior

Jean-François Martial

An article in Mon Ciné magazine published on March 18, 1926 about Jean-François Martial confirms, with a picture, that he is the one who appears in the final version of the film as the good Samaritan who rescues the hero and nurses him in his apartment. You can even spot a canvas turned against the wall on the picture.

Nowadays, the film has vanished from public sight. It may be sleeping in the vault of a Cinematheque or may be lost forever. Let me know if you have some information. Even her apartment has now disappeared, replaced by a rather ugly modern building where a plaque commemorates her.
Yet to this day, the actress remains proverbially famous and if you ever visit Paris' Grévin wax museum, the first statue that will welcome you in the hall is that of Sarah Bernhardt. Who knows? In accordance to Sarah's motto, the film may yet turn up "quand même" ("Nevertheless").
Modern pictures courtesy of Garry.

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That's all for today folks!