The Adventures of Tarzan

Tarzan is one of those characters that has been so popular for so long that it seems almost real. And yet, when the film Tarzan of the Apes was released in 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs had almost just invented him. The character appeared in the novel of the same name published in a magazine in 1912 and as a book in 1914.

Gordon Griffith as young Tarzan

Producers apparently wanted Alice Guy, the first woman director, to do the film, but she turned it down. Morgan City, Louisiana, was used to stand in for the jungle because of the swamps and the vegetation. Also, the Old South would provide many black extras.

Technically, the first Tarzan to appear on screen is Gordon Griffith, who plays the hero as a boy and appears (stark naked) in the first part of the picture.

Stellan Windrow

The actor chosen to play the part of the adult Tarzan was Stellan Windrow, an unknown Swedish-born athlete who was ideal for the physically demanding part. Star power would be provided by his Jane, actress Enid Markey, who had been in movies since 1911. However, when the USA entered WWI, Windrow was drafted and had to leave the production before it was finished, after five weeks of shooting.

Elmo Lincoln

Elmo Lincoln stepped in the part. At the time, he was becoming more and more popular with audiences, playing bigger and bigger parts opposite the stars of the 1910s like Constance Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks, Dorothy Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron...

However, Lincoln was nowhere near as muscular as Windrow, so the latter's performance was kept in the film as long as his face was hidden from view when Tarzan did the tree swinging.

Although the film was said to be a 3 hour three parter, the longest available copy is now 73 minutes (available on DVD). However, it was such a success that a second production was soon underway, adapting the second part of the novel. It was called The Romance of Tarzan and the two stars reunited for it. Sadly, no copy has turned up so far.

Louise Lorraine as Jane

After a 1920 serial called The Son of Tarzan and a feature called The Revenge of Tarzan both using different actors for the leads, Elmo Lincoln returned in 1921 one final time for his own unusually expensive 15 episode serial called The Adventures of Tarzan. By then, Enid Markey had declared that she was "tired of making faces" and wanted to act, so she left the silver screen for a successful career in the theater. For this production, 16 year-old Louise Lorraine replaced her in the role. She had started her career the year before in another serial starring Elmo Lincoln called Elmo The Fearless and she went on to become a serial queen, much like Pearl White.

Apparently, filming was plagued with huge problems: in mid-July, during a jungle fire scene, the flames spread through the studio,

setting three lions free among the crew, burning the set, injuring several actors and destroying three cameras. Elmo Lincoln also claimed that a lion fight scene went wrong went the lion decided to actually attack him and he had to stab it to death on camera. However, the insurance company on this film, unlike the first, would not put the lead actor in jeopardy and hired someone for the stunts (It is unclear if this anecdote relates to this film or the previous ones). As a matter of fact, Elmo Lincoln's stunt double, Frank Merrill, who also has a part as an Arab guard in the film, went on to star as Tarzan in two of his own movies.

The film was re-released in a shortened version with added sound effects in 1928. This montage was preserved and is available on DVD, but the original serial edit has only been restored as a ten episode version. Some scenes are missing like the scene where Rokoff tattoos the plan of a treasure chamber onto Jane's shoulder with his belt buckle. This still proves that the scene was indeed shot, it is now unfortunately replaced by a title card.


Elmo Lincoln continued his career mainly in bit parts, sometimes in Tarzan movies where the lead role was played by Johnny Weissmuller or Lex Barker. As for Louise Lorraine, although she had made a rather successful transition to sound films, she decided that she would withdraw from the screen after her marriage.

The film is available on DVD in the ten episode version.
For further reading, I suggest this excellent site (with another page about the 1921 serial) and the book of Elmo Lincoln's daughter.
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Fantasia French booklet

Here is a nice little companion to the previously published French Fantasia program. This RKO booklet is from the 1958 reissue. Click on the pictures for full quality.

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The Corsair

In July of 1939, director Marc Allégret shot the first scenes of a new pirate film in the south of France, at the studio de la Victorine in Nice. It was an adaptation of Marcel Achard's play Le corsaire, which took place in a film studio in Hollywood and called for a screen adaptation. Producer André Daven wanted it to be a prestige production and lavish sets of ships and of a Spanish village were built.

Madeleine Ozeray & Louis Jouvet

Marcel Achard's play had opened to moderate success March 24, 1938 at the Athénée theater  play starred Louis Jouvet and Madeleine Ozeray with music by Vittorio Rieti, costumes and sets by Christian Bérard. For the film, André Daven secured international screen legend Charles Boyer to star with Michèle Alfa as his leading lady. Solid character actors like Saturnin Fabre (from Pepe le Moko), Marcel André (who would play Belle's father later in Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast) and newcomer Jacques Dufilho were to round up the cast.

Marcel Achard's play

Louis Jourdan

Director Marc Allégret had another card up his sleeve. On his previous film Entrée des artistes, he has spotted a young hunk of an assistant camera operator named Louis Jourdan whom, he figured, would be a perfect screen heartthrob in this film.

Finally, famed composer Georges Auric (Beauty and the Beast, Roman Holiday...) was commissioned to write the score.

After several weeks of shooting, on September 3, 1939, France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. Charles Boyer, who had come back to France just to do the film, was drafted in Agen and production stopped.

Charles Boyer as Kid Jackson, the corsair

In December, movie magazines still announced that the film would probably be completed in May. However, by then, Charles Boyer was already back in Beverly Hills, effectively burying the project.

Louis Jourdan did not wait long for another opportunity to start an amazing career in France and in the US, where he worked with David Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock soon after WWII. You probably remember him from Gigi too and as the James Bond villain from Octopussy.

In July 1945, the film magazine l'écran français reported that remains of the set were still standing, although in very bad shape, in Nice; but that the producer André Daven was now in Hollywood and that The Corsair would never reach port.

Sea battle at the Victorine studios

However, in 1995, Bruno Esquirol released a 28 minute documentary about the film, with some of the remaining footage which has been stored to this day. Some of it also surfaced at different events, like the "40 years of French archive" in 2009 at the Cinémathèque française where 6 minutes of rushes were screened and are still available to researchers at the French film archive at Bois D'Arcy. Moreover, it appears that a French VHS of Marcel Allégret short films also allegedly contained 35 minutes of footage from this film.



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June Caprice

In 1915, the movie world was all about Mary Pickford and every studio wanted someone like her. Which is probably why she wanted none of them and built her own studio, United Artists, with her husband Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin.

So they all looked for their own sugary child impersonator with golden locks and many Mary Pickford look-a-like contests were launched at the time. One winner was blue-eyed fair-haired 20 year old Helen Elizabeth Lawson, who had a little stage experience. In 1916, she moved from Boston to New York and tried to get into films. At the time, a good deal of the production was made at Fort Lee, New Jersey. The first studio she tried offered her no chance to work even though she reported daily to find out about job offers, so she tried a second one and got lucky with a $25 a week contract at Thanhouser Film Corporation.

Only a few months later, she signed with Fox Film for her first starring role Caprice of the Mountain
with Harry Hilliard, her co-star for several films to come. Her stage name was chosen in honor of this film: June Caprice.

With the same director (John G. Adolfi), she appeared in 7 more films over two years, all in roles that could have been tailor-made for Pickford: Little Miss Happiness, The Ragged Princess (with child stars sisters Jane and Katherine Lee) and The Mischief Maker in 1916 and A Modern Cinderella (with Wizard of Oz Frank Morgan), A Child of the Wild, The Small Town Girl, and Patsy in 1917.

The Fox publicity department dubbed her "The Sunshine Maid" (possibly from the working title of

The Ragged Princess

one of her films) which stuck in the public mind so much that nowadays, her filmography still often lists a film by that title when there very likely never has been.

That same year, she met her new director Harry F. Millarde, who not only married her, but also made some of her biggest successes: Every Girl's Dream, Miss U.S.A., Unknown 274, The Heart of Romance, The Camouflage Kiss, Blue-eyed Mary, and Miss Innocence.

At the peek of her success, the reviews were quite good: "Miss Caprice never appears to better advantage than she does in "Miss U.S.A." (The Reading Times; November 5, 1917).
Her fame got her a deal with the Coca Cola company to appear in their ads.

After two years with Fox, she ended her contract and signed with Pathé representative Albert Capellani (at Alice Guy Blaché's Solax studios) who directed her in Oh Boy!.
It starred Creighton Hale, who, at the time, was famous for his work opposite the famous Pearl White in many of her trademark films (The Exploits of Elaine, The Iron Claw, etc.). He also was the Prince of Snow White with another Mary Pickford clone: Marguerite Clark.

Yet, these films had moderate success. On June 13, 1919, Variety's critic of "Oh Boy!" was: "six reels of farce is a bit too much. This story is neither farce nor comedy, neither a convincing picture nor a roar of laughter. It is moderately interesting and clean - that’s all".

She then kept teaming up with Creighton Hale, but the following films she made with this studio were directed by George Archainbaud (The Love Cheat, A Damsel in Distress, In Walked Mary).

The August 9, 1919 critic for "The love Cheat" in Harrison’s Reports was: "This is a sweet little offering suitable mostly for young folks who are contented even if the hero does nothing else throughout the picture but kiss the heroine. The picture is good for Sunday crowds." The October 18 critic of "A Damsel in Distress" in Harrison’s Reports that same year was even worse: "This is a very badly padded comedy-drama. At times it is so padded, that it becomes tiresome. There are some good comedy spots in it, it is true, but they are about a mile apart, they do not hold the interest."

June without the wig

In a 1919 interview, June Caprice stated that she had liked only one role among all of her films and that one she did without her trademark golden curls. Maybe she referred to The Ragged Princess, where June swam in the nude in one scene.
Anyway, the public did not like it and when she received a thousand letters begging her to remain an ingénue, she decided to remain typecast for her own good. However,she did try different things at the end of her career. In "In Walked Mary", she becomes a vamp for a time, even though it's just to reveal the real nature of her friend's bride-to-be.
 Also, after the Spanish-themed Rogues and Romance, directed, written and played by George B. Seitz, she tried her hand at a serial, a popular genre at the time, with that same director. The 15 episode film was called The Sky Ranger and was released in 1921. This was to be her final film.

The following year, she gave birth to her only daughter and she
called her June in honor of her stage name. Her husband kept on directing films until 1927. He died of a heart attack in 1931. Unfortunately, June Caprice also died of cancer in 1936, leaving orphan girl June Millard to be raised by June Caprice's parent. When she grew up, she also appeared in a few films in the early 1940s, but her main career was modeling under the name Toni Seven.

June Caprice's misfortune is that her most successful films were made at Fox and most of that studio's silent film catalog is lost due to a fire in 1937. However, none of her films are currently available in any format.

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Dutch Snow White program

The first Dutch release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs called "Sneeuwwitje en de zeven dwergen" hit the screens November 11, 1938. Snow flakes were added to the Gustaf Tenggren design on the poster so that it would look more like a Christmas movie.
That first Dutch version was directed by Max Tak and Kurt Gerron and featured the voices of Cecilia Bach as Snow White, Tilly Perin-Bouwmeester as the Queen, Lex Karsemeyer as the Prince, Paul Huf as the Magic Mirror, Johan Kart as Doc, Wam Heskes as Happy, Louis de Bree as Grumpy, Lucas Wensing as Sleepy, Frits van Dijk as Sneezy and Cohen Hissink as Bashful.

This first dub was replaced in 1984 and then again in 1990. A common practice for Disney. Here is the original Dutch program in its entirety. Click on the pictures for a bigger version.

 On this page Anne Shirley is wearing a hat modeled after the Huntsman's.

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Prayer to the Stars

Marcel Pagnol is a famous French poet, writer and filmmaker. His stories usually revolve around the south of France, in Provence. These stories are sometimes told through several generations, hence the many episodes like his three films Marius,Fanny and César (the first one being directed by Alexander Korda because it was the birth of sound films and he needed someone to master the technique).

Josette "dwarfing" her screen partners

His films sometimes star his wives and girlfriends. The above-mentioned trilogy features Orane Demazis. His girlfriend Josette Day starred in The Well-digger's Daughter, and finally, he married Jacqueline Pagnol, who is the famous Manon of the Springson-screen. These favors sometimes eclipsed the film stars hired in Pagnol films. When Fernandel and Raimu found out that Josette Day’s head was much bigger than theirs on the poster, they went: “Look! Snow White and the Two Dwarfs.”

Josette Day (Florence) & Pierre Blanchar (Pierre)

During the war, it was Pagnol’s decision to work free from the censorship of the authority of Vichy in occupied France. Luckily, his studios in the south of France, were in the free zone.

During the shoot of The Well-digger's Daughter, the filming had to be interrupted because of the loss of the war in 1940, the script modified to take into account the profound changes in the political aspects of France. Nonetheless, the film was finished and released. It was recently remade by Daniel Auteuil.

The next project was a film called La prière aux étoiles (Prayer To The Stars). Again his then wife, Josette Day, was to star. The script soon developed into a very long film, so long that he decided to make it another trilogy, each episode named each protagonist: Dominique, Pierre and Florence, much like his first.

Florence meets Pierre at the fair in Paris. The two fall in love and leave for the south of France. Florence's past with Dominique threatens her relationship with her very jealous new boyfriend.

This film was a drastic change for Pagnol since many scenes were to take place in Paris (and in the amusement park of Pagnol’s friend Léon Volterra), far away from his cherished Provence (which at the time, meant filming in occupied France). Also, the story was somewhat autobiographical.

Josette Day as Florence

Filming began in 1941. Unfortunately, film was a difficult material to get at this time, and what Pagnol managed to get was of a lesser quality. Also, the Germans tried to get him to get him to make a film for them. Thinking it unwise to refuse flatly, he pretended that he is going blind and sold his Paris and Marseille studios to Gaumont, along with his film laboratories in 1942.

Carette & Josette Day

Editor Jeannette Ginestet-Rongier believed, along with many others that the actual reason behind the end of the film was the departure of Josette Day who had left Pagnol, who, in his rage, destroyed most of his material.

Josette went on to create the role of Belle in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast.

A little over 10 minutes of footage survive and are available on the bonus disc of the French DVD of The Well-digger's Daughter. You can also buy the script of the film (provided you read French) on amazon.
A snippet of footage is also available on the official Marcel Pagnol website for free.
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