France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Greta Garbo

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Greta Garbo

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema

Obverse: Profile portrait of Greta Garbo.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA GRETA GARBO
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo, original name Greta Lovisa Gustafsson (born September 18, 1905, Stockholm, Sweden — died April 15, 1990, New York, New York, U.S.), one of the most glamorous and popular motion-picture stars of the 1920s and ’30s who is best known for her portrayals of strong-willed heroines, most of them as compellingly enigmatic as Garbo herself.
  The daughter of an itinerant labourer, Greta Gustafsson was reared in poverty in a Stockholm slum. She was working as a department-store clerk when she met film director Erik Petschler, who gave her a small part in Luffar-Petter (1922; Peter the Tramp). From 1922 to 1924 she studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, and in 1924 she played a major role in Gösta Berlings Saga (“The Story of Gösta Berling”). The film’s director, Mauritz Stiller, gave her the name Garbo, and in 1925 he secured her a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Hollywood.
  At first, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer was skeptical of Garbo’s talent, but he and all studio executives were impressed by the initial rushes of her first American film, The Torrent (1926). Garbo projected a luminous quality that was perfect for silent pictures, motivating Mayer to sign her to an exclusive contract and raise her salary even before she completed work on this film. Throughout the remainder of the decade, Garbo appeared in such popular romantic dramas as Flesh and the Devil (1927), Love (1927), A Woman of Affairs (1928), and The Kiss (1929). She often costarred with John Gilbert, with whom she was romantically involved offscreen. Garbo’s success during this stage of her career was based not only on her mysterious, ethereal screen persona, but also on public interest in the Garbo-Gilbert affair.
  Sound allowed for Garbo to become an even bigger star, although her popularity was always greater in Europe than in the United States. “Garbo talks!” was MGM’s promotional tagline for Anna Christie (1930), Garbo’s first sound film. Her first spoken words on screen — “Give me a viskey” — revealed a husky, resonant voice that added to her allure and her somewhat androgynous persona that has appealed to both genders throughout the years. It was also one of two films she made in 1930 — the other being Romance — for which Garbo received an Academy Award nomination. She poignantly portrayed an aging ballerina in the all-star classic Grand Hotel (1932), the film in which she first uttered her signature line of “I want to be alone.” Her stardom was such at this point that she was billed merely as “Garbo” for the film.
  Modern critics are divided as to whether Garbo’s best films of the 1930s are the period vehicles, which were always her most successful, or those set in contemporary times, in which she in many ways embodied the cinema’s first modern, emancipated woman. Her leading roles in Mata Hari (1932) and Queen Christina (1933) were among her most popular and they were mildly scandalous for their frank-as-the-times-would-permit treatment of eroticism and bisexuality, respectively. Garbo portrayed contemporary protagonists in As You Desire Me (1932) and The Painted Veil (1934), the latter film being highly reminiscent of the type of love-triangle potboilers Garbo made during her silent days. Her three best-known films of the 1930s, and the roles upon which the Garbo mystique is largely based, are Anna Karenina (1935), in which Garbo portrayed Leo Tolstoy’s title character; Camille (1936), in which, despite being ill during much of the production, Garbo delivers one of her most radiant and compelling performances as Alexandre Dumas fils’s tragic heroine; and Ninotchka (1939), an Ernst Lubitsch-directed farce in which Garbo, in a somewhat self-parodying turn as a Russian agent, proved herself a capable comic performer. Perhaps her most enduringly popular film, Ninotchka garnered another Oscar nomination for Garbo.
  The war in Europe may have been a factor in the end of Garbo’s screen career. Because her films had been more popular abroad than at home, and because markets for American films were swiftly dissipating throughout occupied European countries, it has been said that executives at MGM conspired to kill Garbo’s career by casting her in a film they knew would bomb, the comic misfire Two-Faced Woman (1941). Contrary to popular perception, Garbo did not leave Hollywood in disgust after this film. She was nearly lured back to the screen twice — once to portray George Sand, the other time to star in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947) — but instead chose permanent retirement, a move that added to her enigma and increased her cult following. After a screen career of 20 years, Garbo lived the next five decades in her New York City apartment and made no public appearances. She was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1955; true to form, she did not attend the ceremonies.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Federico Fellini, Italian film director

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Federico Fellini

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema

Obverse: Federico Fellini, Italian film director and screenwriter.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA FEDERICO FELLINI
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Federico Fellini, Italian filmmaker
Federico Fellini, (born January 20, 1920, Rimini, Italy — died October 31, 1993, Rome), Italian film director who was one of the most celebrated and distinctive filmmakers of the period after World War II. Early in his career he helped inaugurate the Neorealist cinema movement, but he soon developed his own distinctive style of typically autobiographical films that imposed dreamlike or hallucinatory imagery upon ordinary situations and portrayed people at their most bizarre.

Early life and influences
After an uneventful provincial childhood during which he developed a talent as a cartoonist, Fellini at age 19 moved to Rome, where he contributed cartoons, gags, and stories to the humour magazine Marc’Aurelio. During World War II, Fellini worked as a scriptwriter for the radio program Cico e Pallina, starring Giulietta Masina, the actress who became Fellini’s wife in 1943 and who went on to star in several of the director’s greatest films during the course of their 50-year marriage. In 1944 Fellini met director Roberto Rossellini, who engaged him as one of a team of writers who created Roma, città aperta (1945; Open City or Rome, Open City), often cited as the seminal film of the Italian Neorealist movement. Fellini’s contribution to the screenplay earned him his first Oscar nomination.
  Fellini quickly became one of Italy’s most successful screenwriters. Although he wrote a number of important scripts for such directors as Pietro Germi (Il cammino della speranza [1950; The Path of Hope]), Alberto Lattuada (Senza pietá [1948; Without Pity]), and Luigi Comencini (Persiane chiuse [1951; Drawn Shutters]), his scripts for Rossellini are most important to the history of the Italian cinema. These include Paisà (1946; Paisan), perhaps the purest example of Italian Neorealism; Il miracolo (1948; “The Miracle,” an episode of the film L’Amore), a controversial work on the meaning of sainthood; and Europa ’51 (1952; The Greatest Love), one of the first films in postwar Italy that began to move beyond the documentary realism of the Neorealist period toward an examination of psychological problems and Existentialist themes.
  Fellini made his debut as director in collaboration with Lattuada on Luci del varietà (1951; Variety Lights). This was the first in a series of works dealing with provincial life and was followed by Lo sceicco bianco (1951; The White Sheik) and I vitelloni (1953; Spivs or The Young and the Passionate), his first critically and commercially successful work. This film, a bitterly sarcastic look at the idle “mama’s boys” of the provinces, is still considered by some critics to be Fellini’s masterpiece.

Major works
Fellini’s next films formed a trilogy that dealt with salvation and the fate of innocence in a cruel and unsentimental world. One of Fellini’s best-known works, the heavily symbolic La strada (1954; “The Road”), stars Anthony Quinn as a cruel, animalistic circus strongman and Masina as the pathetic waif who loves him. The film was shot on location in the desolate countryside between Viterbo and Abruzzo, with the great empty spaces reflecting the virtual inhumanity of the relationship between the principal characters. Although it was criticized by the left-wing press in Italy, the film was highly praised abroad, winning an Academy Award for best foreign film. Il bidone (1955; The Swindle), which starred Broderick Crawford in a role intended for Humphrey Bogart, was a rather unpleasant tale of petty swindlers who disguise themselves as priests in order to rob the peasantry. Garnering a second foreign film Oscar for Fellini was the more successful Le notti di Cabiria (1957; The Nights of Cabiria), again starring Masina, this time as a simple, eternally optimistic Roman prostitute. Although not usually considered among Fellini’s greatest works, Le notti de Cabiria (upon which the Broadway musical comedy Sweet Charity was based) remains a critical favourite and one of Fellini’s most immediately likable films.
  Fellini’s next film, La dolce vita (1960; “The Sweet Life”), was his first collaboration with Marcello Mastroianni, the actor who would come to represent Fellini’s alter ego in several films throughout the next two decades. The film — for which Fellini had Rome’s main thoroughfare, the Via Veneto, rebuilt as a set—proved to be a panorama of the times, rife with surreal imagery, and a compelling indictment of popular media, decadent intellectuals, and aristocrats. Immediately hailed as one of the most important films ever made, La dolce vita contributed the word paparazzi (unscrupulous yellow-press photographers) to the English language and the adjective “Felliniesque” to the lexicon of film critics.
  Regarded as a perfect blend of symbolism and realism, Otto e mezzo (1963; 8 1/2), is perhaps Fellini’s most widely praised film and earned the director his third Oscar for best foreign film. Entitled 8 1/2 for the number of films Fellini had made to that time (seven features and three shorts), the work shows the plight of a famous director (based on Fellini, portrayed by Mastroianni) in creative paralysis. The high modernist aesthetics of the film became emblematic of the very notion of free, uninhibited artistic creativity, and in 1987 a panel of motion picture scholars from 18 European nations named 8 1/2 the best European film ever made.
  In the wake of 8 1/2 Fellini’s name became firmly linked to the vogue of the postwar European art film. He began to deal with the myth of Rome, the cinema, and, especially, the director’s own life and fantasy world, all of which Fellini considered interrelated themes in his works. His films of the late 1960s combine dreamlike images with original uses of colour photography. Satyricon (1969), inspired by such ancient Roman writers as Petronius and Apuleius, tells of the wanderings of a group of aimless young men in the world of antiquity. Fellini, who was unconcerned with historical accuracy, attempted to explore the human condition in an age before Christianity and the concept of original sin. A bizarre, flamboyant work, Satyricon remains a film on which critical opinion is heatedly divided. Roma (1971; Fellini’s Roma) is the director’s personal portrait of the Eternal City, and Amarcord (1973), which won Fellini a fourth Oscar for best foreign film, offers a nostalgic remembrance of Fellini’s provincial adolescence during the Fascist period.

Mature years
Many of Fellini’s later films were less successful commercially and encountered critical resistance. The sumptuous Casanova (1976), praised by some as a visual masterpiece and derided by others as a hollow confection, was a brooding, melancholy meditation on the meaning of sex and death. Such works as La città delle donne (1980; City of Women), E la nave va (1983; And the Ship Sails On), Ginger e Fred (1985; Ginger and Fred), Intervista (1987; Interview), and La voce della luna (1989; The Voice of the Moon), his last feature film, reflect the complex evolution of Fellini’s mature cinematic style and treat a variety of postmodern topics: the role of the male in an increasingly feminist society, the effects of television on contemporary life, the nature of artistic creativity, and the growing homogenization of popular culture. During the last years of his life, Fellini produced television commercials for Barilla pasta, Campari Soda, and the Banco di Roma that are regarded as extraordinary lessons in cinematography revealing the director’s deep grasp of popular culture. He also exhibited his sketches and cartoons, many of which were taken from his private dream notebooks, thus uncovering the source of much of his artistic creativity, the unconscious.

Assessment
Although the subject of derision from some revisionist critics, Fellini assured for himself a place of prime importance in the history of filmmaking. His best films, all of which were partially written by him, are freely structured tales in which dream and reality, as well as autobiography and fantasy, mingle in a world of symbolism. Breaking with traditional techniques of motion picture production, he succeeded in making the film such a personal medium that his own creative and personal problems became legendary. He received numerous honours during his lifetime, including 8 Oscars, 23 Oscar nominations, a career achievement Oscar in 1993, the Golden Lion career award from the Venice Film Festival in 1985, and dozens of prizes from the world’s most prestigious film festivals. A poll of international film directors conducted in 1992 by Sight and Sound magazine ranked Fellini as the most significant film director of all time and cited two of Fellini’s works (La strada and 8 1/2) in a list of the 10 most influential films of all time.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Gerard Philipe, French actor

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Gerard Philipe

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema

Obverse: Portrait of the French actor Gérard Philipe.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA GÉRARD PHILIPE
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Gerard Philipe
Gérard Philipe (4 December 1922 – 25 November 1959) was a prominent French actor who appeared in 34 films between 1944 and 1959.
  Born Gérard Philip in Cannes, France, he was of one quarter Czech ancestry from his maternal grandmother and three quarters French ancestry. As a teenager Philipe took acting lessons before going to Paris to study at the Conservatoire of Dramatic Art. When he was 19 years old, he made his stage debut at a theater in Nice; and the following year his strong performance in the Albert Camus play, Caligula, brought an invitation to work with the Théâtre national populaire (T.N.P.) in Paris and Avignon, whose festival, founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar, is France's oldest and most famous.
  Philipe made his film debut in Les Petites du quai aux fleurs (1943) and after a few more minor film roles, he rocketed to fame as a result of his performance in Claude Autant-Lara's Devil in the Flesh (1947). Adored by women for his good looks, Gérard Philipe was also a very talented actor and highly regarded by his peers. He played roles as diverse as Faust and Modigliani and he was sought out by France's preeminent directors for his versatility and professionalism.
  In 1951, Philipe married Nicole Fourcade (1917–1990), an actress/writer, with whom he had two children. She adopted the pseudonym, Anne Philipe, and wrote about her husband in two books, the first called Souvenirs (1960) and a second biography titled Le Temps d'un soupir (No Longer Than a Sigh, 1963).
  Recognized worldwide for his talent, he was at the pinnacle of his career when he died from liver cancer while working on a film project in Paris, a few days short of his 37th birthday. (His doctors concealed from him the nature of his disease.) He is buried in the village cemetery in Ramatuelle, Var near the Mediterranean Sea coast.
  To commemorate the centenary of the cinema in 1995, the French government issued a series of limited edition coins that included a 100 franc coin bearing the image of Philipe. Among the most popular French actors of modern times, he has been elevated to mythic status in his homeland, not least because of his early death at the peak of his popularity. In 1986, his portrait appeared on a French commemorative postage stamp. There is a film festival named in his honour as well as a number of theatres and schools (such as the College Gérard Philipe - Cogolin) in various parts of France. In Germany he has been scarcely less respected than in his native country; a cultural centre is named after him in Berlin.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Alfred Hitchcock

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Alfred Hitchcock

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema

Obverse: Alfred Hitchcock (Studio publicity photo, circa 1955)
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA ALFRED HITCHCOCK
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer, often nicknamed "The Master of Suspense". He pioneered many elements of the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He had a successful career in British cinema with both silent films and early talkies and became renowned as England's best director. Hitchcock moved to Hollywood in 1939 and became a US citizen in 1955.
  Over a career spanning over half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a recognisable directorial style. His stylistic trademarks include the use of camera movement that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. In addition, he framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative forms of film editing. His work often features fugitives on the run alongside "icy blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of murder and other violence. Many of the mysteries, however, are used as decoys or "MacGuffins" that serve the films' themes and the psychological examinations of their characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and sometimes feature strong sexual overtones. He became a highly visible public figure through interviews, movie trailers, cameo appearances in his own films, and the ten years in which he hosted the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents. In 1978, film critic John Russell Taylor described Hitchcock as "the most universally recognizable person in the world", and "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius."
  Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades and is often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker. He came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from viewers) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else." Prior to 1980, there had long been talk of Hitchcock being knighted for his contribution to film, with film critic Roger Ebert writing: "Other British directors like Sir Carol Reed and Sir Charlie Chaplin were knighted years ago, while Hitchcock, universally considered by film students to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, was passed over", before he received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in the 1980 New Year Honours. In 2002, the magazine MovieMaker named Hitchcock the most influential filmmaker of all time.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Charlie Chaplin

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Charlie Chaplin

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema

Obverse: Portrait of Charlie Chaplin as The Little Tramp.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the silent era. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.

  Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. As his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19 he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. Chaplin was scouted for the film industry, and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his own films from an early stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the best known figures in the world.

  In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length was The Kid (1921), followed by A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). He refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) without dialogue. Chaplin became increasingly political, and his next film, The Great Dictator (1940), satirised Adolf Hitler. The 1940s were a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and his popularity declined rapidly. He was accused of communist sympathies, while his involvement in a paternity suit and marriages to much younger women caused scandal. An FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the United States and settle in Switzerland. He abandoned the Tramp in his later films, which include Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967).

  Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. His films are characterised by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramp's struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. In 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work, Chaplin received an Honorary Academy Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century". He continues to be held in high regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator often ranked on industry lists of the greatest films of all time.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Arletty, French actress

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Arletty, French actress

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema.

Obverse: Arletty - French actress, singer, and fashion model.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA ARLETTY
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Arletty
Arletty, pseudonym of Arlette-léonie Bathiat (born May 15, 1898, Courbevoie, near Paris, France — died July 24, 1992, Paris), French actress with a distinguished international reputation for her film characterizations.
  Arletty worked for a time in a factory and as a secretary before becoming an artist’s model and chorus girl. In 1920 she joined the Théâtre des Capucines and appeared there in innumerable revues as well as at other Parisian theatres in operettas (such as Oui, 1928) and comedies (such as Fric Frac, 1936; “Burglary”).
  Arletty made her film debut in Un Chien qui rapporte (1930; “A Dog That Fetches”) and played minor film roles for many years. Finally, when Marcel Carné cast her as the prostitute who longed for a better life, in Hôtel du Nord (1938), she achieved star status. Similar roles in Carné’s Le Jour se lève (1939; Daybreak) and Les Visiteurs du soir (1942; The Devil’s Envoys) established her worldwide reputation as the interpreter of the quintessential sophisticated Parisian woman. Arletty’s most famous motion-picture role, however, was as the courtesan Garance in Les Enfants du Paradis (1945; Children of Paradise), again directed by Carné.
  At the end of World War II Arletty was briefly jailed for collaboration (she had refused work with German filmmakers but had taken a German lover). She did not complete another film until 1949 (Portrait d’un assassin), the same year she also created the role of Blanche in the first French stage production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. The following year saw another stage success as the lead in Revue de l’empire. During the next 12 years Arletty continued to appear in plays and to make films, most notably playing Inez in the screen version of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit (Huits-clos, 1954) and a cameo role in one of the few films she made for a non-French company, The Longest Day (1962). Although by 1963 she had become almost blind, she eventually returned to the stage, notably in the leading role in Jean Cocteau’s Les Monstres sacrés (1966; “The Holy Monsters”), and to films as a madam in Jean-Claude Brialy’s Les Volets fermés (1972; “The Closed Shutters”). An autobiography, La Défense, was published in 1971.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Actress Romy Schneider

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Actress Romy Schneider

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema.

Obverse: Actress Romy Schneider
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA ROMY SCHNEIDER
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider (23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was a film actress born in Vienna who held German and French citizenship. She started her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957 she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy. In 1958 she met Alain Delon and they became engaged; Schneider moved to France where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. Her engagement to Delon ended in 1963 and Schneider subsequently married twice. The son from her first marriage died in an accident in 1981 when he was 14. In May 1982, aged 43, Schneider was found dead of cardiac arrest in her Paris apartment.

Early life
Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian father Wolf Albach-Retty and her German mother Magda Schneider. After her parents' divorce in 1945, Magda took charge of Romy and her brother Wolfi, eventually supervising the young girl's career, often appearing alongside her daughter. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather, Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a noted restaurateur who Schneider indicated had an unhealthy interest in her.

Early career
Romy Schneider's first film, made when she was 15, was Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the White Lilacs Bloom Again) in 1953, credited as Romy Schneider-Albach. In 1954, Schneider for the first time portrayed a royal, playing a young Queen Victoria in the Austrian film Mädchenjahre einer Königin (known in the U.S. as The Story of Vickie and in Britain as Victoria in Dover). Schneider's breakthrough came with her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, in the romantic biopic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels, Sissi – The Young Empress (1956) and Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), all with Karlheinz Böhm, who became a close friend. Less stereotypical films during this busy period include The Girl and the Legend (1957), working with a young Horst Buchholz, and Monpti (1957), directed by Helmut Käutner, again with Buchholz.
  Schneider soon starred in Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls's 1933 film Liebelei (itself based upon a play by Arthur Schnitzler and starring her mother Magda Schneider). It was during the filming of Christine that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. She left Germany to join him in Paris and they announced their engagement in 1959.
  Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for The Trial (1962), based upon Franz Kafka's The Trial and was introduced by Delon to Luchino Visconti.
  Under Visconti's direction, she gave performances in the Théâtre Moderne as Annabella (and Delon as Giovanni) in John Ford's stage play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1961) and in the film Boccaccio '70 (segment: "The Job"). In 1962 Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoëff's production of Chekhov's play The Seagull, also at the Théâtre Moderne. A brief stint in Hollywood included a starring role in Good Neighbor Sam (1964) a comedy with Jack Lemmon, while What's New Pussycat? (1965), although American financed, was shot in and around Paris. Schneider co-starred with Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen; the film was made from his first screenplay.
  Schneider and Delon decided to split up in 1963 although they remained close lifelong friends. They continued to work together in such films as La Piscine (The Swimming Pool, 1968), which revitalized her career, and The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

Later career
Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, most notably with director Claude Sautet on five films. Their first collaboration, The Things of Life (Les choses de la vie, 1970) with Michel Piccoli, was a great success and made Schneider an icon in France. The three colleagues teamed up again for the noir thriller Max et les Ferrailleurs (Max and the Junkmen, 1971), and she appeared with Yves Montand in Sautet's César et Rosalie (1972). Schneider portrayed Elisabeth of Austria again in Ludwig (1972), Visconti's film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. This time she played the Empress as a much more complex, mature, even bitter woman. "Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal", Schneider once said.
  Other successes from this period included Le Train (1973), where she played a German-Jewish refugee in World War 2, Claude Chabrol's thriller Innocents with Dirty Hands (Les innocents aux mains sales, 1975) with Rod Steiger, and Le vieux fusil (1975). The gritty That Most Important Thing: Love (L'important c'est d'aimer, 1974) garnered her first César Award (France's equivalent of the Oscar), a feat she repeated five years later, in her last collaboration with Sautet, for A Simple Story (Une histoire simple, 1978).
  On 30 October 1974, Schneider created one of the most memorable moments on German television. She was the second guest on Dietmar Schönherr's talk show Je später der Abend (The Later the Evening) when she, after a rather terse interview, remarked passionately to the last guest, bank robber and author Burkhard Driest: "Sie gefallen mir. Sie gefallen mir sehr." (I like you. I like you a lot.)
  She also acted in Le Trio infernal (1974) with Michel Piccoli, and in Garde à vue (1981) with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura. An unpleasant incident occurred during this period with leading German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder who wanted her to play the lead in his film The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979). Negotiations broke down when he called Schneider a "dumb cow", to which she responded by declaring she would never work with such a "beast". Fassbinder cast Hanna Schygulla instead, reviving his professional association with an actress to whom he had also been offensive.
  Schneider starred in Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (La mort en direct, 1980) playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist (Harvey Keitel). It is based on David G. Compton's novel, Her last film was La Passante du Sans-Souci (The Passerby, 1982).

Personal life
Following the end of her relationship with Delon, Schneider married German director and actor Harry Meyen in July 1966. The couple had a son, David Christopher (1966–1981), but later divorced.
  In 1975, Schneider married Daniel Biasini, her private secretary; they separated in 1981. Their daughter, Sarah Magdalena, is now an actress.
  David, Schneider's son, died at the age of 14 after attempting to climb the spiked fence at his stepfather's parents' home and puncturing his femoral artery in the process. Schneider began drinking alcohol excessively after the death of David.
  However, Claude Pétin—a friend of hers—said that she no longer drank at the time of her death. Pétin also said that Schneider's cardiac arrest was due to a weakened heart caused by a kidney operation she had had months before.
  At the time of her death, Schneider was in a relationship with film producer Laurent Pétin.

Death
Schneider was found dead in her Paris apartment on 29 May 1982. It was suggested that she had committed suicide by taking a lethal cocktail of alcohol and sleeping pills. After another post-mortem examination was carried out, authorities declared that she had died from cardiac arrest.
  Her tombstone at Boissy-sans-Avoir in the Canton of Montfort-l'Amaury bears the name Rosemarie Albach. Shortly afterwards, Delon arranged for David to be buried in the same grave.

Enduring popularity
The French journalist Eugène Moineau initiated in 1984 the Prix Romy Schneider. It is one of the most prestigious awards for upcoming actresses in the French film industry and is given by a jury each year in Paris in conjunction with the Prix Patrick Dewaere (formerly the Prix Jean Gabin). In 1990, the Austrian newspaper Kurier created the Romy TV Award in honour of Schneider. In 2003, she was voted 78th on the list of the greatest Germans in the German TV programme Unsere Besten (the German version of 100 Greatest Britons)—the second highest ranked actress (Marlene Dietrich was 50th) on that list. Until 2002, the Austrian Federal Railways InterCity service IC 535 from Wien Südbahnhof to Graz was named "Romy Schneider".
  A movie about Schneider's life, titled Eine Frau wie Romy/Une femme comme Romy (A Woman Like Romy) was planned by Warner Bros. for 2009; Schneider's role was going to be played by Yvonne Catterfeld. The project was cancelled in July 2009. A musical about Schneider, Romy – Die Welt aus Gold (Romy – The Golden World) was premiered in 2009 at the Theater Heilbronn. In November 2009 the ARD broadcast the feature film Romy (de) with Jessica Schwarz in the title role.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Yves Montand, French actor and singer

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Yves Montand, French actor and singer

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema.

Obverse: Yves Montand (1921 – 1991) was an Italian-born French actor and singer.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA YVES MONTAND
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Yves Montand
Yves Montand, original name Ivo Livi (born October 13, 1921, Monsummano Alto, Italy — died November 9, 1991, Senlis, France), French stage and film actor and popular cabaret singer.
  Though considered by many to be the quintessence of worldly Gallic charm, Montand was actually born in Italy to peasants who fled to Marseille when he was two years of age to escape the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. At 18, he was singing in music halls, supplementing his income by working as a longshoreman.
  In Paris, as the protégé of famous chanteuse Edith Piaf, he appeared in the 1945 motion picture Étoile sans lumière (Star Without Light). He married actress Simone Signoret in 1951. His role in La Salaire de la peur (1953; Wages of Fear) brought him international fame. His autobiography, Du Soleil plein la tête (Sunshine Fills my Mind), was published in 1955, before he gave his most acclaimed performances in La Guerre est finie (1966; The War Is Over) and two films by director Costa-Gavras: Z (1968) and L’Aveu (1970; The Confession). His performances in Claude Berri’s film adaptations of two novels by Marcel Pagnol — Jean de Florette (1986) and its sequel, Manon des Sources (1986; Manon of the Spring) — were also highly acclaimed.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Leon Gaumont

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Leon Gaumont

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema

Obverse: Léon Gaumont (1864 – 1946) was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry.
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA LÉON GAUMONT.
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Léon Gaumont
Léon Gaumont (May 10, 1864 – August 9, 1946) was a French inventor, engineer, and industrialist who was a pioneer of the motion picture industry.

  Léon Ernest Gaumont, born in Semblancay, Indre-et-Loire was gifted with a mechanical mind which led him to employment manufacturing precision instruments. From early childhood, he was fascinated by the technique of photography. When he was offered a job at the Comptoir géneral de photographie in 1893, he jumped at the opportunity. His decision proved fortunate when two years later he was given the chance to acquire the business. In August 1895, he partnered with the astronomer fr:Joseph Vallot, the famous engineer Gustave Eiffel, and the financier Alfred Besnier to make the purchase. Their business entity, called L. Gaumont et Cie, has survived in one form or another to become the world's oldest surviving film company extant. The company logo was the distinctive "Marguerite" (named after his mother), a type of flower similar to the daisy. The company had extensive studios (La Cite L'Elge) in the Buttes Chaumont District of Paris, and a smaller operation in Nice, France.
  Léon Gaumont's company sold camera equipment and film, but in 1897 inaugurated a motion picture production business. Initially, Gaumont made films for the picture arcade business such as those operated by the Lumière brothers, but it was under the direction of Alice Guy (Gaumont's secretary - First Woman Film Director), that they began making short films based on narrative scripts. Louis Feuillade (Judex, Les Vampires, Fantomas) was to follow as the Studio Director when Guy left for Fort, Lee, New Jersey, where she subsequently opened her own production company—Solax Films) and it was then that Gaumont rapidly expanded the business into cinematographic equipment for amateurs. Within a few years, Gaumont's company ranked second only to Pathé Frères in the field of French Cinema. In 1903, Gaumont was granted patents for his Chronophonographe and loudspeaker system designed to work with his sound-on-disc talking pictures: the chronophone. The Etablissements Gaumont was founded in 1906 to handle film production and distribution plus to build a chain of movie theaters including the giant Gaumont Palace (Place Clichy - former "Hippodrome) in Paris (largest in the world at the time). By 1910 Léon Gaumont had improved his synchronous sound invention to the point where he was able to provide enough volume for up to 4000 people in a theater. In 1912, Gaumont developed a color process for film.
  One of the two dominant forces in film in all of Europe, World War I profoundly affected Leon Gaumont's business fortunes (over 300 employees were drafted, Nitrate Emulsion film stocks dwindled because of the need for nitro-cellulous in the munitions industry); nevertheless, before retiring in 1930, he had built one of the most important film companies in cinema history.
  Upon his retirement to Provence, a restructuring of corporate ownership took place through financing provided by the Banque Nationale de Crédit and with a capital stock issue in the name of a new company called Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert (GFFA). Four years later, a scandal erupted following the collapse of the Banque Nationale de Crédit and GFFA was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.
  Léon Gaumont died in 1946 in Sainte-Maxime, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France, and was buried in the Cimetière de Belleville in Paris. In 1995, on the 100th anniversary of French film, a commemorative 100 Franc coin was issued with Léon Gaumont's image.

Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French mini-major film studio founded by the engineer-turned-inventor Léon Gaumont (1864–1946). It is the first and oldest film company in the world, founded before other studios such as Pathé, founded in 1896, Titanus founded in 1904, as well as Nordisk Film, founded in 1906, and Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures, which were both founded in 1912. Gaumont predominantly produces, co-produces, and distributes films. (95% of Gaumont's 2011 consolidated revenues came from the film division.) However, the company is increasingly becoming a TV series producer with its new American subsidiary Gaumont International Television as well as its existing French production features.

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Jean Renoir, French film director

France 100 Francs Silver Coin 1995 Jean Renoir, French film director

Commemorative issue: 100th Anniversary of Cinema.

Obverse: Jean Renoir, French film director
Lettering: CENTENAIRE DU CINÉMA JEAN RENOIR
Engraver: Atelier de Paris.

Reverse: Lumière Cinématographe Camera (Cinématographe Lumière at the Institut Lumière, France)
Lettering: LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ RF 100 FRANCS 1995
Edge: Smooth.

Value: 100 Francs.
Metal: Silver (.900).
Weight: 22.2 g.
Diameter: 37 mm.
Thickness: 2.2 mm.
Shape: Round.

Commemorative coins of France

100th Anniversary of Cinema

Lumière Brothers    Federico Fellini    Alfred Hitchcock    

Charlie Chaplin       Greta Garbo       Romy Schneider

Gerard Philipe    Arletty    Yves Montand    Leon Gaumont    

Jean Renoir       Marcel Pagnol       Georges Melies

Jean Renoir
Marcel Paul Pagnol, (born Feb. 25, 1895, Aubagne, France — died April 18, 1974, Paris), French writer and motion-picture producer-director who won both fame as the master of stage comedy and critical acclaim for his filmmaking. He was elected to the French Academy in 1946, the first filmmaker to be so honoured.
  Pagnol’s father was superintendent of the town’s schools, and Pagnol likewise trained for a teaching career. He obtained his teacher’s diploma from the faculty of letters of the University of Montpellier. He wrote poetry, novels, and plays while working as a teacher. After World War I Pagnol published the novel Pirouettes and had several plays produced in the provinces. He transferred to teach at a school in Paris in 1922, and there, three years later, his play Les Marchands de gloire (1925; The Merchants of Glory), written with Paul Nivoix, opened to high critical praise. Because of its unpopular subject matter, war profiteering, the play did not have wide appeal and closed after a few performances. Undaunted, Pagnol finally in 1926 had a hit with Jazz, which won both critical and popular success. Topaze (1928) secured Pagnol’s reputation as a major French playwright. Topaze ran for two years in Paris and was later adapted for the Broadway stage and made into a film in 1933. His next three comedies — Marius (1929), Fanny (1931), and César (1936), known as the Marseille trilogy — deal with the lives of a Marseille fishmonger, Fanny, her lover Marius who goes off to sea, César the father, and his friend Panisse. The salty language of the people and Pagnol’s ability to capture the atmosphere of the port at Marseille made the plays universally appealing, and the films made from them influenced the later Neorealists. The plays also inspired the Broadway musical Fanny, which was later adopted into a motion picture.
  In 1931 Pagnol decided to become a filmmaker. He opened his own movie studio in 1933 and went on to direct such award-winning films as Angèle (1934), Regain (1937; Harvest), La Femme du boulanger (1938; The Baker’s Wife), La Fille du puisatier (1940; The Well Digger’s Daughter), and Les Lettres de mon moulin (1954; Letters from My Windmill). His films are set in Provence and were often adapted from stories by Jean Giono. They depict the lives of the farmers and shopkeepers of rural southern France and feature tightly constructed plots and realistic dialogue. Pagnol wrote extensively on filmmaking and was the author of three autobiographical volumes.