Ivan Mozzhukhin
Encyclopedia
Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin (Russian
: Иван Ильич Мозжухин (—18 January 1939) was a Russian
silent film actor.
Mozzhukhin was born in Penza
, Russia and studied law at Moscow State University
. In 1910 he left academic life to join a troupe of traveling actors from Kiev
, with which he toured for a year, gaining experience and a reputation for dynamic stage presence. Upon returning to Moscow
, he launched his screen career with the 1911
adaptation of Tolstoy
's The Kreutzer Sonata. He also starred in A House in Kolomna (1913, after Pushkin), Pyotr Chardynin
directed drama Do You Remember? opposite the popular Russian ballerina Vera Karalli
(1914), Nikolay Stavrogin (1915, after Dostoyevsky's The Devils
a/k/a The Possessed), The Queen of Spades
(1916, after Pushkin) and other adaptations of Russian classics.
's psychological montage experiment which demonstrated the Kuleshov Effect
. In 1918, the first full year of the Russian Revolution
, Kuleshov assembled his revolutionary illustration of the application of the principles of film editing out of footage from one of Mozzhukhin's Tsarist-era films which had been left behind when he, along with his entire film production company, departed for the relative safety of Crimea
in 1917.
and quickly established himself as one of the top stars of the French silent cinema
. Using the French spelling of his name, Mosjoukine, he starred in one successful film after another. Handsome, tall, and possessing a powerful screen presence, he won a considerable following as a mysterious and exotic romantic figure.
The first film of his French career was also his final Russian film. L'Angoissante Aventure (The Harrowing Adventure) was a dramatized record of the difficult and dangerous journey of Russian actors, directors and other film artists as they made their way from Crimea
into the chaos of Ottoman
Turkey
in the midst of the post-World War I
fall of the Sultanate
. The group was headed by the renowned director Yakov Protazanov
and included Mozzhukhin's frequent leading lady Natalya Lisenko
(billed in France as Nathalie Lissenko), whom he married and later divorced. Their ultimate destination was Paris, which became the new capital for most of the exiled former aristocrats and other refugees escaping the civil war and Bolshevik
terror gripping Russia. The film was completed and released in Paris in November 1920.
Mozzhukhin's film stardom was assured and during the 1920s, his face with the trademark hypnotic stare appeared on covers of film magazines all over Europe. He wrote the screenplays for most of his starring vehicles and directed two of them, L'Enfant du carnaval (Child of the Carnival), released on 29 August 1921 and Le Brasier ardent (The Blazing Inferno), released on 2 November 1923. The leading lady in both films was the then-"Mme Mosjoukine", Nathalie Lissenko. Brasier, in particular, was highly praised for its innovative and inventive concepts, but ultimately proved too surreal and bizarre to become financially successful. Styled like a semi-comic Kafkaesque nightmare, the film has him playing a detective known only as "Z" hired by an older husband to follow his adventurous young wife. The plot, however, was only the device which Mozzhukhin and his assistant director Aleksandr Volkov (billed in France as Alexandre Volkoff) used to experiment with the audience's perception of reality. Many of the scenes seem to be taking place on sets that are disconcertingly larger than normal and one particularly striking staging has the husband entering the detective agency to find a synchronized line of men, presumably detectives, all wearing tuxedos and gliding about in formation. Mozzhukhin received praise for his enthusiastic acting and display of emotion.
died in August 1926, Hollywood producers began searching for another face or image that might capture some iota of that unique screen presence radiated by "The Great Lover". A few of the French productions which starred Mozzhukhin were seen in large U.S.
cities, where multitudes of cinemas regularly presented European films, but he was a generally unfamiliar persona to the large majority of American audiences. Universal
's Carl Laemmle
, who had employed Valentino as a supporting actor in two 1919-1920 films, found out that Mozzhukhin was frequently described by the European press as the Russian Valentino. In February 1927, Mozzhukhin received a generous offer from Laemmle to come to Hollywood as the star of his own vehicle.
As it turned out, however, Surrender, lensed in the Summer of 1927, did not trust Mosjukine (as he was billed) to carry the storyline. He was only the film's co-star, with the top billing and the central role going to Mary Philbin
, a popular leading lady of the period who, eighteen months earlier, had the showy role of the girl who unmasks Lon Chaney
as The Phantom of the Opera
. The recent Russian Revolution was a popular film subject of the time, with the 1926 John Barrymore
-Camilla Horn
teaming in The Tempest and the Emil Jannings
vehicle The Last Command
, released three months after Surrender, being two examples of the genre. Since Laemmle's new star was a genuine survivor of the Revolution, it seemed only natural that the story would be set in that milieu.
Symptomatic of Mozzhukhin's co-star status, he does not even appear in first fifteen minutes of the film, which are occupied with the depiction of life in an Eastern Europe
an Jewish settlement on the eve of World War I
. Eventually, at the centerpiece of the plot Mary Philbin, as the virginal daughter of the village rabbi, is confronted with the startling choice of willingly "surrendering" her maidenhood to Mozzhukhin's aristocratic leader of the Cossack detachment sent to wipe out her village, or refusing and seeing him carry out his assignment. While this type of personality fitted into Valentino's past Son of the Sheik characterization of a dominant, forceful lover who initially takes women against their will, until they melt under the radiance of his sheer animal magnetism, it ran against Mozzhukhin's European Casanova image as a fatalistically irresistible paramour to whom women flock and "surrender" without any hint of force or threat, but simply because of their inability to resist.
This basic misunderstanding of the dissimilarity between Valentino and Mozzhukhin combined with journeyman direction by Edward Sloman
and Mary Philbin's unresponsiveness and lack of chemistry with her leading man, consigned the film to a tepid reception by the critics and the public. Although moderately profitable, it was not the money-making hit that Laemmle expected. Mozzhukhin received some good notices, but a number of critics doubted his suitability for American audiences. An even more ominous note, however, was sounded at the film's Broadway
premiere on 10 October 1927. Another film, playing across the street, had its premiere four days earlier, on 6 October. The Jazz Singer
was attracting much bigger audiences than Surrender and, as it was ushering in voice-on-film, would soon sound the death knell for Mozzhukhin's career as a silent film star, as his heavy Russian accent eventually dealt a crippling blow to his hopes of continuing in talkies.
in a Neuilly-sur-Seine
clinic. All available sources give his age as 49 and year of birth as 1889. However, his gravestone at the Russian cemetery in the Parisian suburb of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois
is inscribed with the year 1887.
While Mozzhukhin left no official progeny, French novelist Romain Gary
(original name Roman Kacew) had maintained that his birth in Vilnius
on 8 May 1914 was the result of an affair between his mother Nina Owczyńska and the 24-year-old Ivan Mozzhukhin who was on the verge of becoming the most popular leading man of Czarist cinema. At the time, Nina was a young, minor Polish
-Jewish provincial actress, recently married to one Arieh Kacew. In 1960, Gary
wrote a novelized autobiographical account of his mother's struggles and triumphs, La promesse de l'aube (Promise at Dawn), which became the basis for an English-language play and a French-American film. The play, Samuel A. Taylor
's First Love, opened on Broadway
at the Morosco Theatre
on Christmas Day 1961 and closed on 13 January 1962, after 24 performances. In 1970, returning to its original title, it was adapted for the screen and directed by Jules Dassin
as a vehicle for his wife Melina Mercouri
(then aged 49), who played Nina. Dassin, who was 59 years old at the time, chose to play Mozzhukhin himself in the single scene that the character appears in the film.
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: Иван Ильич Мозжухин (—18 January 1939) was a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
silent film actor.
Career in Russia
Penza
-Honors:A minor planet, 3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city.-Notable residents:...
, Russia and studied law at Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
. In 1910 he left academic life to join a troupe of traveling actors from Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, with which he toured for a year, gaining experience and a reputation for dynamic stage presence. Upon returning to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, he launched his screen career with the 1911
1911 in film
The year 1911 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*March 23: D.W Griffith shows the first major close-up shot on film with the successful release of The Lonedale Operator proving his ever growing mastery of how to utilise film....
adaptation of Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
's The Kreutzer Sonata. He also starred in A House in Kolomna (1913, after Pushkin), Pyotr Chardynin
Pyotr Chardynin
Pyotr Ivanovich Chardynin was a Russian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Pyotr Chardynin, one of the pioneers of the film industry in the Russian Empire, directed over a hundred silent films during his career.-Biography:...
directed drama Do You Remember? opposite the popular Russian ballerina Vera Karalli
Vera Karalli
Vera Alexeyevna Karalli was a notable Russian ballet dancer, choreographer and silent film actress during the early years of the twentieth century.-Early life and career:...
(1914), Nikolay Stavrogin (1915, after Dostoyevsky's The Devils
The Devils (novel)
Demons is an 1872 novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Though titled The Possessed in the initial English translation, Dostoyevsky scholars and later translations favour the titles The Devils or Demons....
a/k/a The Possessed), The Queen of Spades
The Queen of Spades (1916 film)
The Queen of Spades is a 1916 film adaptation of the Aleksandr Pushkin short story of the same name, noted for high producer and operator culture, with the psychological depth of actor's game, first of all of Ivan Mozzhukhin...
(1916, after Pushkin) and other adaptations of Russian classics.
The Kuleshov Effect
Mozzhukhin's most lasting contribution to the theoretical concept of film as image is the legacy of his own face in recurring representation of illusory reactions seen in Lev KuleshovLev Kuleshov
Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov was a Soviet filmmaker and film theorist who taught at and helped establish the world's first film school .-Career:...
's psychological montage experiment which demonstrated the Kuleshov Effect
Kuleshov Effect
The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing effect demonstrated by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910s and 1920s.-Specifics of the Kuleshov effect:...
. In 1918, the first full year of the Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, Kuleshov assembled his revolutionary illustration of the application of the principles of film editing out of footage from one of Mozzhukhin's Tsarist-era films which had been left behind when he, along with his entire film production company, departed for the relative safety of Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
in 1917.
Career in France
At the end of 1919 Mozzhukhin arrived in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and quickly established himself as one of the top stars of the French silent cinema
Cinema of France
The Cinema of France comprises the art of film and creative movies made within the nation of France or by French filmmakers abroad.France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its early significant contributions. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle...
. Using the French spelling of his name, Mosjoukine, he starred in one successful film after another. Handsome, tall, and possessing a powerful screen presence, he won a considerable following as a mysterious and exotic romantic figure.
The first film of his French career was also his final Russian film. L'Angoissante Aventure (The Harrowing Adventure) was a dramatized record of the difficult and dangerous journey of Russian actors, directors and other film artists as they made their way from Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
into the chaos of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
in the midst of the post-World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
fall of the Sultanate
Ottoman Dynasty
The Ottoman Dynasty ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1299 to 1922, beginning with Osman I , though the dynasty was not proclaimed until Orhan Bey declared himself sultan...
. The group was headed by the renowned director Yakov Protazanov
Yakov Protazanov
Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov was Russian and Soviet film director and screenwriter, and one of the founding fathers of cinema of Russia....
and included Mozzhukhin's frequent leading lady Natalya Lisenko
Natalya Lisenko
Natalya Lisenko was an Russian actress, a star of silent film.She was the niece of the composer Mykola Lysenko.In 1904 she has left school at Moscow Art Theatre and started to work at theaters of Russia with the husband Nikolai Radin. Very soon spouses have divorced, and Natalya Lisenko became the...
(billed in France as Nathalie Lissenko), whom he married and later divorced. Their ultimate destination was Paris, which became the new capital for most of the exiled former aristocrats and other refugees escaping the civil war and Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
terror gripping Russia. The film was completed and released in Paris in November 1920.
Surrender in Hollywood
When Rudolph ValentinoRudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
died in August 1926, Hollywood producers began searching for another face or image that might capture some iota of that unique screen presence radiated by "The Great Lover". A few of the French productions which starred Mozzhukhin were seen in large U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cities, where multitudes of cinemas regularly presented European films, but he was a generally unfamiliar persona to the large majority of American audiences. Universal
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
's Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...
, who had employed Valentino as a supporting actor in two 1919-1920 films, found out that Mozzhukhin was frequently described by the European press as the Russian Valentino. In February 1927, Mozzhukhin received a generous offer from Laemmle to come to Hollywood as the star of his own vehicle.
As it turned out, however, Surrender, lensed in the Summer of 1927, did not trust Mosjukine (as he was billed) to carry the storyline. He was only the film's co-star, with the top billing and the central role going to Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin
Mary Philbin was a notable film actress of the silent film era. Philbin is probably best remembered for playing the roles of Christine Daaé in the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera opposite screen legend Lon Chaney and Dea in The Man Who Laughs...
, a popular leading lady of the period who, eighteen months earlier, had the showy role of the girl who unmasks Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
as The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film)
The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title directed by Rupert Julian. The film featured Lon Chaney in the title role as the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force...
. The recent Russian Revolution was a popular film subject of the time, with the 1926 John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
-Camilla Horn
Camilla Horn
Camilla Horn was a former German dancer and a film star of the silent and sound era. She starred in several Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.-Biography:...
teaming in The Tempest and the Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings
Emil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar...
vehicle The Last Command
The Last Command (film)
The Last Command is a 1928 silent film directed by Josef von Sternberg, and written by John F. Goodrich and Herman J. Mankiewicz, from a story by Lajos Biró. Star Emil Jannings won the very first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performances in this film and The Way of All...
, released three months after Surrender, being two examples of the genre. Since Laemmle's new star was a genuine survivor of the Revolution, it seemed only natural that the story would be set in that milieu.
Symptomatic of Mozzhukhin's co-star status, he does not even appear in first fifteen minutes of the film, which are occupied with the depiction of life in an Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an Jewish settlement on the eve of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Eventually, at the centerpiece of the plot Mary Philbin, as the virginal daughter of the village rabbi, is confronted with the startling choice of willingly "surrendering" her maidenhood to Mozzhukhin's aristocratic leader of the Cossack detachment sent to wipe out her village, or refusing and seeing him carry out his assignment. While this type of personality fitted into Valentino's past Son of the Sheik characterization of a dominant, forceful lover who initially takes women against their will, until they melt under the radiance of his sheer animal magnetism, it ran against Mozzhukhin's European Casanova image as a fatalistically irresistible paramour to whom women flock and "surrender" without any hint of force or threat, but simply because of their inability to resist.
This basic misunderstanding of the dissimilarity between Valentino and Mozzhukhin combined with journeyman direction by Edward Sloman
Edward Sloman
Edward Sloman was an English silent film director, actor, screenwriter and radio broadcaster. He directed over 100 films and starred in over 30 films as an actor between 1913 and 1938....
and Mary Philbin's unresponsiveness and lack of chemistry with her leading man, consigned the film to a tepid reception by the critics and the public. Although moderately profitable, it was not the money-making hit that Laemmle expected. Mozzhukhin received some good notices, but a number of critics doubted his suitability for American audiences. An even more ominous note, however, was sounded at the film's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
premiere on 10 October 1927. Another film, playing across the street, had its premiere four days earlier, on 6 October. The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
was attracting much bigger audiences than Surrender and, as it was ushering in voice-on-film, would soon sound the death knell for Mozzhukhin's career as a silent film star, as his heavy Russian accent eventually dealt a crippling blow to his hopes of continuing in talkies.
Death and later appearance in Romain Gary's novelized autobiography
Ivan Mozzhukhin died of tuberculosisTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in a Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
clinic. All available sources give his age as 49 and year of birth as 1889. However, his gravestone at the Russian cemetery in the Parisian suburb of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Essonne
Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois lies just north of junction 42 on the orbital Francilienne autoroute....
is inscribed with the year 1887.
While Mozzhukhin left no official progeny, French novelist Romain Gary
Romain Gary
Romain Gary was a French diplomat, novelist, film director, World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice .- Early life :Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew...
(original name Roman Kacew) had maintained that his birth in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
on 8 May 1914 was the result of an affair between his mother Nina Owczyńska and the 24-year-old Ivan Mozzhukhin who was on the verge of becoming the most popular leading man of Czarist cinema. At the time, Nina was a young, minor Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
-Jewish provincial actress, recently married to one Arieh Kacew. In 1960, Gary
Romain Gary
Romain Gary was a French diplomat, novelist, film director, World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt twice .- Early life :Gary was born in Vilnius under the name Roman Kacew...
wrote a novelized autobiographical account of his mother's struggles and triumphs, La promesse de l'aube (Promise at Dawn), which became the basis for an English-language play and a French-American film. The play, Samuel A. Taylor
Samuel A. Taylor
Samuel A. Taylor was an American playwright and screenwriter.Born Samuel Albert Tanenbaum, in a Jewish family, in Chicago, Illinois, Taylor made his Broadway debut as author of the play The Happy Time in 1950. He wrote the play Sabrina Fair in 1953 and co-wrote its film adaptation the following year...
's First Love, opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
at the Morosco Theatre
Morosco Theatre
The Morosco Theatre was a legitimate theatre located at 217 West 45th Street in the heart of the theater district in midtown-Manhattan, New York, United States....
on Christmas Day 1961 and closed on 13 January 1962, after 24 performances. In 1970, returning to its original title, it was adapted for the screen and directed by Jules Dassin
Jules Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin , was an American film director, with Jewish-Russian origins. He was a subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, and subsequently moved to France where he revived his career.-Early life:...
as a vehicle for his wife Melina Mercouri
Melina Mercouri
Melina Mercouri , born as Maria Amalia Mercouri was a Greek actress, singer and politician.As an actress she made her film debut in Stella and met international success with her performances in Never on Sunday, Phaedra, Topkapi and Promise at Dawn...
(then aged 49), who played Nina. Dassin, who was 59 years old at the time, chose to play Mozzhukhin himself in the single scene that the character appears in the film.
Selected filmography
- Defence of SevastopolDefence of SevastopolDefence of Sevastopol is a 1911 historical war film about the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War and one of the most important films in the history of Russian cinema...
(1911) - The Night Before ChristmasThe Night Before Christmas (1913 film)The Night Before Christmas is a 1913 silent film made in the Russian Empire by Ladislas Starevich, based on the tale of the same name by Nikolai Gogol...
(1913) - Domik v Kolomne (The Little House in Kolomna) (1913)
- The Queen of SpadesThe Queen of Spades (1916 film)The Queen of Spades is a 1916 film adaptation of the Aleksandr Pushkin short story of the same name, noted for high producer and operator culture, with the psychological depth of actor's game, first of all of Ivan Mozzhukhin...
(1916) - Satan Triumphant (1917)
- Father SergiusFather Sergius (film)Father Sergius is a 1917 Russian silent film directed by Yakov Protazanov based on the eponymous story by Leo Tolstoy....
(1917) - Le Brasier ardent (The Blazing Inferno) (1923)
- La Maison du mystère (The House of Mystery) (1923)
- Kean (1923)
- Le Lion des Mogols (The Lion of the Mongols) (1924)
- Feu Mathias PascalFeu Mathias PascalFeu Mathias Pascal is a 1925 French silent film written and directed by Marcel L'Herbier. It was the first film adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's novel Il fu Mattia Pascal.-Background:...
(The Late Mathias Pascal) (1926) - Michel Strogoff (1926)
- Casanova (1927)
- Surrender (1927)
- Der weiße Teufel (The White Devil) (1930)
- Casanova (1934)
- Nitchevo (1936)