Jacques Tourneur
| Jacques Tourneur | |
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 Tourneur sitting in a director's chair |
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| Born | November 12, 1904 Paris, France |
| Died | December 19, 1977 (aged 73) Bergerac, France |
| Occupation | Director |
| Years active | 1931 - 1965 |
Jacques Tourneur (November 12, 1904–December 19, 1977) was a French-American film director.
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[edit] Life
Born in Paris, France, he was the son of film director Maurice Tourneur.[1] At age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father.[1] He started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk in various silent films.[1] Both Maurice and Jacques returned to France after his father worked on the film The Mysterious Island in 1925.[1] Tourneur died in 1977 in Bergerac, Dordogne, France.
[edit] Career
Jacques began work as an editor and assistant director. He made his debut as a director on French short film Tout ca ne vaut pas l'amour in 1931.[1]
Jacques Tourneur went back to Hollywood in 1934 where he had a contract with MGM Studios.[1] While working as the second unit director on the film A Tale of Two Cities he met film producer Val Lewton.[1] Tourneur made his feature debut as director in the 1939 film They All Come Out in 1939.[1] After Tourneur was dropped by MGM in 1941, he was picked up by Lewton to film several acclaimed low-budget horror films for RKO Studios including Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie.[1] Cat People was considered to be a B movie and didn’t have a very big budget, yet the style of lighting and cinematography gave it an edge that has been imitated countless times.Tourneur was promoted to the A-list at RKO, directing films including Out of the Past and Berlin Express.[1] In the 1950s, Tourneur became a freelance director, filming various genre films including The Flame and the Arrow, Stars In My Crown and Night of the Demon.[1] His last films both starred Vincent Price, with The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and War-Gods of the Deep (1965) for American International Pictures.[1]
After his final days working for film, Tourneur began directing television episodes.[1] Tourneur filmed episodes of Bonanza, The Twilight Zone and The Alaskans. Tourneur's final director credit was for an episode of T.H.E. Cat in 1966.[1] Tourneur then retired and returned to France.[1]
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
- Earnshaw, Tony (2004). Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon. Tomahawk Press. ISBN 0-9531926-1-x.
[edit] External links
- Jacques Tourneur at the Internet Movie Database
- Jacques Tourneur at AllRovi
- Young, Gwenda (2001) 'Shadows: Jacques Tourneur's Cinema of Ambiguity'. Film Ireland, 83 (*):47-51.
- Young, Gwenda (1999) 'Jacques Tourneur's World War II Films: From Unity to Chaos'. Popular Culture Review, 10 (2):55-65.
- Young, Gwenda (1998) 'The Cinema of Difference: Jacques Tourneur, Race and I Walked with a Zombie (1943)'. ''Irish Journal of American Studies, 7:101-121.
- Special about Jacques Tourneur, with pieces by Pedro Costa, Chris Fujiwara, Toni D'Angela, Louis Skorecki, Jean-Claude Biette, Jacques Lourcelles, Bruno Andrade, Raymond Bellour, Tag Gallagher, Miguel Marias, Jean-Marie Samocki, and others [1]
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