Two Tourneurs, Father and Son

A somewhat unusual case to contemplate today: a father and son, both of whom made well-known, well-respected and popular movies in two countries: France and America.

Maurice Tourneur (Maurice Thomas, 1876-1961) was originally a visual artist who’d worked as a magazine illustrator and an assistant to Auguste Rodin. Two of his siblings were in the theatre; he joined them in that risky business around the turn of the century, becoming an important supporting player with the companies of Andre Antoine and Gabrielle Réjane, among others. “Tourneur”, his stage name, is the same as the English name Turner. (One wonders — was he a fan of the Romantic painter?)

In 1911 he decided to try his hand at directing films for the Éclair studio. His early movies include The System of Doctor Goudron (1912), based on a Grand Guignol play adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, and several starring the popular stage star Polaire.

This was still the period when France had a major cinematic presence in the U.S. — all of the major French studios had branch offices in America. In early 1914, the Éclair studio assigned Tourneur to head up their one in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Having toured England during his acting days, his grasp of the language was pretty good. A few months after Tourneur arrived in the U.S., World War One broke out. Much like another famous work emigre from Europe, Charlie Chaplin, Tourneur elected to remain in the then-neutral U.S. rather to return home and fight, with positive benefits to his career. The French film industry was gutted by the war and lost its central position in the American market. It wouldn’t recover for decades. Meanwhile, Tourneur had gone to work for William A. Brady’s production company, and later he would “punch in” at the major Hollywood studios. His dozens of American films during the silent era included the 1915 version of Alias Jimmy Valentine, The Poor Little Rich Girl (1918) with Mary Pickford, a very artistic 1918 adaptation of Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird, a 1918 adaptation of A Doll’s House with Elsie Ferguson, the 1920 Treasure Island with Lon Chaney, the 1920 Last of the Mohicans, two versions of Seymour Hicks’ The Sporting Life (1918 and 1925), and many others.

Tourneur’s emphasis on pictorialism over plot momentum brought him into conflict with Hollywood studio heads. In the late 20s he returned to France, where he directed another couple of dozen films, including Dance Hall (1931), Samson (1936), Volpone (1941), and the horror movie The Hand of the Devil (1943). He managed to work through the trying conditions of the German occupation, and kept working until the end of the decade when a car accident resulted in the loss of a leg. During his remaining decade he occupied himself by painting and translating English potboilers into French for domestic publication. By then of course his son was a successful director.

Jacques Tourneur (1904-1977) is probably better known in the U.S. than his dad. In France, the reverse is probably true.

Jacques was about 9 when he first moved to America with his family, and in his early ’20s when they all went back to their homeland. He cut his teeth in the French film industry as an editor and A.D., and then began to direct comedies such as Toto (1933) and The Concierge’s Daughters (1934). Much like his father had a generation earlier, Jacques had the good luck (or sense) to get out of Europe just before things got hairy. He got second unit directing work on MGM’s A Tale of Two Cities (1935), which you’ll recall is set during the French Revolution. By 1939 he was directing on his own, mostly B pictures, things like Nick Carter, Detective and Phantom Raiders, both of which starred Walter Pidgeon.

These days he’s probably best known for his horror films: the three he made for Val Lewton at RKO: Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and The Leopard Man (1943), as well as the later British film (1957) Night of the Demon starring Dana Andrews and based on an M.R. James story and AIP’s The Comedy of Terrors (1964). He also had a good track record in westerns, such as the Joel McCrea pictures Stars in My Crown (1950) and Wichita (1955). Towards the end, it was things like Giant of Marathon (1959) with Steve Reeves . His last cinematic feature was the AIP-British co-production City Under the Sea (1965) with Vincent Price and Tab Hunter. Meantime, he had also been directing for television, things like The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Bonanza, and The Twilight Zone. After retiring in 1966, he returned to his native country to live out his final decade.

For more on silent film please see Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.