Entente cordiale (film)

Entente cordiale is a 1939 French drama film directed by Marcel L'Herbier and starring Gaby Morlay, Victor Francen and Pierre Richard-Willm.[2] The film depicts events between the Fashoda crisis in 1898 and the 1904 signing of the Entente Cordiale creating an alliance between Britain and France and ending their historic rivalry. It was based on the book King Edward VII and His Times by André Maurois. It was made with an eye to its propaganda value, following the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and in anticipation of the outbreak of a Second World War which would test the bonds between Britain and France in a conflict with Nazi Germany.

Entente cordiale
Directed byMarcel L'Herbier
Produced byMax Glass
Bernard Natan
Written byAndré Maurois (book)
StarringGaby Morlay
Victor Francen
Pierre Richard-Willm
Music byRoger Bernstein
Marcel Lattès
CinematographyMarc Fossard
Theodore J. Pahle
Edited byRaymond Leboursier
Distributed byComptoir Français du Film (CFF)
Release date
3 April 1939[1]
Running time
110 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

Cast

Production

Entente Cordiale was the third in Marcel L'Herbier's series of "Chroniques filmées" (following La Tragédie impériale and Adrienne Lecouvreur, both in 1938) in which he dramatised historical subjects in a manner "very close to reality",[3] albeit reluctantly combined with some romantic fiction.[4]

Filming took place at the Studios de Saint-Maurice (south-east of Paris) in January & February 1939, and it was ready for its gala première in April before representatives of the French and British governments.[5]

References
  1. Jaque Catelain présente Marcel L'Herbier. Paris: Jacques Vautrin, 1950. p. 124. The gala première took place at the Marignan cinema in Paris on 3 April 1939, in the presence of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Ambassador of Great Britain. Other sources (IMDB, Ciné-Ressources) cite a release date in France of 21 April 1939.)
  2. BFI Film, TV, People database: "Entente cordiale (1939)". Archived from the original on 2009-02-07.
  3. Laurent Véray [ed.]. Marcel L'Herbier: l'art du cinéma. Paris: Association française de recherche sur l'histoire du cinéma, 2007. p. 283: "une leçon d'histoire, très proche de la réalité".
  4. Marcel L'Herbier. La Tête qui tourne. Paris: Belfond, 1979. p. 271: "[Max] Glass insistait, hélas, pour qu'on y insérât une historiette d'amour franco-anglaise. C'était la tare inguérissable de la production des années 30."
  5. Marcel L'Herbier. La Tête qui tourne. Paris: Belfond, 1979. p. 272.
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