Jacques Tourneur

Born in Paris, France, Tourneur was the son of Fernande Petit and film director Maurice Tourneur.[2] At age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father.[2] He started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk in various silent films.[2] Both Maurice and Jacques returned to France after his father worked on the film The Mysterious Island in 1925.[2] Tourneur died in 1977 in Bergerac, Dordogne, France.

Tourneur began work as an editor and assistant director. He made his debut as a director on the French film Tout ça ne vaut pas l'amour in 1931.[2]

Tourneur went back to Hollywood in 1934 where he had a contract with MGM Studios.[2] While working as the second unit director on the film A Tale of Two Cities he met film producer Val Lewton.[2] Tourneur made his feature debut as director in the 1939 film They All Come Out.[2] 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.[2] 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.[2] In the 1950s, Tourneur became a freelance director, filming excellent various genre films including Wichita, Anne of the Indies, Way of a Gaucho, Nightfall, The Flame and the Arrow, Stars In My Crown and Night of the Demon.[2] His last films both starred Vincent Price, with The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and War-Gods of the Deep (1965) for American International Pictures.[2]

After his final days working for film, Tourneur began directing television episodes.[2] Tourneur filmed episodes of The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Bonanza, The Twilight Zone, and The Alaskans. Tourneur's final director credit was for an episode of T.H.E. Cat in 1966.[2] Tourneur then retired and returned to France.[2]

Bibliography

• Earnshaw, Tony (2004). Beating the Devil: The Making of Night of the Demon. Tomahawk Press. ISBN 0-9531926-1-X.
• Tourneur, Jacques (2016). "Cine Regards". Cat People (Blu-ray). The Criterion Collection. ISBN 978-1-68143-201-4. CC2674BD.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Jacques Tourneur, The Cinema of Nightfall, Chris Fujiwara, The Johns Hopkins University press 2007.

Further reading

• 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.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jacques Tourneur.

• Jacques Tourneur at IMDb
• Jacques Tourneur at AllMovie
• Jacques Tourneur at Find a Grave