Étienne Périer (director)

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Étienne Périer (born December 11, 1931 in Brussels ; † June 21, 2020 in Le Plan-de-la-Tour ) was a Belgian film director , screenwriter and actor who, between 1952 and 2004, made around 30 cinema and TV Staged films, including Murder at 45 Tours , Degenduell , Zeppelin and Das Mörderschiff .

life and career

Périer, born in Brussels in 1931, began his film career immediately after graduating from college with two short films in Belgium, La Cité qui there ( The Sleeping Town , 1952) and Ghent (1953), and two more in Paris, (1954) with A propos des Gloutons Optiques and 1956 with Bernard Buffet .

A year later in 1957 he wrote the screenplay for Henri Decoins film Kavaliere (Charmants garçons) , a romantic comedy starring Daniel Gélin , Henri Vidal , François Périer and Gert Fröbe in the leading roles.

In 1960 he made his big screen debut with the film Mord bei 45 Touren (Meurtre en 45 tours) . A mystery thriller starring Danielle Darrieux , Michel Auclair and Jean Servais .

Another feature film that Périer made was the ambitious American-French co-production Die Brücke zur Sonne (Bridge to the Sun), a love drama that took place during the Second World War . With Carroll Baker in the role of Gwen Terasaki and the Japanese actor James Shigeta as her husband. It was a serious film adaptation of the autobiographical novel by Gwen Terasaki, an American who married an idealistic Japanese diplomat shortly before the war and moved with him to Tokyo. The outbreak of war and the consequences seriously endanger the marriage and initiate the tragic outcome of the former love affair.

In 1962, the Italian-French co-production Degenduell (La congiura dei dieci) followed, an old-school adventure film starring Stewart Granger . Christine Kaufmann co-starred the film . After four other less well-known films during the 1960s, the British World War I spy thriller Zeppelin with Michael York and Elke Sommer in the leading roles followed in the early 1970s . This time the screenplay was written by Donald Churchill and Arthur Rowe, based on the story of the same name by Owen Crump. The film Zeppelin featured well-photographed images by James Bond cameraman Alan Hume and a dramatic soundtrack by British composer Roy Budd . The review wrote:

“The German airship Zeppelin is supposed to destroy the English secret archives in Scotland during the First World War, which is prevented by an English spy smuggled in. Imaginative aviation adventure of partly disarming naivety. "

- Lexicon of international film

Then Périer filmed another adventure film with international star cast based on a novel by the bestselling author Alistair MacLean , who also wrote the screenplay, titled: The Murderer Ship (When Eight Bells Toll) with a relatively young Anthony Hopkins at the beginning of his film career.

Also in 1972 All Cosmopolitan, Périer directed another French crime novel. Murder remains murder (Le maître de musique) with the cast: Jean-Claude Brialy , Stéphane Audran and Robert Hossein . A few less well-known international productions followed until 1978, until Périer worked out the script again in 1978 based on an idea by Alain Page. The drama The dangerous game of ambition and love (La part du feu) impressively cast and played by Michel Piccoli and Claudia Cardinale .

In the 1980s and 1990s, Périer's international cinema career ebbed significantly, and with the exception of the feature film * 1989: Rosso veneziano - A murderous affair (Rouge Venise) a musical based on a novel by Georges Garone with Vincent Spano , Victor Lanoux and Andréa Ferréol , where Etienne Périer himself again took on a small part as an actor - the other smaller roles he had played as an actor in 1974 in his film The separated hand (La main à couper) and in 1980 in Francis Girod's The Banker's Wife (La banquière) followed only a few well-known TV productions. He directed the last TV film in 2004.

Feature films (selection)

  • 1960: Murder at 45 tours (Meurtre en 45 tours)
  • 1961: Bridge to the Sun
  • 1962: Degenduell (La congiura dei dieci)
  • 1967: Six boys and four girls (Des garçons et des filles)
  • 1971: Zeppelin
  • 1971: The Killer Ship (When Eight Bells Toll)
  • 1972: Murder remains murder (Le maître de musique)
  • 1974: The severed hand (La main à couper)
  • 1978: The dangerous game of ambition and love (La part du feu)
  • 1989: Rosso Veneziano - A Murderous Affair (Rouge Venise)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Étienne Périer. Retrieved July 7, 2020 .
  2. ^ Biographical data from Etienne Périer in: François Guérif, H. Veyrier: Le cinéma policier français. 1981, p. 209 ( books.google.de ).
  3. ↑ Etienne Périer. In: Memo from Belgium: Issues 72-95. Ministère des affaires étrangères Services de l'information et des relations culturelles, Belgium. 1966, p. 183 ( books.google.de )
  4. ↑ Etienne Périer. In: James King: Under Foreign Eyes. 2012, p. 45 ( books.google.de )
  5. ↑ Étienne Périer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
personal data
SURNAME Périer, Étienne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian film director
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Brussels
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 2020
Place of death Le Plan-de-la-Tour