1. Henri-Georges Clouzot is best remembered for his work in the thriller film genre, having directed The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques, which are critically recognized as among the greatest films of the 1950s.
68 Facts About Henri-Georges Clouzot
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Henri-Georges Clouzot directed documentary films, including The Mystery of Picasso, which was declared a national treasure by the government of France.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot was later hired by producer Adolphe Osso to work in Berlin, writing French-language versions of German films.
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At Continental, Henri-Georges Clouzot wrote and directed films that were very popular.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot's career became less active in later years, limited to a few television documentaries and two feature films in the 1960s.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot wrote several unused scripts in the 1970s and died in Paris in 1977.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot was born in Niort, Deux-Sevres, to mother Suzanne Clouzot and father Georges Clouzout, a bookstore owner.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot was the first of three children in a middle-class family.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot showed talent by writing plays and playing piano recitals.
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In Brest, Henri-Georges Clouzot went to Naval School, but was unable to become a Naval Cadet due to his myopia.
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At the age of 18, Henri-Georges Clouzot left for Paris to study political science.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot's writing talents led him to theater and cinema as a playwright, lyricist and adaptor-screenwriter.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot made his first short film, La Terreur des Batignolles, from a script by Jacques de Baroncelli.
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In Berlin, Henri-Georges Clouzot saw several parades for Adolf Hitler and was shocked at how oblivious he felt France was to what was happening in Germany.
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In 1934, Henri-Georges Clouzot was fired from UFA Studios for his friendship with Jewish film producers such as Adolphe Osso and Pierre Lazareff.
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In 1935, Henri-Georges Clouzot was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was sent first to Haute-Savoie and then to Switzerland, where he was bedridden for nearly five years in all.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot studied the fragile nature of the other people in the sanatorium.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot had little money during this period, and was provided with financial and moral support by his family and friends.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot wrote the script for Fresnay's only directorial feature Le Duel, as well as two plays for him: On prend les memes, which was performed in December 1940, and Comedie en trois actes, which was performed in 1942.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot felt uncomfortable working for the Germans, but was in desperate need of money and could not refuse Greven's offer.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot retitled the film Le Dernier des six, having been influenced by actress Suzy Delair while writing the script, allowing her to choose the name of the character she would play.
22.
Henri-Georges Clouzot began work on his second Steeman adaptation, which he would direct, titled The Murderer Lives at Number 21.
23.
Grevin was against Henri-Georges Clouzot making this film, stating that topic was "dangerous".
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Henri-Georges Clouzot had used all possible means to try to anger the actor during the filming, and after he quarreled with Fresnay's wife, Yvonne Printemps, Fresnay and Henri-Georges Clouzot broke off their friendship.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot received letters of support from filmmakers and artists Jean Cocteau, Rene Clair, Marcel Carne and Jean-Paul Sartre, who were against the ruling.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot's sentence was later shortened from life to two years.
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For Quai des Orfevres, Henri-Georges Clouzot asked the author Stanislas-Andre Steeman for a copy of his novel, Legitime defense, to adapt into a film.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot started writing the script before the novel arrived for him to read.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot directed and wrote two films that were released in 1949.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot scoured schools to find an actress for the lead role, and chose 17-year-old Cecile Aubry after viewing over 700 girls.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot directed and wrote the short film Le Retour de Jean, which was part of the anthology film Return to Life.
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Le Retour de Jean was influenced by the short period when Henri-Georges Clouzot lived in Germany in the early 1930s and stars Louis Jouvet as a survivor of a concentration camp who finds a wounded Nazi war criminal whom he interrogates and tortures.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot's next film was the comedy Miquette et Sa Mere, which was a financial failure.
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The Brazilian government took issue with Henri-Georges Clouzot filming the poverty of people in the favelas rather than the more picturesque parts of Brazil.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot became fascinated with the region and wrote a book, Le cheval des dieux, recounting his trip.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot found it easy to imagine the setting of the script and was very anxious to film Arnaud's story.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot started writing the film, The Wages of Fear, with his brother, Jean Clouzot, who would collaborate with him on all his subsequent films under the name of Jerome Geronimi.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot wrote the role specifically for his wife, as the character does not exist in the original novel.
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In 1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot directed the documentary The Mystery of Picasso, about the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot later admitted that he only liked the first two-thirds of Les Espions.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot took their criticism to heart, saying in the magazine Lui that he didn't find his films Les Diaboliques and Miquette et Sa Mere important or interesting anymore.
42.
Henri-Georges Clouzot himself became ill during production, which led doctors and insurance agents to order the production be stopped.
43.
Between 1965 and 1967, Henri-Georges Clouzot filmed for French television five documentaries of Herbert von Karajan conducting Verdi's Requiem, Dvorak's New World Symphony, Schumann's 4th Symphony, Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Mozart's 5th Violin Concerto.
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The film began production in September 1967 and was halted when Henri-Georges Clouzot fell ill and was hospitalized until April 1968.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot began filming La Prisonniere again in August 1968.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot incorporated stylistic elements of his aborted film L'enfer into La Prisonniere.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot planned to direct a pornographic film in 1974 for Francis Micheline, but the film was abandoned.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot's health grew worse and he required open-heart surgery in November 1976.
49.
On 12 January 1977 Henri-Georges Clouzot died in his apartment while listening to The Damnation of Faust.
50.
Henri-Georges Clouzot waited for Delair at the stage door and after meeting her, the two became a romantic couple for the next 12 years.
51.
Henri-Georges Clouzot had Delair star in two of his films, The Murderer Lives at Number 21 and Quai des Orfevres.
52.
Delair eventually left Henri-Georges Clouzot after working with him on Quai des Orfevres.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot met his first wife Vera Henri-Georges Clouzot through actor Leo Lapara, who had minor parts in Le Retour de Jean and Quai des Orfevres.
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Vera met Henri-Georges Clouzot after divorcing Lapara and while working as a continuity assistant on Henri-Georges Clouzot's Miquette et Sa Mere.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot named his production company after Vera and had her star in all three films made by the company: The Wages of Fear, Diabolique and Les Espions.
56.
Vera Henri-Georges Clouzot died of a heart attack shortly after the filming of La Verite.
57.
Henri-Georges Clouzot met his second wife, Ines de Gonzalez, for the first time at a casting call for a film based on Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark.
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In 1962, Henri-Georges Clouzot met de Gonzalez again after she had returned from South America.
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When basing screenplays on written work, Henri-Georges Clouzot often changed the stories dramatically, using only key points of the original story.
60.
The author Stanislas-Andre Steeman, whom Henri-Georges Clouzot worked with twice, said Henri-Georges Clouzot would only "build something after having contemptuously demolished any resemblance to the original, purely for the ambition of effect".
61.
When writing for his own features, Henri-Georges Clouzot created characters that were usually corrupt and spineless, with the capacity for both good and evil within them.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot was very demanding with his actors, and would often quarrel with them to get them in the mood he desired.
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When Henri-Georges Clouzot worked with Brigitte Bardot, one scene required her character to drool and sleep.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot offered her powerful sleeping pills, saying they were aspirin; this led to her stomach having to be pumped.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot was viewed by many of his collaborators as a pessimist, short-tempered, and almost always angry.
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Henri-Georges Clouzot today is generally known for his thriller films The Wages of Fear and Diabolique.
67.
Henri-Georges Clouzot respected Hitchcock's work, stating, "I admire him very much and am flattered when anyone compares a film of mine to his".
68.
Several of Henri-Georges Clouzot's films have been remade since their original releases.