Pierre Chenal

Biography

Philippe Cohen, known as Pierre Chenal, is a French director, born December 5, 1904 in Brussels and died December 23, 1990 in La Garenne-Colombes. Chenal occupies an uncomfortable place in the history of French cinema: relatively unknown, he is cataloged as a filmmaker who left only a light body of work. His detailed filmography, however, tends to show the opposite. Made in the 1930s, his first short films were documentaries where the filmmaker used social realism. The Little Trades of Paris (1932) or A French City of Cinema had a didactic ambition which ranked him among the innovators at the time. Throughout his work, Pierre Chenal will maintain this taste for atmospheres tinged with truth where the social is shown. Hence his very marked penchant for adaptations of literary works by his contemporaries: he borrowed from Marcel Aymé the title of one of his first feature films, La rue sans nom (1933); summons Pirandello and The Man from Nowhere (1937); depicts The Mutineers of Elsinore by Jack London; and transforms James Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice to give The Last Turn. Pierre Chenal loves actors and casts the biggest ones. Louis Jouvet, Robert Le Vigan, Michel S…

Directed

1. The Man from Nowhere (1937) — Director
2. Sinners of Paris (1958) — Director
3. The Last Turning (1939) — Director
4. Native Son (1951) — Director
5. Alibi (1937) — Director
6. Sirocco (1938) — Director
7. Beast at Bay (1959) — Director
8. Missing Persons Section (1956) — Director
9. Devil and the Angel (1946) — Director
10. The Idol (1952) — Director
11. Scandals of Clochemerle (1948) — Director
12. Versatile Lovers (1970) — Director
13. Crime and Punishment (1935) — Director
14. L'assassin connaît la musique (1963) — Director
15. Dangerous Games (1958) — Director
16. A Real Man (1943) — Director
17. The Night They Killed Rasputin (1960) — Director
18. The Lafarge Case (1938) — Director
19. The Corpse Breaks a Date (1944) — Director
20. Se abre el abismo (1945) — Director
21. Bâtir (1931) — Director
22. Street Without a Name (1934) — Director
23. Les mutinés de l'Elseneur (1936) — Director
24. Le hasard mène le Jeu (1985) — Director
25. Fat Man's Worries (1933) — Director
26. L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui (1930) — Director
27. Paris Cinéma (1929) — Director
28. El viaje sin regreso (1946) — Director
29. Les suites d'un premier lit (1935) — Director
30. Small Trades in Paris (1932) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Paris Cinéma (1929) — Self