Harry Baur
Birth : 1880-04-12, Montrouge, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], Île-de-France, France
Death : 1943-04-08
History
Harry Baur (12 April 1880 – 8 April 1943) was a French actor.
Initially a stage actor, Baur appeared in about 80 films between 1909 and 1942. He gave an acclaimed performance as the composer Ludwig van Beethoven in the biopic Beethoven's Great Love (Un grand amour de Beethoven, 1936), directed by Abel Gance, and as Jean Valjean in Raymond Bernard's version of Les Misérables (1934). He also acted in Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset's silent film, Beethoven (1909), and in La voyante (1923), Sarah Bernhardt's last film.
In 1942, while in Berlin, to star in his last film Symphone eines Lebens, Baur's wife was arrested by the Gestapo and charged with espionage. His effort to secure her release led to his own arrest and torture. He was being falsely labelled as a Jew but confirmed freemason. He was released in April 1943, but died in Paris shortly after in mysterious circumstances.
Academy Award-winning American actor Rod Steiger cited Baur as one of his favorite actors who had exerted a major influence on his craft and career.
Hunter
Young lovers John and Jenny decide to go for a drive in the countryside one day when they happen upon the remains of a long-abandoned resort spa. After doing some exploring, they find that an elderly woman, Agnes Abercrombie, is living in the crumbling building. As they learn the gruesome history of the place, involving cannibalism and a ghost bride, Jenny becomes the victim of violent attacks and supernatural visions. But no one will believe her and now she's stuck in the dilapidated resort overnight. Will she survive until morning?
Self (archive footage)
For Les étoiles ne meurent jamais, director/archivist Max De Vaucorbeil has assembled precious film clips of such Gallic greats as Louis Jouvet, Raimu, Harry Baur, Louis Salou and Marguerite Moreno. Francois Perier's narration links the various vignettes together. In its own way, Les Etoiles ne Maurent Jamais can be seen as a precursor to those now-ubiquitous "tributes" on such cable services as American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies.
Stefan Melchior, Dorfkantor
Monsieur Lacalade
A rich businessman living alone is deprived of the nephew he was to have brought up decides on his doctor's advice to search for the four illegitimate children he once fathered, which leads him to accept responsibility for his actions.
Gaspard Cornusse
A village in the French Alps is rocked by a series of crimes, including the theft of a sacred ring and the murder of a man dressed as Père Noël (Father Christmas).
Volpone
Volpone, an elderly Venetian, connives with his money-crazed servant to convince his greedy friends that he is dying, knowing that each will try to curry favor with him in order to be named his heir. He is inundated with valuable gifts, and soon finds himself entangled deeper and deeper in a web of lies.
Docteur Bourdet
During a French construction project in the Sudan, a military doctor fights against leprosy and the natives seek protection against witch doctors.
President Haudecoeur
A public prosecutor wants his son to marry an ugly girl(who has a squint) because her mom is very rich.But it's too late for the boy has already fallen in love with another girl who is pregnant by him.Angry dad is to stop his shameless son's allowance .Enter exuberant Betty Brown ,with a delightful slight English accent and lots of joy of life .The old man realizes then that life is passing him by .Is it too late for him to find happiness?
Le Tsar
The reign of Tsar Paul I and the intrigues of his friend, Governor Pahlen, to rid the country of the mad despot by plotting to have him murdered.
Virine, le maitre de poste
A small town postal official allows a military officer to sweep his lovely daughter away to St. Petersburg, assuming the man will do the right thing and marry her.Instead, a future of scandal and tragedy awaits her.
Taras Bulba
During the 16th century the Cossacks and their Ukraine homeland is ruled by Poland. This is the story of the leader of the Cossacks and how his son was sent to study under the Poles to learn how to defeat them in battle. However, the son falls in love with the daughter of a Polish nobleman.
Story of the Siberian monk Gregory Rasputin and the hold he exerted over the court of the last Russian czar, Nicholas.
le capitaine Mollenard
Captain Justin Mollenard works for a company that sells armaments to the Far East. After an eventful stay in Shanghai, where he and his cargo are the victim of a malicious attack, he returns to his hometown of Dunkirk. Mollenard receives a frosty welcome from his wife Mathilde, who resents the way in which he has neglected his family for so many years. Mollenard’s only wish is to get back to sea as soon as he can, but a sudden heart-attack leaves him paralysed and entirely in his wife’s power...
Alain Regnault
After the death of her husband, Christine realizes she has possibly wasted her life by marrying him instead of the man towards whom, in her youth, she had a stronger inclination. To overcome these dreary thoughts, she decides to find out about him and the other men who danced with her during a ball that was a turning point in her life, many years ago. She pays a visit to those forgotten acquaintances one after the other; Christine is not only surprised to see how they have fared, but also discovers the impact she had, unknowingly, on the feelings and the destiny of these persons. Duvivier's American film Lydia (1941) is, to some extent, a remake of this one.
Said Ali, an old and sick noble Arab, living on an island in the Red Sea, has no other occupation than collecting pearls. The spiteful Nadir tries to take possession of the treasure, he kills Said Aly but finds a terrible death by desecrating his tomb.
Cesar Sarati
In Algiers, Cesar Sarati who grudges the dockers, is, without realizing it, in love with his niece. But Rose loves Gilbert, a former gambler and debauchee who, out of love for her, changes his life. On the wedding day, Sarati commits suicide.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Lyrical biography of the classical composer, depicted as a romantic hero, an accursed artist.
A commander suspects his wife of infidelity, when she turns to a subordinate officer to help her against someone threatening to blackmail her about her troubled past.
Tarass Boulba
In war against the Poles, the leader Cossack sees itself betrayed by one of his threads, been in love the girl of an enemy.
Bourron
Dedicated to men, natives and French, which under the leadership of General Lyautey, made modern Morocco. After a historical prologue where we see Clemenceau yield to the entreaties of Lyautey, we are witnessing the arrival of settlers on Moroccan soil with the rapid rise of one of them: the ambitious Bourron. Similarly it has conquered the land from scratch, Bourron could conquer a woman, Christiane, who followed him not without confessing his love for another man. It is this love that Bourron will use later to acquire a forest of olive trees, which he believed to be the symbol of its success. Christiane accept but never forgive her husband...
Jacques Brachart
An aristocratic woman is coerced by her impoverished family into marrying a wealthy business tycoon.
L'empereur Rodolphe II, roi de Bohème
The Golem, a giant creature created out of clay by a rabbi, comes to life in a time of trouble to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.
Peter Brioukow
During the First World War, Russian officer Ignatoff, wounded, falls in love with his nurse, Natasha. But she is subject to an upcoming marriage of family convenience to Brioukow, a wealthy industrialist of peasant stock. Brioukow is unjustifiably jealous, since Natasha has not betrayed him. He forces Ignatoff into his debt as a means of humiliating him. When Ignatoff's new friend, Madame Sabline, offers to pay his debt, preventing his ruin, Ignatoff comes quickly to realize that Madame Sabline has an ulterior motive, one that could prove dangerous to more lives than just Ignatoff's.
Ivan Ivanovitch Petroff
In 1913, in Russia, a widower hides from his daughter that he is butler in a restaurant of rendezvous. She meets a banker who seeks to seduce her and takes her to this restaurant. The father, knowing the decadent life of this client, immediately sends his daughter back home. The pure love that her piano teacher gives her will allow the girl to console herself for her disillusions.
Porphyre
Pierre Chenal's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel, starring Pierre Blanchar and Harry Baur. Bears the influence of German Expressionism and serves as an early forerunner of poetic realism.
Piotr Brioukow
During the First World War, the Russian officer Captain Ivan Ignatoff falls in love with his nurse, Natasha Kovrin. But she is subject to an upcoming marriage of family convenience to Brioukow, a wealthy industrialist of peasant stock. Brioukow is unjustifiably jealous, since Natasha has not betrayed him. He forces Ignatoff into his debt as a means of humiliating him. When Ignatoff's new friend, Madame Sabline, offers to pay his debt, preventing his ruin, Ignatoff comes quickly to realize that Madame Sabline has an ulterior motive, one that could prove dangerous to more lives than just Ignatoff's.
Hérode
The final days of Jesus from the time he enters the city of Jerusalem. Viewed as a threat, it is decided that he must be captured, tried, and executed as a criminal, a plan aided and abetted by disciple Judas Iscariot.
An honest civil servant learns about his wife’s infidelity. He pretends not to be aware of it and decides to start a businessman career. He soon becomes extremely wealthy and thinks he can win her back.
Rothchild
An ex-businessman, ruined and reduced to living under bridges, uses the name of one of his companions in misfortune, Rothchild, to organize a vast scam.
Jean Valjean / Champmathieu
The lives of numerous people over the course of 20 years in 19th century France, weaved together by the story of an ex-convict named Jean Valjean on the run from an obsessive police inspector, who pursues him for only a minor offense.
le commissaire Jules Maigret
Willy Ferriere is dead broke and his mistress costs a lot. One day, he says in a pub that he would give 100,000 francs to get rid of his wealthy aunt. Someone lets him know it's a deal. The aunt is murdered, and a poor chap is manipulated to be the perfect suspect. But Superintendant Maigret feels something is wrong.
Warden Brady
A wrongfully convicted man finds himself suspected of a crime committed in his prison.
Guillaume Vautier
Vautier, a wealthy surgeon in his fifties, falls in love with Hélène, a young woman from a modest background. He allows her to have a string of short-lived lovers - but when Jean Trapeau, an old boyfriend, resurfaces, things get complicated.
M. de Tréville
Young d'Artagnan leaves Gascony for Paris where he hopes to become a Musketeer of the Guard. He does meet three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, but totally by chance and for... a duel against them! But he soon befriends them and follows them in their adventures, notably on a secret mission to uncover a plot contrived against the Queen by Cardinal Richelieu.
M. Lepic
A red-haired boy is his mother's punching bag; only his father's presence is a great comfort to him, but this weak man is under the shrew's thumb. His pain is so great he feels suicidal.
M. de Marouvelle
When one of their number tries to tear away the veil from the face of a woman of Morocco, five French tourists find themselves cursed by an Arabic sorcerer to die in a specified order before the next new moon appears - and one by one, in different ways, they begin to die as predicted...
Mathias
The story recounts the murder of an itinerant Jew (Jules Maurice)by the village Burgomaster (Harry Baur.) Years go by and Baur's crime does not weigh heavily on his conscience. But at a banquet one night, the subject of the killing comes up and he faints, and is haunted from that point onward by the vision of the man he killed and the sound of the sleigh bells that first accompanied the victim's arrival in the village. And, to complicate matters for Baur, the son of the victim arrives, and proceeds to fall in love with Baur's daughter.
Le Capitaine Kell
David Golder
David is a poor but ambitious Polish Jew who reinvents himself as a powerful New York business magnate. After gaining wealth, he relocates to Paris, only to have his selfish and demanding wife squander his fortune.
Monsieur Detaille
Jean is thrown out of the house by his father, a remarried politician, out of jealousy for his friendship with his mother-in-law. He finds refuge at an artist's apartment. In the same building lives a famous fortune teller that the mother-in-law just happens to consult. With her help, Jean will be able to marry his young sweetheart and his father will solve his political troubles.
Directed by André Hugon.
Adaptation of the Émile Gaboriau novel.
Vidocq
Vidocq
Everyman Coupeau's attempts to stop drinking are routinely thwarted by the wicked and vengeful Virginie. Based on Zola's novel, Capellani's film is about the free fall of a group of working-class French folk into degradation and tragedy due to carelessness, jealousy, and alcohol abuse. At the time of its release, L'Assommoir was hugely successful.
