Catherine Arley


Pierrette Henriette Denise Marthe Pernot, better known professionally as Catherine Arley, was a French novelist and actress.

Biography

After high school, Catherine Arley joined the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts of Paris. She played in street theatre and in some films, taking part in the French production of Fleuve étincelant by Charles Langbridge Morgan. She gave up her acting career after her marriage and at the same time as her first novel, Tu vas mourir, appeared in the 1953 Éditions Denoël collection "Oscar" edited by Marcel Duhamel. Despite this encouraging welcome, her second novel, La Femme de paille, a story of fraudulent adoption, was rejected by every French publisher to whom she offered it. She then looked abroad for a publisher and her novel was eventually published in Switzerland in 1954, then translated into twenty-four languages, and filmed by Basil Dearden starring Gina Lollobrigida and Sean Connery. This international fame still did not help her to find a French publisher. From 1962 to 1972, she only published three novels: Le Talion, Les Beaux Messieurs font comme ça, which won an international prize for suspense, and Les Valets d'épée.
It was not until 1972 that she managed to be published in France: Pierre Geneva launched the "Suspense" series published by Eurédif and she became their star author. This period was Arley's heyday as she published, among others, Duel au premier sang, Les Armures de sable, and À tête reposée, the narrative of a tragedy lived by a father whose child is condemned to death, written with great simplicity and winner of the 1979 prize for French Suspense.
In 1980, Eurédif stopped their police series. Arley moved to Le Masque series which published her new stories and her reissues for two years. Her novel À cloche-cœur received the 1981 prize for adventure novels. In 1990 the Fleuve noir publishing house published Arley's En 5 sets, but her later novels appeared directly in translation to Japanese where they were immediately adapted for television. Arley also created a theatrical adaptation of La Femme de paille, which was televised in 1976.
Georges Rieben noted "her taste for romantic drama, her grasp of the human condition, imprisoned by tiny miseries, subjugated to its destiny". In her novels, Arley displays a great sense of suspense, not hesitating to add moments of cruelty and touches of humour.
With her international career, Arley has sold more than two million books between Collins, her English publisher, and Random House, her American publisher. She remains one of the leading authors of the decade 1970 to 1980, having forged a place in French literature for non-conformist and amoral detective fiction. Arley's reputation in France suffered from a lack of adventurous French publishers who favoured the roman noir and neo-polar style at that time.
Arley died in Paris on 25 July 2016, at the age of 93.

Novels

Tu vas mourir
  • Paris : Denoël, 1953, 255 pages
  • Paris : Publications Zed, 1963, 188 pages
Reissued as: Mourir sans toi
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1973, 216 pages
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1976, 187 pages
La Femme de paille
  • Genève; Paris : Jeheber, 1954
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1972, 249 pages
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1975, 249 pages
  • Paris : Librairie des Champs-Élysées, 1982, 251 pages
Le Talion
  • Paris : Presses internationales, 1962, 192 pages
  • Paris : Inter-Presse, 1967, 231 pages
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1972, 205 pages
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1975, 251 pages
  • Paris : Librairie des Champs-Élysées, 1981, 222 pages
Les Beaux messieurs font comme ça – Prix International du Suspense 1968
  • Paris : Nalis, 1968, 240 pages
  • Paris : Cercle Européen du Livre, 1969, 253 pages – Foreword by Françoise Janin.
Reissued as: La Baie des Trépassés
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1977, 201 pages
  • Montréal : Presses Sélect, 1980, 201 pages
  • Paris : Librairie des Champs-Élysées, 1982, 221 pages
Les Valets d’épée
  • Paris : Edmond Nalis, 1968, 253 pages
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1974, 222 pages.
  • Paris : EURÉDIF, 1977, 186 pages.
  • Paris : Librairie des Champs-Élysées, 1982, 156 pages.
Vingt millions et une sardine
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1972
Le Pique-feu
  • Paris : Eurédif, 1972
Le Fait du prince
  • Paris : EURÉDIF, 1973, 212 pages
  • Paris : EURÉDIF, 1976, 186 pages.
  • Cessez de pleurer, Melfy !
  • Duel au premier sang / Blondy
  • Oublie-moi, Charlotte !
  • Robinson-Cruauté
  • La Galette des rois
  • La Garde meurt…
  • Bête à en mourir
  • Les Armures de sable
  • À tête reposée
  • La Banque des morts
  • L’Enfer, pourquoi pas !
  • L’Amour à la carte / À cloche-cœur
  • L’Homme de craie
  • L’Ogresse
  • Une femme piégée
  • Le Battant et la cloche
  • ''En 5 sets''

    Theatre

  • ''La Femme de paille''

    Short stories

  • Le Sens du devoir
  • En un vieux coup de miséricorde
  • À naître de père inconnu
  • Murder-lady
  • L’Amour monstrueux de Traudi
  • Calvaire à forfait
  • Simple question d’humanité
  • Leur Maison sur le wash…
  • La Maison
  • Les Abeilles du grand rituel
  • ''Une incroyable histoire''

    Stage productions

  • 1950 : L'Échange de Paul Claudel, directed by Hubert Gignoux, Centre dramatique de l'Ouest
  • La Femme de paille, directed by Raymond Gérôme. Text: Catherine Arley, from her novel La Femme de paille. Production: théâtre Edouard VII, 1976. Scenery: Roger Harth. Costumes: Donald Caldwel. Cast: André Dumas, Nicole Calfan, Raymond Gérôme, Louis Seigner.

    Filmography

As an actor

  • The Seventh Door. Director: André Zwobada. Duration: 88 minutes. Cast: María Casares, Catherine Arley, Liane Dayde, Georges Marchal.
  • Un certain monsieur. Director: Yves Ciampi
  • Une histoire d'amour. Director: Guy Lefranc
  • The Agony of the Eagles. Director: Jean Alden-Delos

    As author

  • Blondy - Film. Foreign titles: Germicide – Vortex. Director: Sergio Gobbi. Screenplay based on the Catherine Arley novel Duel au premier sang. Photography: Jean Bordal. Editing: Gabriel Rongier. Duration: 105 minutes. Cast: Catherine Jourdan, Rod Taylor, Mathieu Carrière, Bibi Andersson, Paul Guers, Christian Barbier, Yves Brainville, Walter Buschhoff, Robert Le Béal, Hans Meyer, François Patrice, Elisabeth Strauss, Maurice Travail, Monique Vita.
  • Woman of Straw - Film. French title: La Femme de paille. Director: Basil Dearden. Screenplay: Stanley Mann, Robert Muller and Michael Relph based on the Catherine Arley novel La Femme de paille. Production: Michael Relph. Music: Norman Percival. Photography: Otto Heller. Editing: John D. Guthridge. Sets: Ken Adam. Art director: Peter Murton. Scene decorator: Freda Pearson. Costumes: Beatrice Dawson et Christian Dior. Production designer: Charles Orme. Assistant director: Clive Reed. Sound: Ray Baker. Duration: 117 minutes. Cast: Gina Lollobrigida, Sean Connery, Ralph Richardson, Alexander Knox, Johnny Sekka, Laurence Hardy, Peter Madden, Danny Daniels, Noel Howlett, A.J. Brown, Robert Bruce, Georgina Cookson, Michael Corcoran, George Curzon, Gilada Dahlberg, Michael Goodlife, Ronald Hatton, Joseph Wise, George Zenios.
  • Un beau petit milliard - Téléfilm. Director: Pierre Tchernia. Screenplay: Philippe David, Éric Reynaud-Fourton and Pierre Tchernia. Duration: 98 minutes. Cast: Michel Galabru, Odette Laure, Pascale Roberts, Jean-Claude Bouillon, Jacques Dacqmine, Henri Guybert, Jean-Claude Leguay, Joel Lefrançois, Christiane Muller, Raymond Aquilon, Bruno Balph, Jacqueline Valois, Lily Fayol, Danielle Rocca.
  • Le Secret du petit milliard - Téléfilm. Director: Pierre Tchernia. Screenplay: Philippe David, Éric Reynaud-Fourton and Pierre Tchernia. Duration: 87 minutes. Cast: Michel Galabru, Odette Laure, Pascale Roberts, Georges Corraface, Michel Serrault, Henri Guybert, Jacques Dacqumine, Joël Lefrançois, Alan Boone, Éric Averlant.

    Television theatre

  • La Femme de paille. Programme: Au théâtre ce soir 248. Director: Pierre Sabbagh. Recording: Saturday, 15 May 1976 at the théâtre Edouard-VII. Broadcast: Friday 3 December 1976 on the first channel. Staging: Raymond Gérôme. Sets: Roger Harth. Costumes: Donald Cardwell. Soundtrack: Fred Kiriloff. Cast: André Dumas, Nicole Calfan, Raymond Gérôme, Louis Seigner.

    Literary criticism

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