Charles Spaak


Charles Spaak was a Belgian screenwriter who was noted particularly for his work in the French cinema during the 1930s. He was the son of the dramatist and poet Paul Spaak, the brother of the politician Paul-Henri Spaak, and the father of the actresses Catherine Spaak and Agnès Spaak.

Career

Charles Spaak was born in Brussels in 1903 into a prominent Belgian family. In 1928 he moved to Paris and took a post as secretary to the film-maker Jacques Feyder, who then asked him to work on the adaptation of a stage play for his film Les Nouveaux Messieurs. He also worked as head of publicity for the production company Albatros. He went on to write the screenplays for Feyder's most important films of the 1930s: Le Grand Jeu, Pension Mimosas, and La Kermesse héroïque. Spaak was also in demand to work with other leading directors. During the 1930s he worked with Julien Duvivier on La Bandera and La Belle Équipe, and with Jean Grémillon on La Petite Lise and Gueule d'amour. He also collaborated with Jean Renoir on two of his major films, Les Bas Fonds and La Grande Illusion.
Many of these films of the 1930s are marked by a concern for realistic detail with sharply written dialogue, often pessimistic in tone, and several of them provided leading roles which were played by Jean Gabin. He established himself, alongside Jacques Prévert and Henri Jeanson, as a leading screenwriter during one of the French cinema's richest periods.
During the German occupation of France, Spaak chose to return to Paris and found work on a number of the wartime productions that were made there, including further films with Duvivier and Grémillon.
After the war Spaak worked with new directors and in a wider range styles, and he formed a particular association with André Cayatte in a series of films set against a background of the French judicial system: Justice est faite, Nous sommes tous les assassins, Avant le deluge, and Le Dossier noir. He also undertook some of the literary adaptations which marked the 'quality cinema' of the 1950s, including Thérèse Raquin and Crime et Châtiment.
In 1949 Spaak made his only venture into directing with Le Mystère Barton, but the film met with little success.
Charles Spaak continued working selectively on scenarios until the early 1970s, and he died in 1975 in Vence in the South of France.

Selective list of screenplays

Charles Spaak wrote or contributed to more than 100 film screenplays, including the following:
  • Les Nouveaux Messieurs / The New Gentlemen
  • La Petite Lise / Little Lise
  • Daïnah la métisse / Dainah the Mulatto
  • Un coup de téléphone / 'A Telephone Call
  • Ce cochon de Morin / That Scoundrel Morin
  • Le Grand Jeu
  • Pension Mimosas
  • La Bandera
  • Les Beaux Jours / Beautiful Days
  • Adémaï au Moyen-Âge / Adémaï in the Middle Ages
  • Les Époux scandaleux / The Scandalous Couple
  • La Kermesse héroïque / Carnival in Flanders
  • Veille d'armes
  • Les Bas-fonds / The Lower Depths
  • La Belle Équipe / They Were Five
  • Les Loups entre eux / Wolves Between Them
  • La Porte du large
  • L’Homme du jour / The Man of the Hour
  • Aloha, le chant des îles
  • La Grande Illusion
  • Gueule d'amour / Lady Killer
  • Mollenard
  • L'Étrange Monsieur Victor / The Strange Monsieur Victor
  • La Fin du jour / The End of the Day
  • Le Récif de corail / Coral Reefs
  • Le Dernier Tournant / The Last Turning
  • Remorques / Stormy Waters
  • Untel père et fils / The Heart of a Nation
  • L'Assassinat du père Noël / Who Killed Santa Claus?
  • Péchés de jeunesse / Sins of Youth
  • Le Lit à colonnes
  • Le ciel est à vous / The Woman Who Dared
  • Les Caves du Majestic / Majestic Hotel Cellars
  • L'Affaire du collier de la reine / The Queen's Necklace
  • Panique / Panic
  • Éternel Conflit / Eternal Conflict
  • Le Mystère Barton ''The Barton Mystery
  • Black Jack
  • Justice est faite / Justice Is Done
  • Adorables créatures
  • Le Banquet des fraudeurs / The Smugglers' Banquet
  • Nous sommes tous des assassins / We Are All Murderers
  • Thérèse Raquin
  • Avant le déluge / Before the Deluge
  • Le Dossier noir / Black Dossier
  • Scuola elementare
  • Crime et Châtiment / Crime and Punishment
  • Paris, Palace Hotel
  • Charmants Garçons / Charming Boys
  • Quand la femme s'en mêle / Send a Woman When the Devil Fails
  • Cartouche
  • La Chambre ardente / The Burning Court
  • Le Glaive et la Balance / Two Are Guilty
  • Germinal
  • Mathias Sandorf''
  • ''''