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Jacques Tourneur 

 

TSPDT Rating

Director
1904 - 1977 
Born November 12, Paris, France
Key Production Country: USA 
Key Genres: Western, Action, Thriller, Horror, Drama
Key Collaborators: Albert S. D'Agostino (Production Designer), Roy Webb (Composer), Joel McCrea (Leading Player), Val Lewton (Producer), Mark Robson (Editor), James Bell (Character Player), Jack Okey (Production Designer), Walter E. Keller (Production Designer), Dana Andrews (Leading Player), Ardel Wray (Screenwriter)
Highly Recommended: Out of the Past (1947), Night of the Demon (1957)
Recommended: Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Flame and the Arrow (1950), Wichita (1955), Great Day in the Morning (1956), Nightfall (1956)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ Wikipedia ] [ Classic Film and Television Home Page ] [ Bright Lights Feature on "Out of the Past" ] [ Film Comment Article ] [ Slant Magazine Article ] [ Screen Online Biography ] [ Cinematical Article (2010) ]
Books: [ Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall
DVD's: [ Amazon ]
1,000 Greatest Films: Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Out of the Past (1947), Night of the Demon (1957)
250 Quintessential Noir Films: Out of the Past (1947), Berlin Express (1948), Nightfall (1956)
 
Out of the Past (1947)Night of the Demon (1957)Cat People (1942)Nightfall (1956)
 
     
  "Jacques Tourneur, son of the late Maurice Tourneur, brings a certain French gentility to the American cinema...Tourneur's first films for Val Lewton - Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie - possessed a subtler dramatic force than those of Wise and Robson. Out of the Past is still Tourneur's masterpiece, a civilized treatment of an annihilating melodrama...All in all, Tourneur's career represents a triumph of taste over force." - Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968)  
     
  "The best pictures which he directed were those of suspense and genuine terror, though he also did well with those that had a great deal of action. He wisely resisted scenes with long patches of dialogue. When confronted with such scenes, he typically frowned and said, "It sounds so corny." - DeWitt Bodeen (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)  
     
  "Never a major director, Jacques Tourneur nonetheless possessed an unassertive and eloquent visual style that enabled him to transform decent scripts into superior films. Although much of his work was in the B-movie field, his subtle inventiveness and unerring taste frequently made for intelligent entertainment." - Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989)  
     
  "Perhaps the gentlest director of action films in Hollywood history. His early reputation was made with, eerie, subtle, intelligent, Val Lewton-produced horror thrillers (Cat People, 42; I Walked with a Zombie, 43). He brought out the little things which add up to humanity in his characters, good or bad, and knew how to employ expressive lighting and camera movement when necessary." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
 
 
 
 
 
 

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