This is the fifth in a new series of “Getting to Know” Pages from Ultimate Movie Rankings.com. Our interview this time around is with UMR Hall of Famer Laurent. Laurent has been visiting our websites for almost 10 years now. He is a Top 15 Commentor. Laurent is a member of the Class of 2015 UMR Hall of Fame. So we figured it was time to learn a little more about Laurent.
Cogerson – It has always interested me in knowing which thespian made the first impact on a person. Who was the French and American first actor or actress that you knew by their actual name?
Laurent– They were Jean-Alexis Moncorgé aka Jean Gabin and Archibald Leach, more famous as Cary Grant.
Cogerson – Cary Grant is one of my Top 3 actors, while I have not heard of Jean Gabin. As I was looking for photos to attach here, I did think a few times he reminded me of Spencer Tracy.
Laurent – Surprised that you do not know Jean Gabin. He had a love affair with Marlene Dietrich during the Second World War when he was in the USA (where he played in some films) between 1941 and 1942, when he left to join Michèle Morgan at the origin ( they were lovers). Then he left for the 1943 front until the end of the war.
After the war, Marlene followed him to France for some time. He was one of the 5 biggest stars of French cinema. He was widely known in Argentina, Italy, Germany, and Spain, among others. Also in the USA, a little. Your comparison with Spencer Tracy is fair enough. Like him, Gabin was not tall but had a very strong presence on the screen. There was something animal about his game, like Tracy. He often played the roles of badass, but with a certain nobility, not attacking the weak.
Cogerson – Is there a person in your life that pushed you down the path of liking movies? For me, it was my parents and my grandmother.
Laurent – Yes, my father. He was a fan of American classics movies, and a real cinéma lover. I’ll tell you a story.
In 1977, a famous french singer, Eddy Mitchell, sing la Dernière séance (the last session). It’s a melancholy song who tells the story of the last screening of an old neighborhood cinema before it’s destroyed. Five years later, Eddy Mitchell launches a TV show named “la Dernière Séance”. This monthly show is going on a little cinema, with spectators, and the concept is two American classic movies of the 1940s and 1950’s (only popular cinema, adventure movie and western principally). Between each, two old cartoons (a lot of Tex Avery’s cartoons), old publicitys and Mitchell who told anecdotes about the films broadcast.
This show was a great success and became a cult for my generation. But for me, it was very important. At the time, I was 8 years old, and my father was little at home because of his work schedules, but every first Tuesday of the month, my father and me, watched this show. It was the only time I had the right to stay up at night. Later, we had a lot of conversations about movies.
Cogerson – As a child in France (I am assuming you grew up there) which did you watch American or French movies. How quickly did you realize many of the movies you were watching were from another country?
Laurent – Effectively, I grew up in France. My father loved American classics movies and naturally, we watched a lot of American movies. On French TV, a lot of movies showed at the time were french, of course, but when I was 8 years old, in 1982, my father bought a magnetoscope. From there, we started to watch a lot of American films. Long live VHS! Lol.
Cogerson – Who is your favorite actor or actress of all-time?
Laurent – It’s hard to say. For the French, Jean Gabin and Jean-Paul Belmondo. For the Americans, Tom Cruise and Leonardo Di Caprio among the current actors. Cary Grant and John Wayne among the classics. I think Wayne is maybe my favorite, for all that he represents. I mean, John Wayne! He was the symbol of western, the hero archetype. he is the epitome of cinema and Hollywood.
Cogerson – What are your Top 3 movies of all-time? Or share as many as you are willing to share.
Laurent – Oh ! It’s very hard for me to select only 10 movies. But I will try : Stagecoach, the Godfather, Jaws, Lawrance of Arabia, the Great Escape, Inception, Interstellar (almost every Nolan’s movies in fact^^), the Thing by Carpenter, Titanic, Terminator, Jaws, Gladiator, le salaire de la Peur (also know as Wages of Fear in USA, I believe), The Deer Hunter, Once Upon a Time in West, Year of the Dragon, ,Casablanca, Bringing Up Baby, la Grande Illusion and Quai des Brumes with Jean Gabin and Michèle Morgan.
Cogerson – Great movies! Surprised The Year of the Dragon is listed among all those great movies. I loved that movie. I actually saw it in theaters. Not many people can make that claim/
Cogerson – Ever had the chance to meet any movie stars in person?
Laurent- One time, in Lyon (second biggest city of France), in a restaurant, I ate two tables from Pierre Richard. I don’t know if you know, but he was one of the greatest French stars of the 1970s and 1980s. He was also famous in Europe and Russia. But I didn’t dare disturb him to speak to him or ask him for an autograph.
Cogerson – Have you visited the United States? If you came to the United States today…what famous movie location would you like to visit? For example maybe The Empire State Building…also known as King Kong’s toy.
Laurent– I have never had the opportunity to go to the USA, but if I could, I would dream of seeing Monument Valley. John Ford is one of my two favorites classics directors, with Howard Hawks
Cogerson – Do you have any memorable movie experiences? I remember seeing Porky’s in theaters. People were laughing so hard, I thought the walls might crumble.
Laurent – Two. In 1982 (yes, it was really a founding year for my love of cinema), my father took me to see Rocky III. During the last fight between Rocky and Clubber Lang, the audience in the theater was very hot and people were screaming “go on Rocky”, “demolish him”, some were even standing. At the end of the fight, people chanted “Rocky Rocky Rocky” as in the movie. It was completely crazy.
Another memorable experience, is when I saw Dance with Wolves. After the end of the movie, there was a long silence. Nobody moved. Then, clap clap clap, then the whole room rises and cheered for several minutes. I only saw the audience cheering in a movie theater three or four other times, but it was the only time I attended a standing ovation.
Cogerson – When I went to the USC library, back in 2016, to get the WB ledgers numbers….you were a part of that…..as we were sharing lots of information before the visit and after the visit. I remember using your information on the plane coming home. Do you still have that info and what did you end up doing with that info.
Laurent – Of course I still have this data! And, again, a great thanks for giving them to me. Recently (last Friday), I created a blog with my little muscled fingers (where I thank you), and, for example, my James Cagney’s page contains WB ledger’s data.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank WoC for this valuable advice about scraping. It took me a while to understand, but in the end, it helped me a lot and saved a lot of time in processing all my documents and data.
Here is the link to my blog if you are interested. And if I dared, I would ask you to publish it on your site if you agree, of course. http://www.boxoffice-retro.
Cogerson – And finally. I know it has been a while, but do you remember how you discover our little website?
Laurent – Your little website? I would like my blog to be as small as yours, Lol. I discovered your UMR in 2012 on Hubpages.com, and I naturally followed you on your own site since then.
Hello,
So good to read because la dernière séance was one of my favorite TV show.
And I was surprised by Eddy Mitchell who was very good as présenter like he was in music with these albums made in Nashville city I bought two of them in the 70.
I like very much Gabin and Blier too, and for actress I like very much Darrieux and Bardot.
Who are your favorites actress in the French classic ?
By the way, laurent, I go to see your site often and I like it very much…
Bye
Pierre
Hey Pierre….glad you are suriving in these trying times. Good feedback on Laurent’s interview. I would like to get a Pierre interview as well…..can you e-mail me at cogersonmoviescore@gmail.com?
Bonjour, for some reason I thought Laurent was a girls name, no idea why. But it’s probably the French equivalent of Larry or Laurence? [cue nodding]
I see some of my favorites on your list, and it’s good to know you’re a John Wayne fan.
I’ve heard of Jean Gabin, but don’t think I’ve seen any of his films. My father enjoyed watching French and Italian films, Yves Montand was a favorite of his. Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution in the sci-fi film Alphaville got mentioned a lot in my childhood.
Good stuff. Vote Up.
Hello Steve,
Laurent is the equivalent of Laurence. It is interesting to see how my first name can be perceived outside of France. Paradoxically, Laurence is the female equivalent of Laurent in France.
Eddie Constantine was a big star in France during the 1950’s and interpreted to Lemmy Caution in several films.
Thanks for your feedback.
Hi Laurent, there is an actress named Mélanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds) which probably added to my confusion over the name. Though it’s used as a surname in that example.
Nice anecdotes about your love of cinema Laurent, good stuff. I agree about Jean Gabin, I would say he was the greatest star of France in 30s and 40s. I share several of your favorite films, including The Great Escape, La Grande Illusion (which was obviously an influence on The Great Escape), Once Upon a Time in the West, and The Wages of Fear. I also enjoy your web site from time to time. Thanks for sharing!
thanks Laurent, I appreciate your sharing. I loved the story of the standing ovation for dances with wolves. Costner’s best. I enjoyed your website though I do not know French. the stills and background matt were great.
Hey bob cox. If you go to his site in Google Chrome….it will translate his blog to English. This is his home page. I am creating an UMR page for his blog…like I have for Steve’s videos.
By Laurent Aumaitre on January 12, 2020 at 11:34 am
Welcome to this new box office blog. As the name suggests, here you will not find any information about the current box office or recent cinema. This blog is dedicated to the cinema of an era that the under-30s did not know, covering the ten years to the eighties, and more particularly the 20s to the 60s.
Passionate about cinema since always, I fell in the box office about thirty years ago. Thirty years during which I scoured the bookshops and cinematheques of France, but also of other countries. Thirty years during which I exchanged with enthralling people of the whole world, read hundreds of books devoted to the cinema and its actors, consulted thousands of numbers of various periodicals, and tirelessly compiled all the quantified data that I could find.
At the end of all these years, it is 80,000 data (receipts or entries) for around 35,000 films on sixty different countries that I have accumulated, and that I propose to share with you.
WHERE DOES THIS DATA COME FROM ?
As much as possible, I have always favored reliable sources. Also, if I used the internet, like everyone else, it was mainly for research purposes. This is why most of this data does not come from the net. It therefore seems important to me to list my sources.
Periodicals :
This is probably one of the most important sources when doing research on this period. Here is the list
· The French; French Film, French Cinematography, Film, Unifrance Magazine, Unifrance Newsletter, Filmafric .
· Belgian; Cine Press .
· Italians; Catalogo Bolaffi , the Dictionary of Italian cinema by Gremese editions(two new volumes each decade), Araldo Dello Spettacollo .
· The Germans; Filmblatër , Filmwoch , Film Echo.
· The English ; Kine Weekly, Screen International, Today’s Cinema, Cinema TV Today.
· Spanish ; Cine Informe.
· Argentines; Gaceta de los Espectaculos , Heraldo del cinématografista .
· The US ; Variety, Motion Picture Herald, Motion Picture Daily, Film Daily, New York times.
· Asian ; Far East Film News.
The Ledgers :
The ledgers are summary specifications studio revenue (called to do by the US) US and global movies. These ledgers were kept personally by certain producers. There are several, but only two are available to the public (provided you go to the USA). That of Eddie Mannix , producer at MGM, and listing almost all the films in the studio from 1924 to 1962, and that of William Schaeffer containing almost all of the Warner’s films from 1922 to 1967. I was able, with using American correspondents to obtain all of these data (special thanks to Bruce Cogerson, author of the very interesting site ultimatemovierankings.com). The other ledgers belong to private collections. However, that of CJ Tevlin , an accountant with the RKO from 1929 to 1951, was partly revealed by its owner.
If very few people have questioned their reliability, it should be borne in mind that these figures do not have the value of an accounting statement. For example, there are very few indications regarding the corresponding operating dates. It is not known if the film was still in exploitation. Sometimes it is indicated that the receipts are stopped after two years of exploitation, which is little when you know that it took several years for a film to travel around the world, and sometimes even the United States. A priori, Eddie Mannix stopped the figures after 4 years of career. Except of course for the last years, since he died in 1963 while the last films contained in his ledger date from 1962.
About account book, I found a few years ago, the accounting records of the United Artists, from 1919 to 1959. In other words, the real figures of all films over 40 years of one of the largest American studio. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources (these archives are in the United States), I could only gather the first 3 years. However, I plan to get my hands on the rest. But I’ll get back to you in due course.
The institutions :
The most important of them in my research is obviously the CNC for the French box office. There too, a meeting was essential, I mean Fabrice Ferment who works in the data digitization section of the CNC and who was very kind enough to send me a considerable amount of data from the French box office.
Another very large source of data is that of Unifrance. I was able to access their database, but also their archives, of rare importance, which is in the National Archives.
Also very enriching, the Glavkinoprokat of the former USSR even if, for obvious propaganda reasons, this source can be subject to discussion, which the Russians themselves recognize.
Finally, the CNC equivalents (or almost) for the following countries; Germany (FFA), Australia (MPDAA), Austria (AFI), Brazil (FAMECOS), Denmark (DFI), Spain (ICAA), and Switzerland ( Procinéma ).
The books :
Among the 250 or so books on cinema that I have read, mainly from Anglo-Saxon authors, but also Italian, German or even Japanese (French authors, apart from the excellent Patrick Brion and Simon Simsi , are generally not interested not at the box office, preferring to focus on art), some have proven to be precious containing rare and totally new figures. Among the many authors of these books, the following have been found to be the most interesting from a box office perspective:
Scott Eyman , Jeffrey Vance, Tino Balio , Marc Eliot, James Curtis, Jeffrey Richards, Dona Kujacinski , Stuart Galbraith IV, Sue Harper, Sarah Street, Stephen Jacobs, Marcus Hearn, Geoffrey McNab , Allen Eyles, Robert S. Birchard , Sheldon Hall , Steve Neale , Richard Koszarski , Mark Glancy , Aubrey Solomon, Maurizio Baroni , James Curtis, John Howard Reid, Richard B. Jewell, Mark A. Viera , Matthew Bernstein, John McElwee, Sabine Hake and Michael Petzel .
Internet :
And to finish, I of course visited certain websites, such as IMDB, Mojo , InsideKino or Hit Italia.
Good reading.
I like this Google Chrome Translator. Hey Bob…..his site is filled with lots of classic box office numbers….I think you would really like his site. I just commented in French to his blog. The power of the internet. Time to go and teach some online Technology classes.
Hello Bruce,
I really enjoyed answering this interview. It was really nice and I like the result a lot. This section is a great idea.
And thank you again for thinking of me.
Hey Laurent….thanks again for doing this interview. I like your answers, and seeing the responses I am not the only one. Still working on your blob on our pages. Should be very soon. Thanks again.