Musidora Article in Cinémagazine, 1921

Cinémagazine, July 22, 1921

"After the great success of the film Pour Don Carlos in front of the elegant public gathered in the hall of the Colisée, for a charity, we went to congratulate the main protagonist of this film, Mlle. Musidora, who, with her usual swagger, did not hesitate to replace, at short notice, Mr. Pierre Benoit, who was to come to present in a brief conference, the cinematographic adaptation of his work.

" - Did I have stage fright? Yes and no, says Mlle. Musidora, speaking softly, in a harmonious and grave voice. The most notorious foreign aristocratic families passing through Paris had mingled, there was no hesitation. A conference had been promised and all the generous subscribers - think about it! We made nearly 35,000 francs in receipts in this little room!... - were entitled to a conference.

"Mr. Pierce Benoit having been prevented at the last moment, well, I went up on the stage and, to all the public curious about the things of the Cinéma, I told, quite simply, how we make a film, how we Had I been too long, I don't think so, because I understood for the attention of my listeners, how much my subject interested them. They wanted to applaud the speaker and they applauded...

"Allegria and all the good artists who interpreted, with her, the cinematic adaptation of the famous novel. M. Pierre Benoit made me say: 'How well inspired I was in not coming, and in leaving it to you to tell an audience, absolutely carried away by your sincere eloquence, all the care you have taken in evoking a war already so distant that we no longer know if it is a story of history, or an imaginative novel.'

"Coming back to Cinémagazine, you want to interview me. For your many readers, for your dapper magazine, I will gladly take part in this little torture, but, if you want, I will write you a few lines; are we not colleagues?

" - And they will please our readers much more than any biography. For when?

"For when!... This evening, I'm reading a script: Les Chouans, but don't say anything about it, will you?... Tomorrow, I'm repeating the L'école des Cocottes that I will play on tour until the end of August. Sunday, Lord's Day, I will think of Cinémagazine and Monday morning, at 8 o'clock, you will have your 'paper.'

" - 8 o'clock!... 

" - Musidora gets up with the dawn... Goodbye, see you Monday... 

" - 8 o'clock!... 

"And here is Musidora's interview by Herself.

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"How to talk about yourself, how to write about yourself at a time when the sirens - the same ones who announced the Armistice - must announce the victory of Georges Capentier!

"Yet Cinémagazine is waiting, and its charming readers too... 

"Let me explain: 

"In the ring of the Gaumont house... 

"1st Round. 

"Feuillade, the great arbiter of cinema, offers me to sign up. I accept. 

"2nd Round 

"'Clinch.' Body to body and fight for the Vampires. After ten months Irma Vep, winner.

"3rd Round.

"Direct and forehand: success with Judex. Diana Monti is the French filmmaker champion. 

"Excuse me for speaking like this, but boxing is on the agenda.

..................................

"Cinémagazine (Brick red character, square, and speaking well.) 

" - I come to interview you? 

"Me - What do you want me to tell you. 

"Cinémagazine - How you got started.

"Me - At the theater?

 

"Cinémagazine - No.

 

"Me - At the music hall?

 

"Cinémagazine - No. 

"Me - At the cabaret? 

"Cinémagazine - No. 

"Me - At the concert? 

"Cinémagazine - No, no, no. At the movie theater.

"Me - Voila, I didn't know the cinema, I was playing at the Folies-Bergere and Feuillade came to pick me up to shoot Severo Torelli.

"My figure was photogenic 

"The war broke out. I shot a series of dramatic ingenues and comic ingenues. Then my good master Feuillade said to me one day:

"'I'm doing an adventure scenario with episodes, do you want to play the wicked woman, or the married woman.' I answered without hesitation: 'The bad one.'

"...So...I killed: with gun, with iron, with water, I murdered relentlessly, I rolled a fierce eye. And never...have I been so amused.

"At the end of my atrocities, I even climbed into a salad cart - a real one - and... I was killed... with a revolver shot at point-blank range, in a cellar made of painted cardboard.

"So, Feuillade made me reborn in Judex, whom I pursued with my hatred. 

"So I started again in my 'reincarnation' to kill with water, with iron, with poison, and then I drowned...

"And I left my great friend Feuillade, because, thanks to him, I was able to leave without worrying about all my crimes... 

"And I shot For Don Carlos, and I still murdered! - with a knife - because I no longer know how to do good deeds... And I died... again... from a gunshot to the chest. Do you think all these crimes are interesting?...

"Cinémagazine delighted - But yes, but yes, the 'miscellaneous' fact is all there. 

"Look at Landru, Bessarabo. 

"See, Dempsey... 

"See yourself, thank you for everything you say. 

"Give me your measurements, my readers will be happy to know your stature, your...

"...wrist circumference, your hip circumference, your thigh height, show me your knives, your revolvers, your flasks, your glasses, your gas masks. And your silk jersey... your famous and controversial jersey.

"Show me the places on your body where you had scars and I'll make little numbered circles there. 

"Show me your apartment, your bedroom, your kitchen. Tell me the name of your shoemaker, your dairyman, your concierge.

"Tell me, your favorite newspapers, the brand of your piano, the height of your ceiling. Tell me... 

" - I'll tell you all that in film - in silence in publicity... look, to your Carpentier. 

"And you will see that with that recipe we can reopen the Bank of China. 

"Farewell, Cinémagazine, enough said."

MUSIDORA

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"What Miss Musidora did not say was the attraction that her name has on the crowd. 

"As soon as a film is announced with Musidora as the main performer, the commercial success of this cinematic work is assured in advance.

"By playing Irma Vep, she idealized hotel rats, by interpreting Chacals, where she played as a blonde, she symbolized marital fidelity, by personifying Allegria, she evoked the memory of a beautiful and pathetic rebel who, for the love of his king, was the soul of revolt and paid with his life for his fanatical devotion to a cause lost in advance.

"In her artistic home, Musidora is sweetness itself. Her voice sings and chants, her heavy headbands give her the appearance of a Madonna and her beautiful eyes, her large, intelligent eyes testify that one is in the presence of an intellectual, of a young woman who, artist to her fingertips, can only use her great talent for the constant progress of the cinématographic art of which she was, from her beginnings, one of the most applauded stars. " 

V. GUILLAUME-DANVERS