Jean Martin
Jean Martin (6 March 1922 - 2 February 2009) was a French actor. Coming from a Berry family, he spent part of his childhood in Biarritz, where his father worked for a furrier. During the Second World War, he hid to escape the Forced Labor Service. Staying in Paris, he appeared in two films by Maurice Tourneur: "The Devil's Hand" (1942) then "Cécile Est Mort" (1943). At the twilight of the forties, he started doing theater. In 1953, Jean Martin gained notoriety by playing the new play by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, "Waiting for Godot", under the direction of Roger Blin, becoming the first to take on the role of Lucky. The same Roger Blin produced “End of the Game” (1957), by the same Beckett, a few years later, and entrusted the same Jean Martin with the role of Clov. In 1960, Jean Martin staged his first play, “Letter Dead”, by Robert Pinget. In 1962, he again staged a play, “The Representatives”, by Aglaé and Mona Mitropoulos, adapted by Michel Arnaud. Alongside this theatrical career which would prove to be rich, Jean Martin returned to cinema: “Notre-Dame de Paris” (1956), by Jean Delannoy, “Paris belongs to us” (1958), by Jacques Rivette, “Ballade for a thug " (1962), by Jean-Claude Bonnardot, "La foire aux dunces" (1963), by Louis Daquin and "À toi de fait mignon" (1963), by Bernard Borderie. In 1960, he was a signatory of the Manifesto of the 121 entitled “Declaration on the right to insubordination in the Algerian war”. In 1965, a role marked his career, that of Colonel Mathieu, in a film retracing the struggle in 1957 for control of the Casbah district of Algiers between FLN militants and French soldiers: "The Battle of Algiers" . Three years after the end of the Algerian War, the subject is still sensitive on each side of the Mediterranean; the film was banned in France upon its release, then censored until 2004. Jean Martin, very convincing in this role of division commander (historically, the commander is General Massu, but the character is inspired by Colonel Bigeard), is the only professional actor in the film. His large stature, his strong personality and his imperious face predispose him to notable roles generally showing authority: chief doctor, police commissioner, high-ranking military officer, ecclesiastical dignitary...; one of the most impressive will undoubtedly be that of a doctor vehemently expelling from his hospital a judge Fayard, Patrick Dewaere, a bit of a cavalier in "Le Juge Fayard Dit Le Shérif" (1976). Claude Zidi mocks these roles in his comedies: principal in “La moutarde monte au nose” (1974), bank director in “La Course À L'Échalote” (1975), chief doctor in “L'aile ou la thigh” (1976), principal inspector in “Bête mais disciplined” (1979) and examiner in “Inspecteur la Bavure” (1980). Alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo, he is… cardinal in “L’Hériter” (1972) and… divisional commissioner in “Peur Sur La ville” (1975)! But also alongside Terence Hill in “My Name is Nobody” (1973) in the role of Sullivan, or “One Genius, Two Associates, One Bell (1975). After devoting a large part of his career to the theater, appearing in around fifty films, Jean Martin died on February 2, 2009, in Paris.
The Day of the Jackal
as Victor WolenskiAn international assassin known as ‘The Jackal’ is employed by disgruntled French generals to...
Movie page
The Battle of Algiers
as Colonel Philippe MathieuTracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French...
Movie page
My Name Is Nobody
as SullivanJack Beauregard, an ageing gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to...
Movie page
The Wing or the Thigh?
as Duchemin's Doctor at ClinicCharles Duchemin, a well-known gourmet and publisher of a famous restaurant guide, is waging a...
Movie page
A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot
as Colonel PembrokeExpert conman Joe Thanks teams up with half-breed Bill and naive Lucy to steal $300,000 from the...
Movie page
The Beguines
as RenéHélène, a fragile and romantic teenager, discovers that her father, a rich business man, has a...
Movie page
The Nun
as Monsieur HébertIn eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three...
Movie page
Inspector Blunder
as Examination policeman (uncredited)A detective, fresh out of the academy (lowest mark in class), gets the assignment to bodyguard a...
Movie page
Lucie Aubrac
as Paul LardanchetA love story or a tale of the resistance, this poignant movie tells both the haunting story of a...
Movie page
The Night Caller
as Divisional commissioner SabinA serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about...
Movie page
The King and the Mockingbird
as L’oiseau (voice)A young shepherdess and a chimneysweep plan to get married and escape the clutches of a...
Movie page
Successive Slidings of Pleasure
as The PriestA young woman is questioned by the police and the judges, suspected of being a modern witch. The...
Movie page
The Inheritor
as Mgr. SchneiderAfter his father is killed in a plane crash, Bart Cordell returns back home to France to claim...
Movie page
The Wild Goose Chase
as Le directeur de la banqueThe whole intrigue is centered around carte-blanche documents kept in a vault. Whoever fills in...
Movie page
Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime
as Un responsable d'éditionRecovering from an attempted suicide, a man is selected to participate in a time travel...
Movie page
Don't Take God's Children for Wild Geese
as A henchman of Charles (uncredited)Rita is a girl that lives on taking gangsters as lovers. But when the money stops coming, she...
Movie page
Troubleshooters
as Homme de VarèseThe day he is released from jail, Serge is expected by four killers sent by Count Charles Varèse...
Movie page
Dossier 51
as VénusA French diplomat is surveilled by a secret service to find a weakness for political control,...
Movie page
I'm Losing My Temper
as HeadmasterPierre is a clumsy, overly serious math teacher at an all-girls high school. His life is thrown...
Movie page
A Woman at Her Window
as Drieu La Rochelle (uncredited)Greece, 1936. An aristocratic woman engages in a series of loveless affairs before finding...
Movie page
La Femme flic
as Le colonel MorangeYoung police inspector Corinne Levasseur interrogated a dealer without the judge's consent....
Movie page
The Cat
as LegrandAmedeo and Ofelia, middle aged brother and sister, own jointly an old decadent, but still...
Movie page
Judge Fayard Called the Sheriff
as SurgeonJean-Marie Fayard is a young examining magistrate in a large provincial french city. He belongs...
Movie page
The Messiah
as Pontius PilateRossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting...
Movie page
The Time of the Beginning
as Direttore clinica / SottocapoA "symbolic" character traces the path of man in search of salvation in this world within his...
Movie page
La Puce et le privé
as Gérard Le Tizou, head waiterVal Brosse, a private detective, receives Françoise, who confesses to him that she murdered her...
Movie page
Fortunate
as faux croque-mortDuring WW2, a posh bourgeois woman (Morgan)is compelled to live under the same room as a crude...
Movie page
The Associate
as M. BastiasAn unemployed investor creates a fictious business partner to attempt to improve business....
Movie page
Promise at Dawn
as Igor IgorevitchA single mother raises her son in impossible circumstances first in Leningrad, then Krakow, and...
Movie page
Cry of the Heart
as M. BunkermannAlexandre, a young man from a wealthy family, suffers a serious fall. One leg is finally...
Movie page
Your Turn, Darling
as uncreditedIn this French espionage thriller, Eddie again plays the role that made him a star, Lemmy...
Movie page
Les Culottes rouges
as Un homme de la troupe (uncredited)Antoine Rossi, a recidivist prisoner of war in Germany, manages to escape with the cowardly...
Movie page
Cecile Is Dead
as Le garçon d'étage (uncredited)Cecile, a young girl who goes to the offices of the Judicial Police several times in a row to...
Movie page
Safety Catch
as uncreditedA doctor disbarred for euthanasia is called in by a man to help his son, who has been depressed...
Movie page
The Carpathian Castle
as Orfanik, the InventorIn 1898, strange things happen in a castle not far from the small village of Werst in the...
Movie page
The Companions of Baal
as MauvouloirJournalist Claude Leroy (Jacques Champreux) reports that a secret society, The Companions of...
Movie page
The Crime of Ovide Plouffe
as SculpteurOvide Plouffe has married Rita. She still tries to attract other men even after their marriage....
Movie page
La nuit bulgare
as uncreditedA youngish sales employee of a computer firm is blackmailed into helping a group of mysterious...
Movie page
Soldier Martin
as MonnierA troupe of French actors on tour in Normandy become involved in the events of WWII.
Movie page
The Invention of Morel
as StoewerEscaped from jail, Luis finds refuge on a remote island where, it is said, several people have...
Movie page
HPW ou Anatomie d'un faussaire
as uncreditedHugo-Paul de Weydroos, forger who manages to mystify the most renowned experts, is an attractive...
Movie page
Gustave Moreau
as NarratorA brilliant analysis of 19th century French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, known for his...
Movie page
An Invitation to the Hunt
as Marquis of La RocherieClaude Chabrol film for TV based on the short story An Invitation to the Hunt by Georges...
Movie page
Marxist Poetry: The Making of The Battle of Algiers
as SelfTo commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, we revisited our edit of the...
Movie page
Alouqa or the Comedy of the Dead
as Jean CroixThanks to his gifts of clairvoyance, the son of a former servant of a noble family makes his...
Movie page
Police Commissioner Moulin
as LarsenThe series follows the adventures of lighthearted Jean-Paul Moulin, a police Commissaire, and...
TV Show page
Graf Yoster gibt sich die Ehre
as GastonGraf Yoster gibt sich die Ehre [French title: Le comte Yoster a bien l'honneur] is a TV series...
TV Show page
