Biographie
With his mustache, serious expression, bald head surrounded by a crown of hair, and imposing round figure, André Alerme became the quintessential figure of French cinema for two decades. Between 1930 and 1950, this beloved character actor often portrayed members of the Army, the Church, and the Nobility. Across more than seventy films, he appeared as a captain (once in the army, once in the navy), a dragoon company commander, a colonel; a baron (twice), a viscount, a count, a marquis, the King's tax collector, and even, in the forgettable Aloha, le chant des îles (1937), a Scottish lord (not his finest role); a priest, and even Saint Peter. He also easily took on the roles of officials and influential figures in society: a doctor (twice), a politician, various managers, industrialists (starting with his role in his first and only silent film Amour et carburateur (1925)), mayors, a financier, and a couturier. Though his roundness might suggest gentleness, producers saw in him more the image of Monsieur Prudhomme, Henry Monnier's famous caricature—the archetype of the plump, conformist, sententious, selfish bourgeois. Most of Alerme’s characters were either unpleasant, ridiculous, or both. His definitive portrayal of this type was the unforgettable pompous yet cowardly mayor of a Flemish city in Jacques Feyder's classic Carnival in Flanders (1935). Though nearly always excellent, Alerme was never better than in this unmatched masterpiece.
Born in Dieppe in 1877, André Alerme initially studied medicine and sculpture but was irresistibly drawn to theater, soon making his mark on the Parisian stage. Success followed quickly in plays by Henri Bernstein, Alfred Savoir, Édouard Bourdet, Jean Anouilh, Marcel Achard, and many others. His transition from theater to film was marked by his role as Georges Samoy in Sacha Guitry's Le blanc et le noir (1931), which he reprised in Robert Florey's film adaptation. Balancing stage and screen work in the early 1930s, Alerme increasingly favored cinema after 1936. While many of his films were purely commercial, a few have endured, crafted by directors such as Jacques Feyder, Julien Duvivier, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Abel Gance, Claude Autant-Lara, and Edmond T. Gréville. A great actor, André Alerme will forever be remembered as the embodiment of Joseph Prudhomme, complete with all his pomp and foolishness.
