Vernay, Robert

(1907-1979)

   Director and screenwriter. Robert Vernay got his start in cinema as a director in the early 1930s. He made a handful of films, including L'Éternelle chanson (1932), Le Béguin de la garnaison (1932), and Le Prince de six jours (1934). He did not have much success on his own, however, and began working with some of France's best-known directors. He worked with Julien Duvivier as an assistant on such films as La Bandera (1935), Pépé le Moko (1937), La Fin du jour (1939), and Untel père et fils (1943), and with Marc Allegret on Entrée des artistes (1938). Vernay also assisted Yves Mirande on Café de Paris (1938) and Georges Lacombe on Les Musiciens du ciel (1940).

   Vernay resumed directing on his own in the 1940s with more success, perhaps given a hand by the Nazi Occupation, which had sent many of the major directors into exile. His first independent film of the decade, La Femme que j'ai la plus aimée (1942), was directed from a screenplay written by Mirande and starred Arletty and Mireille Balin. His adaptation of Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1943) was a fairly successful adventure film that starred Pierre Richard-Willm. Vernay went on to make nearly thirty other films, including Arlette et l'amour (1943), Le Père Goriot (1945), Le Capitan (1946), Emile l'Africain (1948), Fantômas contre Fantômas (1949), another version of Le Comte de Monte Cristo (1955), La Rue des bouches peintes (1955), Les Lumières du soir (1956), and the spy film Monsieur Suzuki (1960). Vernay was a solid director but one who has not received much critical attention. In addition to directing, he also wrote the screenplays for a number of his films.