Unearthed Treasures – Episode #4 : Rigadin aime la musique
In episode 3 of our Rediscovered Treasures series, we mentioned the presence of two silent color films in the “Calais lot,” one of them being La bonté de Jacques V, which you can watch here on our YouTube channel.
Today, it is time to talk about the second film, also colorized using the same Pathécolor process : Rigadin aime la musique. But before that, let us take a step back to look at the figure of its leading actor.
1 – The Prince of Laughter
The journal Archives, published by the Institut Jean Vigo in Perpignan, devoted its November 2002 issue to the man who called himself Prince, under the title Prince Rigadin and His World. This treasure trove of information opens with these words : “If today no one would think of disputing the creative genius of Max Linder – and rightly so – Prince […] remains the forgotten or unloved figure in the history of French cinema.”1
These words date back to 2002 and, more than twenty years later, little has really changed, it must be admitted. To our knowledge, no biography has ever been written about him, and no retrospective has ever been devoted to this actor, screenwriter, and director — despite his being credited in more than 300 films between 1908 and 1933 and as the creator of the Rigadin character, described as “unforgettable”2 in Le Courrier Cinématographique in 1913.
Born Charles Ernest René Petitdemange on April 27, 1872, Prince began his artistic career on the theater stage, winning a first prize for comedy in 1896 and securing an engagement at the famous Théâtre des Variétés in 1898. It was there that he would cross paths with his “rival” Max Linder, sharing the stage with him in the play Miquette. Yet Linder “would soon leave the Variétés, where Prince was triumphing, to become the star of that silent art which Charles Petitdemange had not yet entered.”3
Prince entered the motion picture industry in 1908, at the age of 36. He joined the ranks of the Société Cinématographique des Auteurs et Gens de Lettres (SCAGL), a Pathé subsidiary founded that same year, whose “sole purpose […] is to photograph films on behalf of the Compagnie Générale des Établissements Pathé Frères, which undertakes to develop the negatives we have exposed.”4
Charles Prince’s first appearance before the camera was in L’armoire normande, directed at the Vincennes studios by filmmaker Georges Monca. With “his round eyes, goat-like teeth, lips too short,”5 and a turned-up nose, Charles Prince gradually won popularity among audiences, making a specialty of bourgeois antics in the spirit of boulevard comedy.
In 1910, the heads of SCAGL decided to create a recurring character for the actor, whose new adventures would appear every week on the silver screen: “You mustn’t keep the name Prince. You need something funny. We’ll call you Rigadin. It’s an old shoe, a kind of footwear.” Such were the words of the SCAGL executives, as reported by Prince’s widow, Gabrielle Debrives, in 1973.
And so, Rigadin was born.
This character of a scatterbrained, pretentious and hot-tempered bourgeois, who loses control of events, can appear as despicable in his cowardice as he is endearing in his failures. The first film to feature him was Rigadin va dans le grand monde, directed by Georges Monca in 1910, and more than 250 films would follow, up until the last one, Rigadin est enragé, shot in 1918 and released in 1920. At the launch of the series, Georges Fagot wrote in the magazine Ciné-Journal : “This new series will be the great event of the upcoming season, and theater owners will be wise to give Prince, in their programs, the place of honor to which his great talent and undeniable wit entitle him.”6
The popular success of this character was immense, even reaching international audiences : Rigadin became Whiffles in Great Britain and the USA, Moritz in Germany, Tartufini in Italy, Salustiano in Spain, and Petter in Sweden.
Although the Rigadin films, so popular in their time, did not endure like those of Max Linder, this seems to be due to their repetitiveness, stereotypes, vaudevillian style, or lack of originality, with the historian Charles Ford even wishing to “quickly lock this Monsieur Lebureau of comedy in the dust of his green lockers…”7.Yet, director Georges Monca and his favorite actor sometimes appear to have experimented and innovated cinematically in staging their character’s adventures, using superimposition, duplication, or even split-screen techniques.
split-screen dans Le fils à papa (1913)
Prince face à lui-même dans Rigadin a tué son frère
After the WWI, Rigadin’s popularity began to decline, along with that of other comedic characters in French cinema. His “rival” Max Linder moved to the United States, and audiences became captivated by the American slapstick stars Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Laurel and Hardy. In 1929, Charles Prince declared in the newspaper Pour Vous: « After the war, our theaters were overrun by Hollywood films. Gradually, I faded into the background. Everyone in their turn. I saw Charlot, Buster Keaton. They are very good. The public is right to care only for them. […] Besides, don’t be mistaken, you will recognize in the best American comedians ideas that were already in my little films…« 8
Charles Prince temporarily left cinema in 1921 to return to the stage, before coming back to the big screen in 1928 in Embrassez-moi, directed by Robert Péguy and Max de Rieux, under the name Prince Rigadin, as if the actor and his character had merged into a single persona. He later appeared in a few talking films, with his final screen appearance in Maurice Cammage’s Le Coq du régiment in 1933, where he acted opposite a rising star destined to become a major comic cinema icon, one Fernandel.
Ill for several years, Charles Ernest René Petitdemange passed away on July 17, 1933, at the age of 61 in his villa in La Varenne, a suburb of Paris.
2 – Rigadin in Color
With his distinctive appearance, it didn’t take long for keen cinephiles on certain Facebook groups to identify Charles Prince in one of my posts about a color reel recovered in the “Calais lot.” The problem : the copy bears no title, no intertitles, and no information to date it. However, since the images show the actor playing the violin, identification is fairly easy : it is likely Rigadin aime la musique, directed by Georges Monca in 1915.
A quick look at the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation website and, reading the synopsis, we have our answer : « Rigadin’s uncle is a wealthy, prideful landowner. He sends his nephew to collect the rent from a music teacher. Rigadin arrives at the teacher’s home and demands the money, but the tenant cannot give him anything and tries to explain. During this explanation, Rigadin hears musical notes coming from the next room. Following the sound, he enters a room where he finds a charming pianist. Rigadin then takes a violin and begins to accompany the young woman. Shortly after, the teacher introduces a cellist, as charming as the pianist. In his joy of making music and being in such delightful company, Rigadin gives the old teacher the rent receipt. Upon returning, his uncle asks for the money, but Rigadin responds by fetching the cellist and saying to her: ‘Here is the receipt, my future wife.’ »
The website also informs us that the original film measured 1115 feet, of which 1000 feet were in color. After scanning the film, it turns out that our copy runs 7 minutes and 10 seconds at 18 frames per second, corresponding to roughly 490 meters. Incomplete, then, the “Calais print” still represents almost half of this film, previously thought lost, which is significant — especially since the print is in excellent condition and the colors remain vivid.
We will also notice—and delight in—two particularly well-executed lateral tracking shots in this fragment, moving from one set to another, which support René Jeanne and Charles Ford’s view of the Rigadin series as capable of innovation, sometimes even ahead of its time, rather than Georges Sadoul’s very negative assessment.
That’s it.
Enough talk.
Let the images « speak » !
Check out my YouTube channel to (re)discover Charles Prince in Rigadin aime la musique in glorious Pathécolor !
Thanks to Steve Massa et Ivo Blom for their help in identifying the film.
Many thanks to James Fennell for the 4K scan of the 35mm print ! I invite you to check out his YouTube channel @OldFilmsAndStuff, full of gems and lost treasures!
1 – Archives n°92 – Institut Jean Vigo – Novembre 2002 – p.1
2 – Le courrier cinématographique – 26 juillet 1913 – p.7
3 – Archives n°92 – Institut Jean Vigo – Novembre 2002 – p.2
4 – A. Boudier – directeur commercial de la SGACL – lettre à un préfet en date du 22 juin 1914
5 – Histoire Générale du cinéma – Tome 3 – Le cinéma devient un art (L’avant-guerre) 1909-1920 – Georges Sadoul – p.151
6– cité dans Archives n°92 – Institut Jean Vigo – Novembre 2002 – p.9
7 – Histoire Générale du cinéma – Tome 3 – Le cinéma devient un art (L’avant-guerre) 1909-1920 – Georges Sadoul – p.152
8 – Pour Vous – 11 avril 1929