Judex

Judex (1963)

Georges Franju's Judex is an arch, playful tribute to the serials of the influential silent filmmaker Louis Feuillade. Franju shuffles through the plot of Feuillade's lengthy serial of the same name, about an adventurer named Judex whose revenge against the corrupt banker Favraux unleashes a complicated series of schemes.

Date of release
1963-12-04
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (84)
Runtime
1h 44m
Genres
Crime, Thriller, Mystery
Director
Georges Franju

Casting

Interesting facts

Judex is a 1963 French-language neo-noir crime film remake of the 1916 French serial film of the same name concerning the adventures of pulp hero Judex. Directed by French filmmaker Georges Franju, the film stars Channing Pollock as Judex/Vallieres, Édith Scob as Jacqueline and Francine Bergé as Diana.

Production

The production of Judex happened by chance. French writer Francis Lacassin was writing an article on French film, and while doing research he was approached by a production manager with an idea for a film, when he suggested to do a film on Judex. The story came to Jacques Champreux (grandson of the original creator of Judex, Louis Feuillade) and long-time admirer of director Georges Franju.

Channing Pollock, who was a famous magician in cabaret circles, was cast as Judex. Pollock had been in several films beforehand and the backing producers wanted to make him into a Rudolph Valentino-type star. Franju and Champreux made his character into more of a magical character rather than a "dispenser of justice". Many actresses were thought of for the role of Diana Monti, originally played by Musidora in the Feuillade's Judex.

Franju cast Édith Scob as Jacqueline who he had worked with on his previous films, including Eyes Without a Face and Thérèse Desqueyroux.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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