Memoirs of a child of the past century - 14. Chapter 14 . Business with movies

But, back to my professional activities, which became more and more absorbing, particularly those regarding my new business: film producer and distributor.

As I wrote in Chapter 11, in late December 1969, I was in Paris to negotiate movie purchases on behalf of my father. I received a phone call from my wife. My father had just died that night. My first concern was to contact Michel Simon, who was filming a movie in Rome. I hardly had time to bury my father before I left for Rome, to ask Michel what he wanted to do with his distribution company.

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We must remember that Michel Simon (1895 - 1975) was one of the greatest actors of his time. Interpreting characters at once tender, sensitive and surly, he has always evolved on the edge of comic and tragic. His film career was really boosted with the advent of talking pictures. People remarked that his elocution and voice tone were as original as his appearance and performance. He then revealed his unclassifiable talent: action comedy, drama, tragedy, light comedy.

Simon would say that he preferred "living with animals than humans". He lived for a long time in a kind of bohemian house in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris. The house was surrounded by rank weeds, and filled with amazing bric-a-brac, including his large collection of erotica, including photographs and films. This collection was dispersed after his death.

My best memory of Michel Simon was one of his visits on a Sunday afternoon to my home. He was an irresistible storyteller. Spread in a large armchair by the fireplace in which was burning a large log fire, he had around him and at his feet the whole family, religiously listening to him sharing his memories. For once, because of the children, he was not using his usual coarse language.

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He told us about his memories of ‘The Two of Us’ (French: Le vieil homme et l'enfant) a French film which starred Michel Simon, Charles Denner and Alain Cohen, and was the first film Claude Berri directed. The film was entered into the 17th Berlin International Film Festival, where Michel Simon won the Silver Bear for Best Actor award.

I can-not resist the pleasure of telling you about this more than 40 years old movie, which talks about a problem that interests me directly: anti-Semitism. It was also very important for my children to listen to the story of Michel. Even if they are not Jews, their name is there to remind them of their origin. It was also an opportunity to evoke the disappearance of many members of our family, who had remained in France and Germany during WWII, and disappeared in the Nazi extermination camps.

Here is the plot of the movie. You will understand quickly why I was captivated by its story.

Claude (Alain Cohen) is an 8-year-old Jewish boy living in France during the Nazi occupation. To reduce the chance that he’ be sent to Auschwitz or a similar fate, his parents send him to live with a farm family, the elderly parents of Catholic friends of his parents. (In reality, many French urban Jews made similar choices for their children.) The elderly couple honestly think the boy has been sent to live with them because Paris is dangerous; it never crosses their mind that Claude is a Jew.

Claude is given a new last name (Longuet), is taught a few things about Catholic ritual, such as the Lord's Prayer, and most important, is told never to let anyone see his circumcised penis (in France, only Jews and Muslims are circumcised); thus Claude's strange prudishness at bath time. Otherwise, he plays well the part of boy grateful to be safe in the countryside, building a warm relationship with Pepe (Michel Simon) and Meme (Luce Fabiole), his simple and likeable surrogate grandparents. They form a strong and mutually affectionate bond.

There is a fly in the ointment; Claude’s willing protectors share in the prejudices common to their time and place, anti-Semitism included. They believe World War II to be the fault of Jews, communists, Freemasons, and worst of all, the British who can never be trusted. Pepe even considers Marshal Philippe Pétain, the puppet ruling France under Germany’s thumb, a hero. Pepe attempts to pass his anti-Semitic convictions on to the boy. The boy plays along with the old man, teasing him about his prejudices but never revealing the truth about himself (if you are interested to know how the movie ends, ask me (pm) !

Going back to my story about my first meeting with Michel, after the death of my father.

He was currently filming a movie and welcomed me with open arms. We quickly became friends and I spent an amazing week with him. He took me to small bistros in the Old City of Rome, making me to talk about my father, especially wanting to know me better.

I remember he wanted to take me to an inn near Rome, whose owner, an old matron had a curious way to attract customers. Every table was covered with a heavy cloth trailing on the ground. During the meal, or rather towards the end, one of the waitresses, all very pretty girls, slipped under the tablecloth and went to satisfy the customer by giving a blow job. Typically the way Michel pleased his friends! I prefered not to go, I was too shy, but today I regret it !

For myself, I especially needed to know what he wanted to do with his distribution company after the death of my father. Finally, we parted very good friends, after we agreed on the future of Ideal Film (that was the name of the company). He instructed me to take care of it temporarily and to seek a buyer, because he no longer wanted to keep it. He said: "It reminds me of your father too much, sell it !

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My father was well known in Paris. He had a reputation for being an excellent buyer of films. His job was to buy exploitation rights in Switzerland of a film, usually before the shooting, and rent this film to theatres. The revenue was used to cover rental expenses (film prints, marketing) and to compensate the cost of acquisition. If the film brought enough, the difference formed the profit of the company. Being a good buyer meant being able to estimate what a film could bring and buy at a price low enough to generate the greatest profit. So I had to find a buyer with the same capabilities as those of my father.

Ideal film had agents in Paris and Rome, responsible for reporting to my father early projects from different producers and to draw to his attention the most interesting films. I immediately contacted them regarding the sale of the company. Their reaction was immediate: the simplest way was to buy the company myself!

But this was easier said than done. I lacked both the time and money.

First, I began to analyze the company as if it were a client to reorganize: its accounts, the value of film stocks, the quality of staff, the relationships with producers. Two points in particular attracted my attention:

- The cash; there were over one million francs in cash in a bank account and I was the signatory on it ! (remember, I had to help my father during his illness just before his death).
- Among the employees was one my father had trained as a salesman, regarding him as his assistant .I could entrust him with the task of the daily management of the company and share with him the destiny in the long term.

In addition, the various purchases that my father had made before his death were very promising. Revenues of the films were very important in France and we could also expect large revenues on the exploitation in Switzerland.

A peculiarity of the Swiss legislation concerning the companies allowed me, as a shareholder, to borrow freely assets from Ideal Film. By borrowing the million francs that was in the company, I could buy the company from Michel Simon and hope that Ideal Film would quickly get new cash revenues from future films.

This is how we met, Michel and I, in the basement of the bank where there were the coffers of customers. With a bank manager as a witness, Michel gave me the actions of Ideal Film and received in exchange a check for one million Swiss Francs. The witness of the bank later played an important role in my relationship with Michel Simon, proving the reality of the trade.

Michel regretted very quickly having sold me his company. He hired several lawyers to cancel the sale, claiming that I had deceived him. Fortunately, he had confirmed by letter that he agreed to the sale. All lawyers refused to follow Michel and our relationship stopped there. It’s a pity; I would have liked to continue to have him as a friend. This whole quarrel , moreover, brought him only a lot of troubles. He squandered his money quickly and I heard nothing more from him until his death some years later.

I found myself the head of Ideal Film, with a significant increase of my fortune, proud to closed a deal; by having done better than my father. Earning money as an engineer and as a film distributor, I became even more of a personality in the small world of the good society of Lausanne. All this ‘got me even more to the head’ (literal translation of a French expression meaning ‘ to be full on oneself’).

As we had anticipated, Ideal film became the biggest company in Switzerland. From 1970 to 1974, the company made millions, without me having to take care of it.

Instead of taking care of my business seriously, I began to frequent the cinema circles in Paris, meeting artists and producers attracted by the wealth of Ideal Film and above all trying to take advantage of me.

The Cannes Film Festival, the largest in the world, attracted each year the the most important personalities of the film industry and I never failed to participate each year. It was more important to be part of the many parties that were held every evening than to see movies. During the 15 days of the festival , I did not sleep much! Among the swiss participants, distributors and operators of movie theatres, I made many friends, who remained friends, however, only as long as I could provide them with financial benefits.

I will talk now of my memories of another festival, 'the Festival of Locarno' (a small town in the southern part of Switzerland), where I enjoyed the beaches and the rocks of the river Maggia with new gay friends.

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The 'Locarno festival is held annually in early August. We went there, my wife and me, both for work as a distributor and for the holidays. It was an opportunity to see new movies, not yet distributed in Switzerland. In the evening, the films were presented outdoors in the center of the city. The festival was known worldwide for its open-air evening screenings.

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During the day my wife went to see movies in numerous cinemas reserved for professionals. For myself, I found two places where many gay men (as well as straights) could swim naked and enjoy good times with some new friends:

-the rocks of the Maggia, a small river rising in the mountains and flowing into Lake Maggiore and

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-a beach near Ascona, at the mouth of the Maggia where it flows in the lake.

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What a pleasure to make love in the sun on the sand or the rocks,then, after throwing themselves into the water together, swimming and diving in cold water and start again ...

I later learned that my youngest son, who sometimes accompanied us for his vacation, had his first gay experiences in Locarno (he was 16), I don’t know with whom and where. I still wonder today what we would have said and done if we had been at the same place in the same outfit!

Today, when I look back on this period, my life was clearly split into two parts, each half being devoted to activities very different from the other. One half was the 'engineering' with GREPAL and the other half 'cinema' with IDEAL FILM. Each one motivated me 100% and I should have devoted to each of them the whole of my time. I never solved this dilemma. Carried away by my pride, I thought myself to be capable of doing two things simultaneously, and doing them successfully.

I tried to run the two companies by delegating as much as possible to executives. There are two ways to delegate - a good one - to set targets, to monitor compliance and to measure performance, and a wrong one - to leave complete freedom to subordinates, while still supporting the responsibility for the results. Due to time, I had to be content with second way.

All went well at first and I felt free from any constraint, enjoying my life and believing myself the master of my destiny. What a mistake! A few years later, I understood that I should have made a choice between GREPAL and IDEAL FILM. I had the financial and intellectual means to find success in one or the other, but not in both at the same time.

For now, back to the history of Ideal Film.

As I said before, Ideal Film became the biggest film distribution company in Switzerland. From 1970 to 1974, the company made millions, without me having to take care of it.

In light of this success, I became a very important distributor. The Swiss Ministry of Culture, responsible for promoting the production of Swiss films by grants to various film projects asked me to participate in choosing the movies to support.

I not only became the sole distributor member of the State Commission for selecting projects to be supported, but I was also responsible for developing an overall concept of support for Swiss films. The criteria of this concept, divided into four areas (production, distribution, marketing and archiving) are still applied today, 40 years later.

The Commission had about fifteen members producers; directors, actors, screenwriters, each having their own idea about the artistic quality of a project. Each month we had to read large folders (synopses, scripts, budgets, financing, casting, and so on.). We spent a lot of time looking for the qualities and defects of these grant requests.

I really enjoyed discussion sessions, the confrontation of opinions and often bitter disputes between supporters and opponents of certain projects. In the end, we always got along and the sessions ended with a 'generous' meal and we were well watered.

I was recognised as the only 'businessman' of the whole team and I was always trying to attract the attention of the other 'artists' on the business aspect of a project. I was often reproached for analyzing each project and saying :"you really believe that the grant is needed? If the movie is not made, this is money lost. Artistic merit is not enough. It also requires that the project is feasible! ".

Several members have long remained friends even after my financial crash. Some even supported and helped me back up the slope (see next chapter).

I've always been interested in leaving the beaten path, in my choice of films to distribute. I met often obstacles of a moral nature. Two examples of this kind of battle:

'Salò', or 'The 120 Days of Sodom' (Italian: Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) is a controversial 1975 Italian drama film written and directed by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, based on the book 'The 120 Days of Sodom' by the Marquis de Sade. Because of its scenes depicting intensely graphic violence, sadism, and sexual depravity, the movie was extremely controversial upon its release, and remains banned in several countries to this day.
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I wanted to distribute this film because of its artistic qualities and because of the personality of its author. I also had a malicious pleasure in provoking the public on behalf of the freedom of expression. But all the owners of movie theaters decided to boycott the movie and I could not present it to the public. I regretted it, because the sight of all these boys 'in the raw' was not indifferent to me!

Schatten der Engel (Shadow of Angels) is a Swiss film made in 1975 by Daniel Schmid, with Rainer Werner Fassbinder for the scenario. He was regarded by Jewish circles as an antisemitic film, because of its content; an excerpt follows:

‘Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul, who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew….’ [sharedmedia=gallery:images:6552]

The Swiss Jewish community exerted strong pressure on me and I received many letters, "How can a Jew allows himself to distribute a film that is anti-Semitic? "But this time, I did not yield and the film was released in a few theaters.

I also took advantage of the success of Ideal Film in my everyday life.

My first contact with the agent of Ideal in Paris, Alain Vannier, was symptomatic of the difficulties that dogged our later relationship. Alain's position was very ambiguous. On the one hand, he was the representative of Ideal in Paris. On the other hand, he was commissioned by several producers to sell their films to foreign distributors. His work for us was therefore to focus our attention on film projects that were interesting for Switzerland. But he had also to defend the producers by selling their film the highest possible price!

Much later, I realized that his priority was the interest of producers. Instead of safeguarding the interests of Ideal, he also proposed the film to other distributors in Switzerland, putting us in competition with the result that Ideal had to pay far too much for the films offered by Alain. It was one of the causes of the debacle that resulted for Ideal and several other Swiss distributors, which I will discuss later.

Alain was unequalled for 'packing up 'customers. When I came to Paris, alone or with my wife, we were received 'like princes'. He had in his country house near Paris, with an indoor pool and sauna. I remember one night (my wife was absent), during which we found ourselves, boys and girls, completely naked in the pool or the sauna, to drain the excess alcohol we had abused during a 'gargantuan' dinner. You can imagine what happened. What a night!

I had the opportunity to meet many filmmakers and actors during my frequent trips to Paris, London, Milan and Berlin in my search of interesting films. I took the opportunity to invite some people to La Conversion or Vercorin for the holidays. I remember the 'Charlots', four boys making my kids laugh by behaving 'very badly' at the table, and my son Nicolas being so the famous actor Pierre Richard, my son Nicolas being so proud to be sitting next the famous actor Pierre Richard.

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The offices of Ideal being in Geneva and those of GREPAL being in Epalinges, I had to travel very often from one place to another. I decided to buy a big car. At that time, the speeds were not limited on highways. I choose a NSU Ro 80, a technologically advanced sedan-type automobile. Most notable was 'The Power Train', a 115 PS twin-rotor Wankel engine driving the front wheels-through a semi-automatic transmission. I could easily run at 180 km / h and even up to more than 200 km / h (125 miles per hour). What a pleasure to drive at that speed, and surpass all the other cars on the highway.

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The way I drove my car at full speed, was an example of how I led my life. To ‘burn the candle at both ends’ (meaning ‘to live at a hectic pace’) was exactly what I wanted to do and did.

In my heart, I was haunted by the memory of my father, by the desire to surpass him. In his field, film, I had a thing to do: produce a film from A to Z, financing, choosing the director and the actors, supervising shooting and editing and ensure the proper completion of the film

This is what my father had done. The film in question, filmed in Spain with second-rate actors was called 'The Last of the Mohicans'. It was a 'poor' Western. My father has lost a lot of money and the film had no success.

It was one more reason for me to do better than himself. I will talk in a later chapter about my fate as producer, which was also one of the causes of my debacle.

Investing heavily in both of my activities, my engineering company and my film business, putting all my energy into them, also had unintended consequences in my personal life: my libido was 'down'. I was like a eunuch! I still was able to find pleasure in the beauty of both boys and girls I saw in the streets or a meetings , but I had no desire to 'go further'. This did not bother me unduly. However, when I had to forcibly reduce my lifestyle, I was to find my true nature again.