Maurice Dekobra



Maurice Dekobra (26 May 1885, Paris – 1 June 1973, Paris) was a French writer. His real name was Ernest-Maurice Tessier.

Viewed as a subversive writer in the 1920s and 1930s, he became one of the best-known French writers between the First and the Second World Wars. His books have been translated into 77 languages, and he has been described as an early example of an international best-seller writer. This is particularly true of his best known work, La Madone des Sleepings (1925).

In spite of this, and the publication of a biography by Philippe Collas in 2001, he was declared a "total unknown" in 2005, though the republication of La Madone des Sleepings by the publisher Zulma in 2006 has increased awareness of him, at least in France.

Biography
At the age of 19, he started his career as a trilingual journalist – French, English, German. During the 1914–18 War he was attached as liaison officer/interpreter first to the Indian army, and later to the United States army. The contacts he made at this time ignited his passion for travel. He attributed the origin of his pen name to an episode in North Africa when he saw a snake charmer with two cobras. Allegedly he began thinking of the "deux cobras", which led him to De-kobra, then Dekobra. The term 'dekobrisme' was coined from his fiction, which used journalistic features in his novels. He chose to live in the United States from 1939 to 1946. Upon returning to France, he started writing whodunits. One of these, Opération Magali (1951) won the Prix du Quai des Orfèvres.

Some of his novels were made into films.

Filmography

 * , directed by (1927, based on the short story La Girl aux mains fines)
 * Prince or Clown, directed by Aleksandr Razumny (1928, based on the novel Prince ou Pitre)
 * Change of Heart, directed by Marco de Gastyne (1928, based on the novel Mon coeur au ralenti)
 * Madonna of the Sleeping Cars, directed by Maurice Gleize and Marco de Gastyne (1928, based on the novel La Madone des sleepings)
 * Minuit, place Pigalle, directed by René Hervil (1928, based on the novel Minuit... Place Pigalle)
 * Latin Quarter, directed by Augusto Genina (1929, based on the novel Quartier Latin)
 * Friends and Lovers, directed by Victor Schertzinger (1931, based on the novel Le Sphinx a parlé)
 * , directed by Roger Richebé (1934, based on the novel Minuit... Place Pigalle)
 * The Phantom Gondola, directed by Augusto Genina (1936, based on the novel La Gondole aux chimères)
 * Yoshiwara, directed by Max Ophüls (1937, based on the novel Yoshiwara)
 * Latin Quarter, directed by Alexander Esway, Christian Chamborant and Pierre Colombier (1939, based on the novel Quartier Latin)
 * , directed by Jean Delannoy (1939/42, based on the novel Macao, l'enfer du jeu, starring Erich von Stroheim, Mireille Balin and Sessue Hayakawa)
 * , directed by André Haguet (1950, based on the novel Fusillé à l'aube)
 * Serenade to the Executioner, directed by Jean Stelli (1951, based on the novel Sérénade au bourreau)
 * Hell Is Sold Out, directed by Michael Anderson (1951, based on the novel Satan refuse du monde)
 * , directed by (1953, based on the novel Opération Magali)
 * , directed by Robert Vernay (1955, based on the novel Rue des bouches peintes)
 * Madonna of the Sleeping Cars, directed by Henri Diamant-Berger (1955, based on the novel La Madone des sleepings)
 * Suspicion, directed by Pierre Billon (1956, based on the novel La Pavane des poisons)
 * Passeport diplomatique agent K 8, directed by Robert Vernay (1965, based on the novel Passeport diplomatique)

Screenwriter

 * La Sirène des tropiques (dir. Henri Étiévant and Mario Nalpas, 1927)
 *  (dir. Maurice Dekobra, 1954)

Director

 *  (1954)