1857-1926
French playwright Maurice Lefebvre-Desvallières was born on this day in Paris. He was the brother of painter George Desvallières (his great-grandfather was writer Gabriel-Marie Legouvé and his grandfather was playwright Ernest Legouvé--his great, great grandfather was likewise also a prominent French writer of the same surname). He was schooled in Paris and later became the writing partner of Georges Feydeau for a time. His specialty was comedic farces. Only two films (that are known for a certainty) were produced from his work in the silent era, the first of which was the 1913 short Le fils à papa--a Georges Monca film. The second was a much more lavish production of the same work; The Girl in the Taxi (Die keusche Susanne or Chaste Susanne) was German production dating from 1926 and was directed by Richard Eichberg--the work is based on a popular German operetta adapted from Desvallières play. The first sound film produced from his work came in 1933 with Champignol malgré lui a French comedic farce is full mono. The most recent use of his work in a film came in 1972 with the Danish production Hotel Paradiso based on a play that he co-authored with Feydeau. Desvallières died on the 23rd of March at the age of 68.
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