Biography
In 1920 René-Lucien Chomette began acting in films under the name René Clair. He performed in
Louis Feuillade's 1921 serials
L'Orpheline and
Parisette, but in 1924 he began writing and directing his own films with the comic fantasy
Paris Qui Dort (The Crazy Ray). Through the '20s Clair would make some of the most original and admired works of early French cinema, including the avant-garde short
Entr'acte, the landmark early musicals Sous Les Toits De Paris and
Le Million, and the classic satire A Nous La Liberté. Working in England and the United States during the 1930s and '40s, his films were dominated (sometimes overly so) by fantasy and whimsy, but he managed to inject some healthy venom into the Agatha Christie mystery
And Then There Were None. He returned to Europe for his films of the 1950s and '60s, most notably
La Beauté Du Diable (Beauty And The Devil) and
Les Belles De Nuit (Beauties Of The Night). ~ All Movie Guide