Jean Delannoy

'Jean Delannoy' (qv) began his film career in the 1920s as an actor. By the 1930s he had switched careers and become an editor, then a short-subjects director. By the mid-'30s he was a full-fledged director, and soon garnered a reputation as a sensitive, understated craftsman with a thorough command of the medium. By the 1950s, however, he was doing overheated melodramas and overblown epics, including a particularly undistinguished version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (_The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956)_ (qv)), and he was soon reduced to churning out such drivel as _Action Man (1967)_ (qv) (US title: "Action Man") and _The Double Bed (1965)_ (qv) (US title: "The Double Bed").::[email protected]