LE COEUR ET LES YEUX

LE COEUR ET LES YEUX
(Ziek hart et zieke oogen) (US: Hearts and Eyes; GB: The Heart and the Eyes)
Émile Chautard (FR 1911)

Cécile is blinded while cleaning a pair of gloves with benzine. As she is the sole provider for her little sister Jeanne, they now become poor and eventually homeless. Jeanne begs money from strangers, one of whom turns out to be Dr. Humbert, an eye specialist, who offers to operate on Cécile’s eyes. The surgery is successful, and by the time Cécile has regained her sight the doctor has desperately lost his heart to his beautiful patient.
The Association Cinématographique des Auteurs Dramatiques (ACAD) was established in 1910 in Paris, with the stage actor and director Émile Chautard (1864-1934) as one of its founding partners. A subsidiary of Éclair, the company was meant to compete with Film d’Art and S.C.A.G.L., and similarly aspired to make film adaptations of celebrated literary classics and popular works by contemporary authors. This film is an adaptation of a popular novel of the same title by the prolific author Pierre Sales (1854/56?-1914).

Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi

regia/dir, scen: Émile Chautard.
cast: Cécile Didier (Cécile Aubry [Dutch print: Cecilie]), Philippe Damorès (Dr. Paul Humbert), Maria Fromet (Jeanne Aubry).
prod: ACAD [Association Cinématographique des Auteurs Dramatiques].
dist: Éclair.
copia/copy: 35mm, 182 m., 9’35” (18 fps), col. (imbibito/tinted, Desmet process); did./titles: NLD.
Desmet Collection.
Preserved in colour in 1989 using an internegative.