Merci pour tout
Early in (a.k.a ), the 1977 feature directing debut of Pierre Rissient, the following dedication appears onscreen: “To Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast, Movie Business Casualty.” A name now all but erased from the cinematic fossil record, d’Arrast was the Argentine-born, French-Basque filmmaker who came to Hollywood at the end of the silent era, worked as an assistant to Chaplin, and eventually directed seven American features of his own (including 1930’s Oscar-nominated ) before retreating to Europe and disappearing into obscurity. D’Arrast was said to be a Lubitsch-esque master of the sophisticated romantic comedy, but also a Stroheimian perfectionist who clashed repeatedly with studio brass—among other indignities, he was fired from directing 1933’s because he wanted to replace star Al Jolson with a then-unknown vaudeville actor named Fred Astaire. But d’Arrast left enough of a trace to become one of Pierre’s enthusiastic —and a test case for the sort of
