André Hunebelle

Who was André Hunebelle?

André Hunebelle was a French director. He was born on 1 September 1896 in Meudon, and died on 27 November 1985 in Nice.

Hunebelle was a former publisher of a French newspaper called La Fleché. During World War II, he had no job until a friend Marcel Achard found him work in films for Production Artistique Cinématographique where he acted as an art director and later began producing films beginning with Leçon de conduite. He directed his first film Métier de fous in 1948.

His next three films were a film series of French film noir featuring Raymond Rouleau as a journalist character mixing with crime. All three had the titles beginning with the letter "M" in honour of author Pierre Benoît whose heroines all began with the letter "A". The films were written by Michel Audiard, a crime novelist.

In 1960 Hunebelle teamed up with Jean Marais to make several successful swashbucklers. Following the highly successful French release of Dr No in 1963, Marais thought of adapting Jean Bruce's spy hero OSS 117 in a series of films starring himself; however, Hunebelle selected the American actor Kerwin Mathews. At the same time as his OSS 117 films, Hunebelle and Marais made a trilogy of Fantômas films.