Jacques Gelman

Who was Jacques Gelman?

Jacques Gelman was a producer of Mexican films.

Gelman was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. During the 1920s, he worked as a still photographer in European motion picture studios, and became a distributor of French films. He arrived in Mexico just before the outbreak of World War II, and as a result of the conflict, found himself stranded there. In 1943, he became the third partner of Posa Films, along with Mario Moreno and Santiago Reachi Fayad. The company's prime asset was Moreno's comedic talent, and the three producers crafted and marketed the image of Cantinflas.

It was Gelman who proposed the recreation of European classics as a way to appeal to audiences outside Latin America. Los tres mosqueteros and Romeo y Julieta were produced during this period, and Los tres mosqueteros was selected to be screened at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946. The endorsement of Charlie Chaplin had secured the feature's billing, but in the eyes of French critics, it failed to live up to Chaplin's proclamation that Moreno was the leading comic of the era.