by Hal Erickson
biography
After a false start in silent films, prominent French stage star Jules Berry achieved prominence in talking pictures, beginning with the French-German co-production Quick (1932). He is best remembered for his superb character work in the films of Jean Renoir and Marcel Carne. His most famous screen appearances were as the sadistic nightclub owner in Carne's Le Jour se Leve (1939) and as a bureaucratic Satan in the same director's Les Visiteurs du Soir (aka The Devil's Envoy [1942]). A more benign Jules Berry was seen as the title character in 1937's Arsene Lupin Detective.
