Nelly Cormon

Nelly Cormon (1877-1942) was a French theatre and film actress, who starred in two dozens early silent films for the Film d'Art company. She acted in such historical films as Les Trois Mousquetaires (1912) and Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (1918), both adapted from Alexandre Dumas.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1285. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris. Card mailed in 1906.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1306. Photo: Jean Reutlinger, Paris.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1306. Photo: Jean Reutlinger, Paris.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1308. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris. Sent by mail in 1906.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1357. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.


French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1357. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

Harmonious features, a proud look and brown curly hair

Marie Nelly Cormon was born in 1877 in Bourges, France to a teacher and his wife.

As Guy Bellinger writes on IMDb, "Tall and elegant, with harmonious features, a proud look and brown curly hair, Nelly Cormon was a French theatre actress of classic beauty who was very successful on stage for three decades and had a brief but honourable career in silent films at the time when cinema was beginning to become more artistic, not just a fairground art."

Nelly Cormon was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire in piano with Professor Raoul Pugno. She graduated at the age of fifteen with several prizes.

In the 1900s she had a rich stage career, first at the Théâtre du Gymnase in plays such as 'L'Épave' (1903) and 'Le Retour de Jérusalem' (1903), then moved to the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, where she acted in plays like 'Le Masque d'amour' (1905) and 'Le Frisson de l'Aigle' (1906).

From 1906 she acted at various Parisian theatres, e.g. in 'Les Nuées' (1906) by Aristophanes, 'Les Deux gosses' (1907) by Pierre Decourcelle, and 'La Maison de danses' (1909) by Nozière and Müller. She also went on tour to Lisbon, London, Nancy, Brussels and other cities. In the early 1910s, she acted at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin in such plays as 'La Flambée' by Kistemaeckers fils, and 'La Chèvrefeuille' by Gabriele D'Annunzio. Cormon continued to act on stage throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.


French postcard. Photo: Le Film d'Art. Nelly Cormon as Milady de Winter in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henry Pouctal, André Calmettes, 1912-1913). The unnumbered cards don't follow the order of the novel.


French postcard. Photo: Le Film d'Art. Marcel Vibert as Athos (Count de Fère) and Nelly Cormon as Milady de Winter in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henry Pouctal, André Calmettes, 1912-1913). Most of the cards follow the order of the novel, with some hesitations about the cards on Milady's past. The cards were not numbered.


French postcard. Photo: Le Film d'Art. Marcel Vibert as Athos (Count de Fère) and Nelly Cormon as Milady de Winter in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henry Pouctal, André Calmettes, 1912-1913).


French postcard. Photo: Le Film d'Art. Emile Dehelly as D'Artagnan, Nelly Cormon as Milady de Winter and Jacques Volnys as Le Comte de Rochefort in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henry Pouctal, André Calmettes, 1912-1913).


French postcard. Photo: Le Film d'Art. Emile Dehelly as D'Artagnan, Nelly Cormon as Milady de Winter, Marcel Vibert as Athos, Adolphe Candé as Porthos and Stellio as Aramis in Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (Henry Pouctal, André Calmettes, 1912-1913).

The evil antagonist Milady De Winter

Parallel to her stage career, Nelly Cormon started a career as a film actress in 1909. After a one-off comedy at Pathé, she initially mostly appeared in Film d'Art films by André Calmettes, such as L'Arrestation de la Duchesse de Berry (André Calmettes, 1910) in which she had the lead.

From 1911, Cormon would perform in a large number of films directed by Henri Pouctal, who had started out his career as an assistant of Calmettes. Their most intense collaboration was in 1912 when Cormon acted in eleven films by Pouctal, all for Le Film d'Art. Often these were period dramas such as Joséphine impératrice/Impératrice et reine, in which Cormon had the title role of Joséphine de Beauharnais.

Under the direction of Calmettes and Pouctal together, Cormon acted as the evil antagonist Milady De Winter in the Film d'Art production Les Trois Mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1912-1913), based on Alexandre Dumas père's' famous novel. The film starred Emile Dehelly as D'Artagnan, Marguerite Guizelle as Constance Bonacieux, and Philippe Garnier as Richelieu. The sets were by Emile Bertin. The two-part film was a big success, leading to many more film adaptations of Les Trois Mousquetaires, both in France and Hollywood.

While Cormon continued to act with Pouctal in seven more films in 1913, all for Le Film d'Art, afterwards, the wave was over. She still acted in one film by Pouctal in 1914, L'Alibi, and one in 1916, Les Flambeaux, while in 1918 she had the lead in Henry Krauss' Marion Delorme on the famous courtesan. Also in 1918, Cormon had the female lead as Mercedes in Pouctal's serial film Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, with Léon Mathot in the male lead as Edmond Dantès.

After an absence of a decade, Cormon would only return once more to the film sets to play the elder Juliette Recamier in the film Madame Recamier (1928) by Tony Lekain and Gaston Ravel, while Marie Bell had the lead as the young Juliette Recamier. This was the last time Cormon acted in film. Nelly Cormon died in 1942 in Sorel-Moussel (Eure-et-Loir). She was 64. Since 1923 she was married to Gaston Georges Olmer, an industrialist.


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Marca Luna, Series 2 of 33 minicards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Nelly Cormon as Mercedes in the film serial Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Henri Pouctal, 1918).


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Marca Luna, Series 2 of 33 minicards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Léon Mathot as Edmond Dantès / The Count of Monte-Cristo and Nelly Cormon as Mercedes in the film serial Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Henri Pouctal, 1918).


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Marca Luna, Series 2 of 33 minicards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Léon Mathot as Edmond Dantès / The Count of Monte-Cristo and Nelly Cormon as Mercedes in the film serial Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Henri Pouctal, 1918).


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Marca Luna, Series 2 of 33 minicards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Léon Mathot as Edmond Dantès / The Count of Monte-Cristo and Nelly Cormon as Mercedes in the film serial Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Henri Pouctal, 1918).


Spanish minicard by Chocolate Amatller, Marca Luna, Series 2 of 33 minicards. Photo: Pathé Frères. Nelly Cormon as Mercedes and Jacques Robert as Albert, Mercedes'son, in the film serial Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Henri Pouctal, 1918).

Sources: Guy Bellinger (IMDb), Wikipedia (English and French) and IMDb.

Les trois mousquetaires (1913)

Today's film special is about the two-part film Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1913). This early silent adaptation of Alexandre Dumas père's' famous novel was directed by Henri Pouctal for Le Film d'Art. The film starred Émile Dehelly as D'Artagnan and Nelly Cormon as Milady. The cards were unnumbered and the film is lost, so we tried to follow the order of the novel, but we have some hesitations about the cards on Milady's past.


Émile Dehelly as D'Artagnan.


Caption: At the inn of Meung-sur-Loire the outfit of the Chevalier d'Artagnan raised the sarcasm of Count Rochefort whom Richelieu sent to Milady de Winter, who is charged by Buckingham with a secret message for the Queen.


Caption: Charlotte Backson, who has taken refuge in an inn, notices the Count de la Fère, a rich gentleman who lives in the neighbourhood. She decided to conquer him and to hide her past.


Caption: When he discovers the past of his wife, the Count de la Fère avenges his honour by chastening the miserable woman who abused him.


Caption: D'Artagnan helps Athos, Porthos and Aramis to take their revenge on the Cardinal's guards.


Caption: In the presence of D'Artagnan, Mr De Treville, the Captain of the King's Musketeers saddles Athos, Porthos and Aramis with reproaches because they have been beaten by the Cardinal's guards.


Caption: the Musketeers and D'Artagnan appreciate the stratagem by Planchet, who to enable his master to fittingly receive his friends, draws liquid and solid from Mrs. Bonacieux' table.


Caption: D'Artagnan saves Mrs Bonacieux and he takes charge to bring the Queen's letter to Buckingham reclaiming from the Duke the twelve studs. On advice of the Cardinal, the king has demanded her to appear with these studs at the upcoming ball at the Hotel-de-Ville.

Extreme length

The very first cinematic adaptation of Dumas' Les trois mousquetaires was a French short made by Georges Méliès in 1903, Les trois mousquetaires et le collier de la reine/The three Musketeers and the Queen's Necklace.

The next adaptation, Les trois mousquetaires/The Three Musketeers (1913) by Henri Pouctal was the first feature-length film version of the classic novel. In the early 1910s, feature-length films were just starting, but Pouctal's Les trois mousquetaires had already the extreme length of 4000 metres.

The film was released in two parts, La Haine de Richelieu (Richelieu's Hate) and Le Triomphe d'Artagnan (D'Artagnan's Triumph). While several sources list the film as being made in 1912, actually, it was released in Paris and elsewhere in Europe in the fall of 1913 and in the US in 1914.

Henri Pouctal wrote the script too, while cinematography was by Louis Chaix. Sets were by Emile Bertin. The leading actors were Émile Dehelly as D'Artagnan and Nelly Cormon as Milady.

In addition, the film featured Marcel Vibert (Athos), Adolphe Candé (Porthos), Stellio (Aramis), Philippe Garnier (Cardinal Richelieu), Jean Peyrière (Count Buckingham), Guizelle (Constance Bonacieux), Henri Legrand (Planchet), Marcel Marquet (Louis XIII), Aimée Raynal (Queen Anne), Edouard Hardoux (Bonacieux), Jacques Volnys (Count De Rochefort). Bit parts were for Jean Duval, Rolla Norman, Édouard de Max, and Marsa Renhardt.


Caption: Thanks to the passport taken from the Count De Rochefort, D'Artagnan can embark for Dover.


Caption: Called back to Britain, the Duke of Buckingham has brought to London twelve diamond studs as a remembrance of their pure love, offered by the Queen of France, and which she had gotten from the King.


Caption: Buckingham returns the twelve diamond studs to D'Artagnan. They are reclaimed by the Queen to satisfy the King's demands.


Caption: Back from London. D'Artagnan has just returned to the Queen the twelve diamonds reclaimed from Buckingham.


Caption: Adorned with the diamond studs, the Queen appears at the Aldermen's Ball, to the great discomfiture of the Cardinal who was already convinced of his triumph.


Caption: Charged to win over D'Artagnan to Richelieu's side, Milady de Winter entertains him at her place, confiding that her charms will conquer the resistance of the ardent knight.


Caption: The stigma.


Caption: Milady de Winter realizes with terror that D'Artagnan has discovered her shameful secret and swears revenge.

The highlight of the season

In his thorough study on 1910s, French silent film, The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896-1914 (1994), Richard Abel wrote that the film was distributed by AGC, the biggest distributor after Pathé and Gaumont around 1913.

From April to October 1913, AGC led a huge campaign to promote Les trois mousquetaires as the highlight of the season. As part of a new distribution strategy, it was pre-screened in the Fall of 1913 at the Paris' cinema Majestic.

Abel states that Pouctal was the sole director of the film, while the Cinémathèque française, IMDb and Wikipedia also list André Calmettes as a co-director.

According to Abel, Les trois mousquetaires is still a lost film, but these postcards give a nice impression.

After the version of Pouctal, many later versions would follow, such as the 1921 and 1933 version by Henri Diamant-Berger. Check out our post on the 1921 version.


Caption: Having become the spy of the Cardinal and the lady-in-waiting of the Queen, Milady de Winter copies Buckingham's message to communicate it to the Cardinal.


Caption: The Cardinal de Richelieu meets Milady de Winter at the Inn of the Red Dove in La Rochelle.


Caption: At the Inn of the Red Dove, Athos recognizes the voice of his wife whom he thought dead. He hears her pleading to Cardinal Richelieu to sentence D'Artagnan to death.


Caption: Unmasked, Milady de Winter leaves the Inn of the Red Dove, swearing revenge.


Caption: As D'Artagnan has escaped her, Milady de Winter decides to hit the one he loves. She pours poison in the glass of Madame Bonacieux, whom the young man has just joined in the Monastery of Bethune.


Caption: D'Artagnan and the Musketeers swear to avenge the death of Madame Bonacieux.


Caption: Milady de Winter is captured by the Musketeers and D'Artagnan in the hovel where she had taken refuge after her murder, and is delivered to the henchman.


Caption: JUSTICE!

Sources: Richard Abel (The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema 1896-1914), Ciné-Ressources (French), Wikipedia (French), and IMDb.