100 years of Dutch Exhibitors Association

During The Netherlands Film Festival, we join with our little The Netherlands Film Star Postcard Festival. The 38th edition of NFF takes place from 27 September till 5 October 2018, and celebrates the achievements of Dutch filmmakers. Also this year, the NVBF, the Dutch cinema Association, celebrates its 100th anniversary. In a book specially compiled for this occasion, the association looks back on this hundred-year history. In this book, two postcards of our collection are included. Two Ross Verlag postcards of Lien Deyers and Truus van Aalten, two Dutch girls who became films stars in Berlin in the late 1920s and were special guests at the ITF Film exhibition in The Hague in 1928.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4457/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.

Dutch film star Truus van Aalten (1910-1999) made 29 films in the 1920s and 1930s, and only one of them in the Netherlands.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1728/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3618/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5321/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5774/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Tannenwald, Wiesbaden.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6436/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Gerstenberg, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6790/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Eli Cahn, Berlin.

The Dutch Exhibitors Association

All cinemas, arthouses and movie houses in the Netherlands are a member of the Dutch Exhibitors Association NVBF. Therefore the NVBF is the designated body to aim for collective advocacy, promotion, professional development and communication in the broadest sense of the word.

A precursor of the NVBF started during a meeting of film exhibitors in 1918 in Café Schiller, a grand cafe at the Rembrandtplein in the centre of Amsterdam

In the memorial article that appeared on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Dutch Cinema Association, Daniel Hamburger jr., one of the founders and for many years chairman of the association, described the start as follows: 'Born out of necessity, forced by circumstances.'

On 8 February 1918, the magazine De Bioscoop-Courant published an open letter from a Maastricht cinema operator, entitled Een Hulpkreet uit de Zuiden (A cry for help from the South). On the initiative of Hamburger jr., a group of cinema operators gathered a week later, on Monday 11 February 1918, in Café Schiller and that is where the history of the association began.

At the beginning of 1919 the distributors also joined together, in the Association of Film Rental Offices, and in the Netherlands two power blocks arose that faced each other, but also often had common interests. A joint disputes committee was established at the beginning of 1921. This cooperation between the two associations soon resulted in a new connection. At that time the Dutch Cinema Association was founded. In 1937, the film production companies joined the union and the entire sector was represented.

In the following century, the resilience of the union was put to the test. There, among other things, the Second World War, internal conflicts, the film inspection, the arrival of foreign companies, the rise of television and later the videocassette and DVD and piracy did occur. Change also came about in 1992, when the NFC was set up by European regulations and cinema operators and the Dutch film theatres, feature film producers and film distributors each joined in their own organisation.

And now there is this wonderful book - in Dutch - full of great pictures of cinemas now and then - and two postcards of Truus and Lien.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5503/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa.

Dutch actress Lien Deyers (1910-1965) - also known as Lien Deijers and Lien Dyers - was discovered by famous director Fritz Lang who gave her a part in Spione/Spies (1928). She acted in a stream of late silent and early sound films. After 1935 her star faded rapidly and her life ended in tragedy.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 95/1. Photo: Fritz Lang Film. Publicity still for Spione/Spies (Fritz Lang, 1928). Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3525/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Atelier Schrecker, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4283/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4283/2, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5274/2, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5315/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.

Source: NVBF (Dutch).

Truus van Aalten

Every year in early autumn, the Netherlands Film Festival (NFF) takes place. For ten days, the city of Utrecht is the cinema capital of the Netherlands, and we join the fun with our own Unofficial Dutch Film Star Postcards Festival (UDFSPF). Today's star is the 'Dutch Louise Brooks', Truus van Aalten (1910-1999). In the 1920s and early 1930s, she made 28 films in Germany and Austria, but only one in the Netherlands. The Germans lovingly called her die kleine holländische Käse (the little Dutch cheese).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4549/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Alex Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1720/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 1728/2, 1927-1928. Photo: Ufa.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3618, 1928-1929. Photo: Ufa. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3823/1, 1928-1929. Photo: Hegewald Film. Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6436/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Gerstenberg, Berlin.

Film Metropolis Berlin

Geertruida Everdina Wilhelmina van Aalten was born in the city of Arnhem, in 1910. She was the daughter of high-street chemist Fransciscus (Frans) van Aalten and his wife Geertruida van den Anker.

Film crazy Truus was only sixteen when she won a competition by the Ufa in Dutch film magazine De Rolprent (The Moving Picture) in the summer of 1926. Soon she went to the film metropolis of Europe at the time: Berlin. By 1926, Universum Film A.G. (Ufa), was the main German film studio. From its Berlin studios at Neubabelsberg, Ufa had produced monumental films like Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen in 1923 and the Sci-Fi masterpiece Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926).

Truus' film was called Die sieben Töchter der Frau Gyurkovics/A Sister of Six (Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius, 1927) and starred handsome idol, Willy Fritsch. Her role was just a small, uncredited part. None of the other five unknown 'daughters' from Frau Gyurkovics would survive in the film industry, but the Ufa would soon realise that Truus was a gifted comedienne.

Truus returned to the Netherlands after the shooting of the film had finished. Only two days after she had returned home, a telegram arrived from the Ufa: IMMEDIATELY TO BERLIN - 3 YEAR CONTRACT. Truus had had no acting education at all, but she was sparkly and funny and the camera liked her. The Ufa put Truus into her next film - and she had a much bigger part now. Die Selige Exzellenz/His Holy Lordship (Adolf E. Licho, Wilhelm Thiele, 1927) was a comedy starring Willy Fritsch and Olga Tschechova.

Soon more small parts in other silent films followed, like in the romantic comedy Der moderne Casanova/A Modern Casanova (Max Obal, Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1928) with Harry Liedtke. Truus was often lent out to other film companies and appeared in many cinema commercials and magazine promotions. Because of her informal acting and her humour, Truus' nickname in Germany became die kleine holländische Käse (the little Dutch cheese).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 3115/1, 1928-1928. Photo: Hanni Schwarz, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4029/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Gerstenberg, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4184/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5773/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Photo-Atelier May, Frankfurt a.M.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6584/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Atelier Binder, Berlin.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6790/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Eli Cahn, Berlin.

Backfish

Young and irreverent, Truus van Aalten became affectionately known in Germany as a Backfisch (literally meaning fish to fry). The new, 1920s girl was boyish yet feminine - short hair, gawky limbs, a young flapper on the edge of sexuality. Truus posed for photos and gave interviews for film magazines all over Europe. Truus even ended up in American movie magazines advertising Lux soap.

In 1929, Dutch director Jaap Speyer, took Truus back to the Netherlands to shoot scenes for Jenny's Bummel durch die Männer/Jenny's Stroll Through The Men (Jaap Speyer, 1929). News cameras caught up with the unit filming one sunny day on Scheveningen pier, and Dutch cinema audiences saw it all in their newsreels a few days later. Her next film, Der Sonderling/The Oddball (Walter Jerven, 1929) gave Truus the chance to work with the great comedian Karl Valentin as his cute and naughty counterpart.

The transition to the sound film turned out well for van Aalten despite her Dutch origin. Truus entered talking pictures by courtesy of experienced director Max Mack, who was about to shoot a new film starring Daisy d'Ora, Nur am Rhein.../Only On The Rhein... (Max Mack, 1930), and he wanted Truus to play Daisy's pal Lore. Mack signed her without requiring a microphone test - news of which spread around the film community like wildfire.

The public didn’t hold her Dutch accent against her. Truus was becoming really well known now - film magazines like Filmwoche and Filmwelt featured articles about das Mädchen aus Holland (that girl from Holland), Ross Verlag, and other main publishers were issuing postcards of her. For the first time, she got top billing in the popular comedy Susanne macht Ordnung/Susanne Cleans Up (Eugen Thiele, 1930) in which she played a schoolgirl in search of her missing father.

Next she performed in such early sound films as Liebling der Götter/Darling of the Gods (Hanns Schwarz, 1930) with Emil Jannings, Pension Schöller (Georg Jacoby, 1930), and Kasernenzauber/Magic of the Barracks (Carl Boese, 1931) with Igo Sym.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 4457/1, 1929-1930. Photo: Atelier Balázs, Berlin.


Austrian postcard by Iris-Verlag, no. 6538. Photo: Lux Film Verl. Publicity still for Der Bettelstudent/The Beggar Student (Victor Janson, 1931) with Fritz Schulz.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 5774/1, 1930-1931. Photo: Atelier Tannenwald, Wiesbaden.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 6533. Photo: Lux Film.


Dutch postcard by Jospe, no. 442. Photo by Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.


Dutch Postcard by JosPe, Arnhem, no. 462. Photo: Godfried de Groot, Amsterdam.

Souvenirs

By 1932, Truus van Aalten had outgrown her backfish image. She was a mature woman now, an experienced actress, but she was always typecast as a light comedy player. When the Nazis came to power, foreigners were subject to a quota system restricting how much they could work. Truus had not become a party member, and when the Nazis tried to use her in propaganda films, she refused.

Tired of the struggle to find work, she took the train and went to Vienna in Austria. There, German director Georg Jacoby offered her a part in the Viennese operetta G'schichten aus dem Wienerwald/Tales From The Vienna Woods (Georg Jacoby, 1934), about an ordinary girl who swaps places with an American millionaire's daughter. In Austria, Magda Schneider was on board as the lead, and Truus played the rich girl. The successful film showed her new, mature look and her bleached blonde hair.

Next van Aalten starred in the Dutch army comedy Het meisje met den blauwen hoed/The Girl with the Blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) opposite Roland Varno. Although the film was a success in the Netherlands, it was not distributed abroad. Therefore Truus decided not to continue working in the young Dutch film industry.

After a long break, she got a role in Ein ganzer Kerl/A Regular Fellow (Fritz Peter Buch, 1939), a typical film of the Nazi era. Heidemarie Hatheyer played the lead as Jule, a strong, self-willed woman who refuses to be ruled by the men in her life. By the end of the film, she has realised her wrong-headedness, swapped her riding pants for a pretty dress, and become the housewife she was destined to be. Truus played a character called Anni, a widow, and brought vivacity and humour to the part. Ein ganzer Kerl had its premiere in Berlin in January 1940. It would be Truus' last film.

After the war, she tried to gain a foothold in Hollywood and in the British film business, but the there unknown actress finally failed because of her lack of knowledge of the English language. In the 1950s she became a businesswoman with a wholesale business importing and exporting Dutch souvenirs and promotional items, and in 1964 she married her employee Henk Godwaldt. Her last years were marred by mental illness.

Truus van Aalten died in the city of Warmond, the Netherlands, in 1999. Her archive has been donated to the Dutch Film Museum (now Eye Filmmuseum) in Amsterdam.


Dutch postcard especially printed for N.V. De Faam, P.A. de Bont's chocolate and sweets factory, Breda. Photo: Ufa.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Roland Varno.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Roland Varno, Dries Krijn and Lou Bandy.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het meisje met den blauwen hoed/The girl with the blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934). Collection: Geoffrey Donaldson Institute.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Lau Ezerman, Gusta Chrispijn-Mulder, Tony van den Berg, Adriënne Solser and Roland Varno.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934).

Sources: Roger Mitchell (Truus van Aalten), Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Wikipedia (English and Dutch) and IMDb.

Het meisje met de blauwe hoed (1934)

Het meisje met de blauwe hoed/The girl with the blue hat (1934) is a Dutch 'army film', directed by Austrian director Rudolf Meinert. Stars are Roland Varno, Truus van Aalten and Lou Bandy. The film is an adaptation of the book Het meisje met de blauwe hoed by Johan Fabricius and was remade in 1972 as a popular television series with colour and new songs.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma.Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Tony van den Berg and Roland Varno.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het meisje met den blauwen hoed/ The Girl with the Blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Truus van Aalten. Collection: Egbert Barten. Comment by Ali Gardener at Flickr: "It looks like taken very spontaneous and still so perfectly posed! I like also the shadow of the shoes and all those splendid details."


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het meisje met de blauwe hoed/The Girl With the Blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Roland Varno. Collectie: Egbert Barten.

Unusual for the Netherlands

Het meisje met de blauwe hoed/The girl with the blue hat was an unusual production for the Netherlands in the 1930s. It was the first production by Filma, the film production company of 27 years old Wil Tuschinski, son of cinema chain owner Abraham Tuschinski. For the first time, a moving camera was used in the Cinetone Sound Film studios in Amsterdam. The production costs amounted to 100,000 guilders - a record for the Dutch film industry at the time.

The three stars were also interesting. Dutch-born actor Roland Varno (1908-1996) is best known for his role as one of the schoolboys in Josef von Sternberg's Der blaue Engel/The blue angel (1930). He appeared in several German and Dutch films of the early 1930s and then moved to Hollywood, where he made a film with Greta Garbo, As You Desire me (George Fitzmaurice, 1932). However, he mostly worked in Hollywood as a character actor, often in B-pictures.

The female leading role was played by another Dutch film star with a career abroad, Truus van Aalten (1910-1999). She starred in 29 European films during the 1920s and 1930s. She made most of them in Berlin and Vienna, and Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat was the only film she made in the Netherlands.

Singer and entertainer Lou Bandy (1890-1959) played a dual role in Het meisje met de blauwe hoed/The girl with the blue hat as Toontje and as himself. Bandy was one of the most popular artists of The Netherlands between the two world wars. His songs Zoek de zon op (Look for the sun) and Louise zit niet op je nagels te bijten (Louise, don't bite your nails) became Dutch evergreens. In this film, Bandy sings the songs In de petoet (In the brig) and Vaste verkering (Steady dating) which soon became hits in the Netherlands.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Lou Bandy.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Lou Bandy.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Eberhard Erfmann, Lau Ezerman, Gusta Chrispijn-Mulder, Tony van den Berg, Adrienne Solser, Roland Varno and Truus van Aalten.

Too wild for him

The film is also described as an army comedy. The story was based on a semi-autobiographical novel which Johan Fabricius published in 1927 and follows the story quite well. Roland Varno plays nerdy Daantje Pieters, who works in a grocery shop in Gouda when he is suddenly called to The Hague to serve for the Dutch army.

In the army, Daantje is the victim of teasing of his fellow soldiers. Especially his roommate Toontje (Lou Bandy) has great pleasure in keeping him fooled. The only thing that keeps Daantje going is the thought of 'the girl with the blue hat' (Truus van Aalten), a beautiful girl he spotted aboard the train to the garrison.

Despite the unfriendly beginning, smart and sneaky conman Toontje takes Daantje under his wing (not to mention his grocery supplies). During a visit to a revue of Lou Bandy Daantje notices again the girl with the blue hat. He is too shy to approach her, but Toontje arranges a meeting in a bar, to the chagrin of her date. The girl, who answers to the name Betsy, is attracted to Daantje and the two spend a romantic evening.

Daantjes mother (Adriënne Solser) is not impressed by the sexually liberated Betsy and sees her son would rather marry his neighbour Hilda Jansma (Tony van den Berg). Back in The Hague Betsy realizes that she and Danny do not fit together. She explains that she is too wild for him and breaks off the engagement.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Truus van Aalten.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934) with Roland Varno and Truus van Aalten.


Dutch postcard by M. B. & Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (1934) with Lou Bandy.

War Propaganda

During the Second World War, Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat was banned by the Nazis along with two other Dutch films, De Big van het Regiment/The Regiment's Mascot (Max Nosseck, 1935) and Ergens in Nederland/Somewhere in the Netherlands (Ludwig Berger, 1940) because of 'war propaganda'.

Chip Douglas at IMDb loves the film: "As a piece of Dutch cinema history this film is a clear standout. " About Varno and Van Aalten he notes: "They play their parts well, but it is Bandy who dominates the picture. His contribution, as well as the musical numbers managed to bring in a large enough audience to break even. However, writer Fabricius apparently wasn't very pleased when he found out they turned his book into a musical."

In 1972, a seven-part Dutch television series was broadcast, Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (Dick van 't Sant, 1972) with Huib Rooymans, Jenny Arean and André van Duin in the lead roles. Rooijmans and Arean were married at the time, but divorced in 1973. Due to its length, the story was reworked and the very popular TV series contained more scenes and even more songs. Fabricius possibly turned in his grave.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed (1934) with Roland Varno, Truus van Aalten, Dries Krijn en Lou Bandy.


Dutch postcard by R.E.B., no. 3. Photo: publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (1934) with Lou Bandy and Roland Varno.


Scene from Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (1934). Source: Kanaal van Johanpa3 (YouTube).


Scene from the TV series with André van Duin singing Vaste verkering. Source: Johnny Keurntjes (YouTube).

Sources: Henk van Gelder (Hollands Hollywood - Dutch), Kathinka Dittrich (Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Film en Bioscoop tot 1940 - Dutch), Chip Douglas (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

Lou Bandy

This week EFSP has its yearly Netherlands Film Star Postcards Festival again. During the Netherlands Film Festival (26 September - 5 October 2012) we provide you daily with postcards and bios of Dutch film stars. Today we pay tribute to singer and entertainer Lou Bandy (1890 - 1959), who was one of the most popular artists in The Netherlands between the two world wars. His songs like 'Zoek de zon op' (Look for the sun) and 'Louise zit niet op je nagels te bijten' (Louise, Stop biting your nails) became Dutch evergreens. During the 1930s, Lou Bandy starred in two Dutch shorts and two feature films.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed (1934).


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed (1934).

Standup comedian avant-la-lettre

Lou Bandy was born as Lodewijk Ferdinand Dieben in Den Haag (The Hague) in 1890. He grew up in a poor, working-class family as the youngest of a family of five children. He was the son of Franciscus Albertus Jacobus Dieben, a bricklayer, later a town clerk, and Frederika Wilhelmina Ninaber. Although there was poverty in the family, there was a lot of singing. When mother was not afflicted by headache attacks and depressive moods, she used to sing self-penned lyrics behind the washtub.

At school, a lot of attention was paid to singing and recitation. In these, Lou excelled more than in learning. After primary school, Dieben was successively piccolo in a hotel in The Hague, domestic servant with the Holland-America Line and street singer in London. In 1908, he served in the navy. After his service, Dieben went sailing again. Mobilisation in 1914 brought him back into military service. He was posted to the naval dockyard in Amsterdam. Among his mates, he was popular as a song singer and joker, but he found it difficult to conform to military discipline. For this reason, he was declared unfit for service in 1915.

In 1915, he made his stage debut in a variety show.He appeared with his four years older brother Wil as The Bandy Brothers. Their stage name was a phonetic anagram of their real surname Die-ben. The brothers separated soon because of their clashing personalities. Unlike Willy, Lou was known as a difficult person. Wil would become a popular entertainer in The Netherlands, known as Willy Derby. For the first three years, the lyrics of his songs were almost all by 'Ferry', lyricist Ferry van Delden

Lou continued under the name Lou Bandy. In 1921 Lou married the pianist and dancer Eugenie Küch. The German officer's daughter had a major impact on his career. She taught him neater manners, made him realise the importance of speaking in general Dutch and got him his first lucrative contracts. She would manage him to the top of the Dutch entertainment world. In 1927, their daughter Louise was born. In 1927, it came to a new collaboration with his brother Willy Derby. With their own company, they performed the grand revue 'Vergeet je me niet?'(Don't you forget me?) at the 'Trianon-Theater' in The Hague. The lyrics were by Ferry van Delden. Bandy and Derby performed separately, not as a duo. Apart from some banter back and forth, the collaboration went reasonably well. The revue was a great success in The Hague, but a subsequent tour was not long-lived.

In the following decades, Lou Bandy became a standup comedian avant-la-lettre. In the period between the two world wars, Bandy was one of the Netherlands' most popular artists. From 1931, Bandy was the crowd-pleaser for the revue company De Nationale Revue, which he traded to Jong Nederland in 1939. His trademark was a straw hat. Bandy became known to the public as a singer of cheerful lyrics, usually by Ferry van Delden or Philip Pinkhof (aka Rido). Among persons close to him, he had a less cheerful image. The anecdotes in which Bandy scolded his colleagues with a sour comment are numerous.


Dutch postcard by M. B.& Z. (M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam). Photo: Filma. Publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed (1934).


Dutch postcard by R.E.B., no. 3. Photo: publicity still for Het Meisje met de Blauwe Hoed/The girl with the blue hat (1934).

Grand revues

As a celebrated artist, Lou Bandy was involved in the Dutch sound film early on. In 1929, he could be seen - and heard via a synchronised gramophone record - in one of the films Hofstad Film commissioned from well-known Dutch artists. Two years later, he acted in Zijn belooning/His Reward, the first short Dutch feature film with sound. In his biggest success, the army comedy Het meisje met den blauwen hoed/The Girl with the Blue Hat (Rudolf Meinert, 1934), he co-starred with the internationally known Truus van Aalten and Roland Varno. Lou played a dual role as Toontje, one of the soldiers, and as himself, Lou Bandy the variety artist. The film songs were written by Alex de Haas and Max Tak. Bandy recorded two of them, 'In de petoet'(In jail) and 'Vaste verkering is niets voor een soldaat' (No soldier should have a steady girlfriend), and they became popular hits.

In the flop Het leven is niet zoo kwaad/Life Isn't That bad (Haro van Peski, 1935), he costarred with Dutch film diva Fien de la Mar. Bandy was foremost a star of the revue and stayed so after the war. In 1940, he bought a villa in Doorn. He enjoyed spending time there and furnished the house with, among other things, a collection of paintings by Dutch masters.

In 1942, Bandy was arrested for anti-German provocation. This was because he had imitated Seyss-Inquart's limp walk during a performance. NSB members present among the audience reported the incident to the occupying forces. He spent a night in Scheveningen prison and was later transferred and interned in a hostage camp in Haaren. By simulating a heart condition, he was released. He also wrote a submissive letter to the occupying forces asking to be allowed to perform again. A short time later, he was arrested again and transferred to a hostage camp. There he attempted suicide. After being nursed, he returned home around Christmas 1942. He was put under house arrest and had to stay in Doorn. As a result, he did not perform again during the remaining war years.

In 1944, he suffered another setback. His wife Eugenie died in February and his brother Willy Derby in April. In the 1950s the grand revues became less fashionable and Bandy had to content himself with smaller gigs. He also started to work for the radio. He often performed at the very popular radio show De Bonte Dinsdagavondtrein (The Colourful Train of Tuesday Evening).

His life ended tragically. After the death of his wife in 1944, he had many escapades with young girls. Two such affairs ended in marriages: to Sinia Franke (1948-1949) and to the 43 years younger Carla van den Hurk (1952-1958). During the 1950s, Lou Bandy lost his public and after the divorce from Carla, he had to be treated in a psychiatric clinic. Alone in his flat in Zandvoort, he committed suicide in 1959. He was buried in the Old General Cemetery in Doorn (grave S-37) next to his first wife. Lou Bandy had one daughter from his first marriage, Louise (1928).


Scene from Het meisje met den blauwen hoed/The Girl with the Blue Hat (1934). Source: Johanpa3 (YouTube).


Campy clip of De zingende broeder singing Lou Bandy's evergreen 'Louise zit niet op je nagels te bijten' (Louise, Stop Biting your Nails). Source: De zingende broeder (YouTube).

Sources: Ben Leenders (Historici.nl - Dutch), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 23 May 2023.