Valéry Inkijinoff | WatchedThis
Valéry Inkijinoff
Acting
Biography
Valéry Inkijinoff (Russian: Валерьян (Валерий) Иванович Инкижинов; 25 March 1895 – 26 September 1973) was a French actor of Russian-Buryat origin. His strong facial features made him a favourite villain of French cinema for exotic adventure films and crime movies. Inkijinoff was born to a Christian Buryat father and a Russian mother in Irkutsk gubernia. He studied at the Polytechnical Institute of Saint Petersburg and was for a time one of the resident actors of an imperial theater of this city. At the beginning of his career in Russia, he appeared first as stuntman in a few movies and then as director and as actor. His major lead role during the Russian part of his career is The Son in Storm Over Asia by Vsevolod Pudovkin in 1928, a major Soviet propaganda film about a fictional British consolidation of Mongolia. He was also an actor in the troop of Vsevolod Meyerhold and was then appointed as director of the movie and theater school of Kiev in Ukraine. In 1930, while in France on a European tour, he refused to return to the USSR. According to Boris Shumyatsky, after Stalin learned Inkijinoff had never returned in 1934, said: "Too bad that the man escaped. Now he, probably, is dying to come back but, alas, too late." He starred in 2 movies while living in the Soviet Union, and contrary to Stalin's assumption, Inkijinoff became immensely popular in Europe, arguably the most successful Soviet actor abroad, starring in a total of 44 French, British, German, and Italian films. In France he frequently played the part of Asian villains. His most active period was in the thirties, when he appeared in Les Bateliers de la Volga and the G. W. Pabst film Le drame de Shanghai. He played for Fritz Lang in 1959, in Der Tiger von Eschnapur and its sequel Das indische Grabmal, in which he played the role of the high priest Yama. In 1965, Philippe de Broca cast him as Monsieur Goh, the wise but scary Chinese who guarantees to the Jean-Paul Belmondo character a certain death in Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine. His last movie was with Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale, where he played the role of Indian chief Spitting Bull in Les pétroleuses. He was a great friend of Charles Dullin and Louis Jouvet, and had a long career in French theater, appearing for instance in Marie Galante by Jacques Deval. He died at his home in Brunoy, Essonne, France, aged 78. Source: Article "Valéry Inkijinoff" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Legend of Frenchie King
Outlaw sisters in the old West inherit a ranch and try to settle down and develop relationships with neighboring family of lots of brothers.
Street Without Joy
Jeanne supports supports his family on his modest salary. Her boss is arrested for fraud. Jeanne is forced, out of poverty, in the street.
A Man's Neck
Willy Ferrière is a gambler living beyond his means, and his mistress is as greedy as he's dead broke. One day, he says out of loud in a a Montparnasse café that he would give 100,000 francs to get rid of his wealthy aunt so he could claim his inheritance. Someone secretly lets Willy know it's a deal. The old lady is murdered, and a low-life criminal is manipulated to be the perfect suspect. But Superintendant Maigret feels something is wrong.
The Triumph of Michael Strogoff
In this adaptation of the Jules Verne novel, the Czarina asks an intrepid colonel to protect her nephew as he fights an invasion in 19th century Russia.
Samson and the 7 Miracles of the World
Samson must rescue a beautiful Chinese princess from a marauding horde of warriors.
Amok
Dr. Holk leads an isolated and lonely existence in a small, Dutch colony in the tropics. Having fled from love and civilization, his only companions now are alcohol and his work, which takes him to villages ravaged by dirt, fever and a strange illness which turns innocent people into madmen: Amok. One day, he is called on by Helene Haviland, who asks him to abort her lover's child before her husband returns from abroad. Even though Holk is enchanted by her seductive beauty, he haughtily refuses her request. Rejected, the woman turns to a Chinese practitioner. When Holk tracks her down in a dirty dive, it's already too late for the two of them.
Typhoon
A Japanese doctor, on a secret mission to Paris for his country, becomes romantically involved with a cabaret singer at a Parisian nightclub. His entire mission is put at risk when he kills a rival for her love, a French journalist and blackmailer. (This film was later modified and released in 1934 as Police File 909. That new 76 minute version dramatically altered its plot from the original and the Japanese are now portrayed as unsympathetic villains. The new version was approved by German censors and released in 1934 although its critical reception was poor. It is possible that Wiene, who had left for Budapest in 1933 following the Nazi rise to power, did not personally work on the new version). From Wikipedia.
The Wife of General Ling
In this espionage drama, a Secret Service agent must discover who has been smuggling British arms into China. The prime suspect is a prosperous Chinese merchant-philanthropist and the agent thinks the merchant is working with the notorious Chinese guerilla warlord General Ling.
The Shanghai Drama
A Russian emigrant sings in a Shanghai nightclub under the assumed name of Kay Murphy. All she dreams of is a peaceful life with her daughter Vera. But this is only a pipe dream as she has been forced by her former lover Ivan to work for a secret criminal organization, "The Black Dragon". Vera, who studies in a Hong Kong boarding-school, knows nothing about her mother's past. When Ivan, who is also Vera's father, resurfaces and blackmails Kay, the young woman is determined to fight back...
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