In 1939 the French Minister for the Arts, Jean Zay, proposed to start an international film event at Cannes. The war intervened however and that September, when Zay should have been in Cannes opening the festival, he was instead on his way to the front. He was among the first to volunteer and when France collapsed, among the first to join the Resistance, arrested as early as August 1940. In June 1944 Zay was murdered by an anti-Jewish faction in the Resistance and his body thrown down a well. It was a sad ending for the man whose foresight would lead to the most successful of all international film occasions.
The festival finally got under way on 20 September 1946. In its early years it struggled to make ends meet and was cancelled in 1948 and 1950 for lack of support. The date was changed to May from 1951 to give it more influence over the Oscars and in 1952 Cannes finally seemed about to get on the movie map when Errol Flynn decided to attend. With his splendid yacht anchored off Cannes, Flynn was rowed ashore by members of his Jamaican crew in jet-black uniforms, his arrival serenaded by a calypso band. Unfortunately, no sooner had Flynn stepped on to French soil than he was served a writ in connection with a European film he had backed, which had collapsed owing a lot of money. Flynn looked at the writ sadly, got back into his tender, and soon he and his yacht were a mere speck on the horizon.
Jean Zay
Over the years huge sums have been spent to promote films released at the festival. An American production company hired an entire circus to promote Around the World in 80 Days and the party given for one thousand guests by the Greeks to advertise Never on Sunday honoured an old Greek tradition of smashing the champagne glasses: all 5,000 of them.
More than 4,000 journalists attend this annual event but very few Hollywood stars. Even those that do come tend to stay for as short a time as possible: the record, two hours from start to finish, is unkindly said to be held by Robert Redford. The late Dirk Bogarde, who lived not far away, near Grasse, once observed that he never went to Cannes during the festival because the town always turned out to be full of people whom he hoped were already dead.
The 2007 Cannes Film Festival takes place from 16 to 27 May.
www.festival-cannes.fr
