The Black Diamond
About The Black Diamond
Luc Ogier, secretary to Baron Van der Malen and engaged to Linke, is accused when a black diamond disappears from the house. Rejected, he answers an Antwerp poster and joins the explorer Santher on a trip to the Congo. While he is gone, the household finds that a magpie Luc had befriended took the jewel. In the expedition country, a leopard attacks Santher and Luc saves him.
Cast & crew
More about The Black Diamond
Alfred Machin wrote and directed for Belge-Cinéma-Film, Pathé's Belgian subsidiary, with André Jacquemin as production director. Jacques Bizeul was the cinematographer and Raoul Morand the set designer. Congo scenes were shot near the Rouge-Cloître, at the edge of the Sonian Forest. Pathé distributed it in France.
Background
Machin was building Pathé's Belgian production from 1912 until the First World War. This three-part drama is one of those films.
Making
Machin used his own leopard, Mimir, and staged the African jungle near Brussels rather than in the Congo.
Look
Jacques Bizeul photographed the Antwerp streets and the forest stand-in for the Congo.
Preservation
The Royal Belgian Film Archive restored it in 1995. The restored copy runs 50 minutes and 13 seconds.
Notes
- Albert Dieudonné, later Napoleon in Abel Gance's Napoléon (1927), plays Luc Ogier.
- Fernand Crommelynck plays Santher and Blanche Derval plays Linke.
- Machin's leopard Mimir plays the animal that attacks Santher.
- An alternate title is La Pie noire. The Dutch title is De zwarte diamant.
- It opened at the Pathé cinema in Hamburg on September 27, 1913, in Paris and Liège on December 5, and at the Alhambra in Antwerp on December 27 under the Flemish title De ekster-dief, in a colored version.
- The listed footage is 915 meters, of which 840 meters are in color.
Scenes
- The black diamond is blamed on Luc.
- Mimir the leopard attacks Santher, and Luc pulls him clear.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Le diamant noir (1913).webm)
