Former film critic (for CINEGRAF magazine), poster artist and art director turned successful director. His feature output, beginning in 1931 with the medium-length feature, "Bidon d'or", has been generally light and much of it fairly routine, but Christian-Jaque was a skilled and supple craftsman with a piquant visual eye who at his best could tell a story with an adult grace and considerable panache. Among Christian-Jaque's most notable films are "Les Pirates du rail" (1937), an exciting railroad melodrama which compares well with Hollywood action standards; the offbeat and poetic "Les
