Dossier des fiches du jury remplies par Raymond Queneau pour le Festival de Cannes de 1952 - et résultats autographes des scrutins

File of jury sheets completed by Raymond Queneau for the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, comprising 90 leaves almost all filled in by his hand. Only one film is unfortunately missing, Dans la tempête (Arashi no naka no hara) by Kiyoshi Saeki; otherwise the set is complete with reviews of all 35 feature films and 50 short films in the official competition that year. Included as well are 4 pages in pencil and one page in ink of autograph notes recording the results of every vote for all prizes awarded.
An entertaining collection of Raymond Queneau’s reviews, as a member of the Cannes jury. These sheets capture the writer’s sharp or enthusiastic impressions as he viewed the films.
The year 1952 marked the fifth edition of the young Cannes Film Festival, presided over by Maurice Genevoix. The Grand Prize was awarded to two films, Deux sous d'espoir (Due soldi di speranza) by Renato Castellani and Othello by Orson Welles. On the sheet for the latter, Queneau’s opinion is unequivocal: "Number one". As for Castellani’s film, the critic is ecstatic: "enfin ! du cinéma - intelligent, vivant, humain. Deux ou trois passages ont de la grandeur. Et ce n'est pas prétentieux." He judged its leading actress, Maria Fiore, "épatante". On the French side, Fanfan la Tulipe was in competition, and Queneau was harsh: "ça aurait pu être un film agréable, mais le dialogue gâche tout." Gina Lollobrigida was "quelconque" and Gérard Philippe "pas bon, cette fois-ci". The film nevertheless received the prize for Best Director. He found Marlon Brando, who would be awarded Best Actor, "T.B." in Viva Zapata by Elia Kazan. One of his undisputed favorites was Le Medium by Gian-Carlo Menotti, which he described as "EPATANT/ un film ! un opéra ! saisissant ! poignant !" and which won the Prize for Best Lyric Film.

Queneau also noted, over four pages, the voting results of the jury in each category.
They reveal that the two winning films, Deux sous d'espoir (Due soldi di speranza) by Renato Castellani and Othello by Orson Welles, each received 18 votes after no fewer than six ballots. André Cayatte was awarded a special prize for Nous sommes tous des assassins in the out-of-competition category, by a margin of just one vote. Queneau’s tallies also show the overwhelming support of the jury for Hollywood stars Lee Grant and Marlon Brando, who respectively won the acting awards for Detective Story and Viva Zapata!

A valuable record of the behind-the-scenes workings of one of the very first Cannes Film Festivals, in the hand of one of the greatest French writers of the twentieth century.