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Napoleon, the classic 1927 (released in the U.S. in 1929) Abel Gance French Napoleonic War silent biographical historical military melodrama (about the life of Napoleon, starting from when he was a young boy, and carrying through to when he became Emperor) starring Albert Dieudonne (in the title role as the famous French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte), Paul Amiot, Annabella (in her first film), Antonin Artaud, Edmond Van Daele, and Abel Gance (as Louis Saint-Just). Note that this movie was the masterpiece of director Abel Gance. It included "triptych" (triple screen) images that predated Cinerama by 30 years, and it is really a remarkable movie on every level. But sadly, it was a silent movie, and sound had just begun, and the movie was not successful, and Gance removed it from circulation and was thought to have destroyed the original movie. In 1981, Francis Ford Coppola financed a restoration by Kevin Brownlow, a silent-film historian and filmmaker. It was presented in Great Britain with a new musical score by Carl Davis. Coppola's father, Carmine, composed (and adapted other period classical pieces) the score that was used for the U.S. and worldwide (except Great Britain) exhibitions.
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

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Important Added Info: Note that the very first release of this movie in France occurred at the Theatre National de L'Opera in Paris in April 1927, and there are programs existing from that release. There is another program that is very similar to the Theatre National de L'Opera program, but it is from when the film was shown in Paris later that year, and that version has "Gaumont-Metro-Goldwyn" on the top of the cover. There are two other important differences. The first program has a credit on the title page that reads "Musique et Adaptation D'Arthur Honegger", which is not present in the MGM program (because that music was only at the premiere), and the MGM program has a page of press release comments (those comments were added from people who saw the original premiere several months before). Also, some of the pictures have a slightly different layout in the two different programs. We have previously auctioned a few examples of each kind of program in our 31 years of auctioning. We are currently auctioning one of each kind of program (in two separate auctions), and this auction is for the Theatre National de L'Opera version. Also note that we have pictured the front cover, the title page, and a few interior 2-page spreads from this program. You can use these images to determine the exact condition of it from our super-sized image, but realize that there are some other pages you are not seeing.

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