Jacques R. Villa(1927-2002)
- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jacques R. Villa's first film
Les petits chats (1960), a dark
tale involving four little girls, may have been ahead of its time.
Whatever the case my be, the censors disliked the idea of three
"innocent" lasses trying to drown a fourth one. As a result, the movie
was purely and simply banned just after being released in 1959. When it
was finally authorized five years after it was too late, it flopped at
the box office. Nowadays it remains largely unseen and unjustly
forgotten, despite featuring Catherine Deneuve in her first major role
at age 16. Villa was born in 1927 in Soulac-sur-Mer to an army officer
father. The place where he studied was a Jesuit college, reputed the
severest in France. At 15, not putting up with the strict discipline of
the place, he ran away to Paris, where he was hired as a jazz musician.
But this was only an enchanted interlude as, after a time, he was
brought back home by his family. At last an adult, he could finally
fend for himself and started working for French television, first in
Morocco, then in Paris where he became the assistant of
François Chalais, whose programs about
cinema were very popular. It is during this period that Jacques Villa
wrote a Christmas tale that would later be the basis of
Les petits chats (1960).