Jack Pinoteau — Director | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Jack Albert Louis Charles Pinoteau, known as Jack Pinoteau, is a French director and screenwriter, born on September 20, 1923 in Clairefontaine and died on April 6, 2017 in Chesnay.

Jack Pinoteau, born in 1923 near Paris in a family of acrobats. His father Lucien was a stage manager. His sister, the eldest of the siblings, Jacqueline Pinoteau will become a recognized actress under her stage name Arlette Merry. His younger brother Claude Pinoteau before directing La Boum and La Boum 2, one of the greatest popular successes of the early 80s, was an assistant director sought after by a host of leading directors. The list is impressive: Jean Cocteau, Gilles Grangier, Henri Verneuil, Max Ophüls, René Clair, René Clément, Claude Lelouch, Philippe de Broca...

Before making his most famous film with Darry Cowl, Jack Pinoteau also worked as an assistant director. With his brother, they participated in Jean Cocteau's most personal film, Le Testament d'Orphée in 1960.

But it is obviously Le Triporteur made in 1957, which will go down in history. A film made to measure for the comic talent of the "scoundrel" Darry Cowl. An immediate popular success. Lisping wonderfully, the actor invents, alongside the sparkling Béatrice Altariba in the role of Popeline, a cult character, who knows how to solve all the little worries of everyday life with a contagious good humor and carefree attitude.

After his little masterpiece, Jacques Pinoteau became a specialist in funny films with a script as light as a Darry Cowl joke. Fans of B movies will never forget Honey, Scare Me (1958), The Lucky Guys (1963) or Me and the Forty-Year-Old Men (1965). Jacques Pinoteau had also been co-writer on his brother Claude's film, "Snow and Fire" (1991).