ABSTRACT New discoveries in the Pathé archives, in the company accounts (Pathé Accounting Journals “Journaux comptables Pathé”), cast a fresh light on the history of Pathé Frères and their surprising expansion in South-East Asia. It was an adventure only made possible by the travelling cameramen, mostly forgotten, who provided stills from outdoor scenes filmed abroad (vues de plein air) which figured in the firm’s catalogue and which helped to sell the company products. The career of one of these in particular, Camille Legrand (1872-1940), is unique in its duration and for the professional nature of his travels in India. Reaching beyond the French colonial empire which one would expect to have been his primary hunting ground, he spent much of his career preoccupied by territories of the British Empire. A friend of Charles Pathé, he helped consolidate Pathé’s cinema empire throughout South-East Asia, by building professional relationships, both business and artistic, with key players in these territories. Legrand’s last stay in the east coincided with the release of Béhula (in 1921) directed by himself for Madan Theatres Ltd. While the main aim of this article is to broaden appreciation of the extent of Camille Legrand's career, his travels and particularly his visits to Calcutta (now Kolkata), it also includes an analysis of his Bengali film Béhula, with specific reference to the nature of the mise en scène practiced at Pathé in the first two decades of the twentieth century, a characteristic with which that film is imbued.
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