Guitry Film Revival Would Surprise Him : Movies: The Monica 4-Plex will show four works by the Frenchman who wrote, directed and starred in about 30 films from 1935 to 1957.

A Sacha Guitry revival is going on, a situation that would surprise no one more than the man himself.

Not that the French filmmaker, who wrote, directed and starred in about 30 films between 1935 and 1957, shied away from attention. Far from it. A supreme egotist whose films were finally all about himself and whose acting was once described as “an animated photograph of M. Guitry speaking French,” would be shocked that something as pedestrian as a revival would be needed for his work.

And, in fact, viewer reaction to the Guitry revival, which includes a series of weekend screenings starting Saturday at Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex in Santa Monica, has shared that surprise. Whether it’s been the retrospectives at both the Locarno and New York film festivals or the Guitry films that highlighted the recent traveling tribute to Gaumont studios, everyone seems to be chagrined that the man has fallen into neglect.

Certainly during Guitry’s lifetime that was not a danger. A Parisian theatrical phenomenon who wrote between 120 and 150 plays, sometimes with as many as three running simultaneously, Guitry was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor at the young age of 28.

His success was so total that, in Graham Greene’s much quoted phrase, he became “the image of that superb Gallic complacency that drove Henry James from France,” perfectly serious when he said about England, “They have a nasty habit here: They use a language I don’t know.”

Guitry’s films are impossible to mistake for anyone else’s. Magnificent trifles, characterized by torrents of dizzying, witty language, they define the boulevardier’s knowing romantic cynicism that was once considered quintessentially French.

Who but Guitry would say, “Are there couples who have loved each other to the end? Yes, those who died at 20.” And Francois Truffaut was apparently fond of quoting another Guitryism: “A comedy that ends with marriage is the beginning of a tragedy.”

Guitry came by this attitude honestly. Born Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry in St. Petersburg in 1885, his less formal name apparently suggested by a Russian nursemaid, he became the subject of a fierce custody battle between his touring father, Lucien Guitry, considered the finest French actor of his generation, and his actress mother.

Guitry made his stage debut at age 5, acting out a pantomime before the czar in the Imperial Palace. His father was his great model in life, and he went so far as taking up with one of the man’s mistresses and making her the first of his four actress wives, all of whom were featured prominently in his films.

Those films, although quite popular, were invariably based on Guitry’s plays and thus open to criticism as canned theater and worse. French film historian Georges Sadoul, for instance, witheringly described Guitry’s interest in cinema as “much less a means of artistic expression than a mirror in which to contemplate himself, an echo through which he could savor his own jokes.”

When the German occupation of France ended, Guitry endured harsher accusations, those of collaborating with the Nazis. He was interned for two months, and, with opinions differing as to whether he had been anything more than naive, was finally not charged. When he died in 1957, 12,000 people attended his funeral.

Critically, Guitry’s reputation was revived by the writers and filmmakers of the New Wave. Truffaut collected and edited his writings on film, Alain Resnais considered Guitry a major influence and said Godard felt the same way. Even the French government responded, honoring the filmmaker with a postage stamp.

The Monica 4-Plex will show four of Guitry’s films: “Story of a Cheat,” “Pearls of the Crown,” “Remontons les Champs-Elysees” and “Royal Affairs of Versailles.” The screenings will take place the first three weekends of this month, with one film in each theater Saturday and Sunday. All showings begin at 11 a.m.

“Story of a Cheat” is universally considered to be Guitry’s masterpiece and, absent from theatrical venues for 30 years due to a rights dispute, should not be missed. Stylish and clever, it boasts innovations both large and small. Guitry’s use of opening credits, for instance, is unique: He uses voice-over and visuals to grandly introduce us to not only the actors hanging around the sets, but also to the various technicians from the cinematographer to the sound recordist, all shown hard at work.

This 1936 film is not only the story of a cheat, it is narrated by the cheat (played by who else but Guitry) who talks in a dazzling, almost nonstop monologue as the actors, who rarely speak, act out the situations he is describing, a scenario that Truffaut felt in some ways prefigured “Citizen Kane.”

Starting with an experience as a young boy, when a meal he is denied as a punishment for thievery turns fatal for the 11 other members of his family, the cheat feels fate has destined him for dishonesty and proceeds through life with a cheeky amorality that is consistently amusing.

Also notable, but not in the same league, is 1937’s “Pearls of the Crown,” the first of Guitry’s several excursions into history that were heavy on wigs and costumes and not especially concerned with facts.

Following the peregrinations of seven pearls, four of which theoretically ended up on the English Crown, Guitry created a film with so many characters that most of his cast played several roles, and he himself got to be everyone from Francois I to Napoleon III.