Paul S. Nouvel Danger permanent
(based on a scenario of Henri Tremesaigues)
Paul S. Nouvel was one of the many pseudonyms of Jean-Michel Sorel. Sorel was a short-film director, a journalist, songwriter, sometimes poet, a translator (or supposed translator). He started at Dermée’s editions, but as the latter paid him with cherry tails, he went to produce elsewhere. At Ferenczi, for example. But it was at Editions de L'Arabesque that he gave the bulk of his work. According to him, the future as a popular writer was teamwork, two or three: one for the script, one for the plan, one for writing.
So Henri Tremesaigues has provided him with a lot of scenarios. This teamwork that Sorel advocated is not always obvious, as the words of Roger Maury (who signed Jacky Fray at L'Arabesque), another novelist involved in the several hands’writing and occasional collaborator of Tremesaigues and Sorel: "It is true that Tremesaigues has some difficulties in writing. He submits synopses to his friends and drives them. With me, it worked a lot, but it did not bring me anything because I can do my scenarios myself. In short, I was working for him. I told him so and we stopped working together, but we stayed good friends because he was a very nice fellow. Of course, Tremesaigues provided scenarios to Sorel and Vlatimo. Sorel was out of inspiration, although writing very well (I myself did four scenarios to help him when he was on a slippery slope). Vlatimo, on the other hand, is very good. But he has a pig character that prevents him from finding publishers. "
Two Sorel novels, at least, have been adapted to the screen: “Y'en marre!” (Yvon Govar, 1958) and “Me faire ça à moi”! (Pierre Grimblat, 1959).
It is difficult to authenticate some of Sorel’s many pen-names and to certify that they belonged only to him. Let us quote, in alphabetical order: Yvon Brozonech, Gil Darcy (collective), Laura Désir (collective), Ex-Agent SR 23, Jean-Michel, Pépé Larista (collective), Larry Layne, Mario Mambo, Tugdual Marech, , Michel Rosel, Mike Saig (with Tremesaigues), Minh S. Selvom, Sylvio Sereno, Eric Solder, Michel Soler, Y.-M. Soler and Simon Tang. He was also at the publisher M. Grillet, in genre Erotism: Sevani Abdul Hamid, Marc Lancien and Cyprius de Pharos.
Danger permanent (Espionnage #377, 1965) is an exemple of team writing by Sorel & Tremesaigues.
cover art: Jef de Wulf
publisher: Editions de L’Arabesque
collection director: Eric Dornes
source:amsaklapper’s collection. [quote first published in “Le Rocambole” #51]