The Yellow Cruise

Director: Léon Poirier

The Yellow Cruise is a French documentary film initially directed by André Sauvage and taken over by Léon Poirier following the intervention of André Citroën. The film was presented in Paris in 1934. André Sauvage was hired by the Pathé-Natan company to follow the yellow cruise through Asia. In 1931 and 1932, forty-two men, including Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, scholars and doctors traveled thirty thousand kilometers on the Silk Road through the Middle and Far East, in caterpillar propellants. Together, despite the bad weather, the difficulties of the terrain, the mechanical failures and the political conflicts, they reached Beijing on February 12, 1932. André Citroën who asked to see the film, dissatisfied with the result, bought it from Bernard Natan and entrusted the editing by Léon Poirier, who had filmed La Croisière Noire in Africa in 1926. This film will mark the break in the film career of André Sauvage.