I knew that the interminable, high-concept board game Risk was originally devised by a Frenchman, but I didn’t realize he was already famous for something else entirely:
Created by Albert Lamorisse on a family vacation to Holland, La Conquête du Monde (The Conquest of the World) was released by the French game company Miro in 1957.
The name given by Lamorisse is eerily descriptive and more apt than the one christened by Parker Brothers in 1959, Risk.
Albert Lamorisse in known for more than this contribution to the world of gaming, as the Frenchman won the 1956 Academy Award for best screenplay for The Red Balloon, a thirty-four minute film directed by Lamorisse capturing the movement of a sentient balloon as it follows Lamorisse’s son and several other children.