Le million

France

1931

81 Min

1.33:1

French

Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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CAST Annabella, René Lefèvre, Louis Allibert, Raymond Cordy, Paul Ollivier, Vanda Gréville, Odette Talazac, Constantin Stroesco

MUSIC Armand Bernard, Philippe Parès, Georges van Parys

Melbourne

Synopsis

An impoverished artist discovers he has purchased a winning lottery ticket at the very moment his creditors come to collect. The only problem is, the ticket is in the pocket of his coat. . . which he left at his girlfriend’s apartment. . . who gave the coat to a man hiding from the police. . . who sells the coat to an opera singer who uses it during a performance. By turns charming and inventive, René Clair’s lyrical masterpiece had a profound impact on not only the Marx Brothers and Charlie Chaplin, but on the American musical as a whole. —The Criterion Collection

Director

René Clair

Born under the name of René Chomette in 1898, René Clair René Clair started life as a journalist and then turned to the cinema in 1920. At first an actor and assistant director, he started making films with Paris qui dort and Entr’acte (1924), a pearl of the surrealist cinema.

Commercial success and critical acclaim came with the brilliant farce comedy, An Italian Straw Hat (1927) followed by his famous early musical talkies, Le Million (1931) and A nous la liberté (1932). He continued his career in Hollywood during the war and came back to France to make the films of his mature years, Le Silence est d’or (1947) et Les Grandes manœuvres (1955). René Clair was elected to the Académie Française in 1960 and died in 1981. —Octuor de France

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Aguaespejo

24Jan13

Quirky and fun but rather overrated and boring and populated by marionettes not people esp. considering the amazing stuff that was being done in movies like Love Me Tonight, and by Lubitsch (eg. Monte Carlo etc.)...

Trolley Freak

20Aug12

His reputation may have faded over the years but there's no doubt that René Clair was one of the most innovative director's in the early days of talking pictures. This charming film is a case in point. Released the same year as another of his great films, À Nous La Liberté, the story is of a struggling artist being hounded by his many creditors. He wins the lottery but where's that pesky winning ticket?! Marvellous..

Jon

15Apr12

Amazing, innovative, musical, magical, refreshing. The sequence where Michel and Béatrice sit on stage, hidden behind the decor as the opera singers both narrate and inform their interactions, is a mini-movie masterpiece in itself.

Mysterious F. and Eduardo like this