Le Million
| Le Million | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | René Clair |
| Screenplay by | René Clair |
| Based on | The play by Georges Berr and Marcel Guillemaud |
| Starring |
Annabella René Lefèvre Jean-Louis Allibert Paul Ollivier |
| Music by |
Armand Bernard Philippe Parès Georges Van Parys |
| Cinematography |
Georges Périnal Georges Raulet |
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Production
company |
Tobis Sound Company
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Release date
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| Country | France |
| Language | French |
Le Million is a 1931 French musical comedy film directed by René Clair.The story was adapted by Clair from a play by Georges Berr and Marcel Guillemand.
While being hounded by creditors, a debt-ridden artist discovers he has just won a lottery worth a million Dutch florins. Realizing that he has left the ticket in the pocket of his jacket, he attempts to retrieve it but discovers that his fiancée Beatrice has given away the jacket to a criminal in order to elude the police. He and his rival race to retrace the jacket which has passed to a brigand nicknamed "Grandpa Tulip" and then to a tenor singing "Les Bohémiens" at the opera theater that night.
Michel, arriving at the theater following a stint at the local jail, and Beatrice engage in a madcap chase through the theater as they endeavor to regain the ticket; during the chase the jacket flies out the window onto the top of a car. Fearing he has lost the ticket for good, Michel gets into the taxi of one of his creditors, only to find the sleeve of the jacket hanging in front of the window. After stopping the cab to remove the jacket from the top of the car, his attempt to search for the ticket in the pocket is thwarted by associates of Grandpa Tulip, who force him to hand over the jacket. Leaving dejected, he returns to his apartment to find his creditors in good spirits, as they think that they will be repaid. Before he gives them the bad news, Tulip enters the apartment with a jacket. Thinking that this is his original jacket, Michel searches the pockets. Finding them empty, he tells Tulip that he actually wanted a ticket in the pocket, which Tulip subsequently produces, having taken it out of the jacket before giving it away.
Le Million was director René Clair's second sound film. Initially, he had been skeptical of the value that sound would bring, saying that it was "an unnatural creation, just useful for canned theater." He detested the other sound films of the day and their dedication to the slavish dialogue. He would change his feelings when he realised that he could also apply a soundtrack to a film, a strategy he used in Le Million, three years after the first sound film was released.
Le Million was released in France on 15 April 1931.
Paul Sherman of the Boston Herald described the film as "lively and down-to-earth". Jeremy Heilman of Movie Martyr says that the "sophisticated use of the fledgling (sound) technology led to universal acclaim for the director, who became regarded as the first true master of the sound film." Elliot Stein of Criterion call the film "a synthesis, a perfect fusion of sound, dialogue, camera placement and editing. The mood may be ironic, sad or happy, but music and song are never far away."
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