Le Million

“The plot of ‘Le million’ comes straight out of the great tradition of silent film comedy: a winning lottery ticket left in a tattered coat gives rise to a series of cinematic chases and comic misunderstandings. The story, adapted from a stage farce, is told in operetta form, but with a very modern Brechtian twist. This apect of the film probably grew out of the director’s German contacts. (…) In ‘Le million’, a clearly Brechtian master criminal named Pere La Tulipe has a band of henchmen who sing about the joys of living outside the law. A basic promise of the plot, that a good friend will sell out his comrade for enough money, also has Brechtian resonances. The film’s detached, boisterously satiric tone, much of which shows a decidely leftist bent in its use of class stereotypes, is quite unlike the straighforward populist sentimentality of ‘Sous les toits de Paris’”. Reference: Alan Williams. ‘Republic of images: a history of French filmmaking’. Harvard University Press, 1992. See also: ‘100% parlant et chantant 1930-1933’ [X000650] for an overview of Rene Clair’s work in the 1930s.

Credits: Producer, Frank Clifford ; director, Rene Clair ; writer, Rene Clair ; photography, Georges Perinal ; music, Armand Bernard, Philippe Pars, Georges van Parys ; assistant director, Georges Lacombe ; art direction, Lazare Meerson.
Cast: Annabella, Rene Lefevre, Paul Ollivier, Vanda Greville, Odette Talazac, Raymond Cordy.