Le Million (1931)

An impoverished painter and his rival engage in a race across Paris to recover a jacket concealing a winning lottery ticket.

Director:

René Clair

Writers:

Georges Berr (play) (as G. Berr), Marcel Guillemaud (play) (as M. Guillemaud)

Stars:

Annabella, René Lefèvre, Jean-Louis Allibert

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Annabella	...	Béatrice
René Lefèvre	...	Michel Bouflette
Jean-Louis Allibert	...	Prosper (as Louis Allibert)
Paul Ollivier	...	Granpère Tulipe
Constantin Siroesco	...	Ambrosio Sopranelli
Raymond Cordy	...	Le chauffeur de taxi
Vanda Gréville	...	Vanda
Odette Talazac	...	La cantatrice
Pedro Elviro	...	Le régisseur (as Pitouto)
Jane Pierson	...	L'épicière
André Michaud	...	Le boucher
Eugène Stuber	...	Le policier
Pierre Alcover	...	Le policier
Armand Bernard	...	Le chef d'orchestre
Gabrielle Rosny

Storyline

Michel, a Parisian artist, is being hounded by numerous impatient creditors. To make things worse, when he is embracing the woman whose portrait he is painting, he is surprised by his indignant fiancée Béatrice. Suddenly, Michel learns that he holds the winning ticket in the Dutch Lottery. But when he goes to retrieve the ticket from the pocket of his jacket, he finds that Béatrice has given the jacket to a stranger who was in need. Now everyone has a keen interest in finding that jacket.

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Plot Keywords:

betrayal by a friend | jacket | painter | stage act | stage performance | 

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Taglines:

You MUST see it to know how indescribably clever and enormously "smart" a movie CAN be!

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Genres:

Musical | Comedy

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #72.

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Connections

Referenced in Timecode (2000)

User Reviews

Light fluffy movie musical that will make you smile even if you don't care about how technically ground breaking it is

Rene Clair's groundbreaking musical. If you want to see where songs first drove a story this is the place. This is the story of a starving young artist who finds he's won the lottery just as his creditors come calling. Unfortunately his ticket is in his coat, which is in his girlfriends apartment and has been given to an on the run convict who then... oh but that would be telling.

This is a light and frothy story where much of the dialog is sung (most people think this didn't happen until Oklahoma or Andrew Lloyd Webber). Its the sort of movie that they don't make any more, and rarely did when they did. Its sound a film from the early days that plays like a movie from five or six years later. Clair moves his camera around in ways that not even Busby Berkeley was doing (though to be honest comparing the two film makers is unfair since Berkeley was doing essentially stage bound dance numbers and Clair was moving the camera through "the real world"). Its an amazing little movie. and its a charming movie that will just make you smile. Its just a fluffy piece of enjoyment.

I'm sorry I can't say more. Its just a nice little movie and thats really all you need to know.

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

4 February 1931 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Le Million

Company Credits

Production Co:

Films Sonores Tobis

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min 88 min (Sweden) (1931) 81 min (Sweden) (1960)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.19 : 1