FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

lasttimeisaw French taste-maker René Clair's early talkie, LE MILLION sees him tackle with an archetypal musical experiment, intelligently weaves diegetic aural accompaniment (three composers are involved) into its caper plot, a tuneful piano piece here, a melodious chorus emerging inside a character's head there, and a large chunk of the farce is circumscribed inside a theater where LES BOHÉMINES is on to boot. The plot is a no-brainer, Michel Bouflette (Lefèvre), a down-and-out artist, albeit of being assailed by debtors (butcher, grocer etc.), he is still inclined to cop a feel with a hussy Vanda (Gréville), which ruffles the feathers of his fiancée Béatrice (Annabella). When his friend Prosper (Allibert, devilish handsome) delivers him the thrilling news that they have won the lottery for one million Dutch florins, only to their dismay, the lottery ticket is inside Michel's jacket which has been given away to a criminal mastermind Grandpa Tulip (Ollivier) by Béatrice. So the rest of the story is a race to trace the where-about of the jacket and try to reclaim the ticket, from Grand Tulip's shop, a camouflage for his unlawful business, to a stint in the police office (where Prosper turns Janus-faced), then the opera theater where a tenor Ambrosio Sporanelli (Siroesco) decides to wear the said jacket to perform in public. It is a cat-and-mouse knockabout between team Michael and team Prosper, both are aided by a female sidekick (Béatrice and Vanda respectively), which is a common trope being played again and again ad nauseam, even. While a third party, namely Grandpa Tulip's men, also lay their hands on the jacket, not for the lottery, surprisingly, but to reciprocate the kindness to whom Grandpa Tulip is beholden, which means a celebratory ending! Clair has a distinguished flair in sublimating Parisian cityscape for audience's admiration and a dab-hand who can infuse alluring sophistication into the film's chipper comedic agility and timing, the cast is animated and gung-ho, to a point of betraying an impression of self-awareness, as if to reaffirm their rapt viewers that it is a show for laughter, all in all, a brilliantly maneuvered divertissement throbbing with elation and kinetics.

JLRMovieReviews Made in 1931, this foreign film should be seen and enjoyed more often.We open on a quiet little French village, scanning the roofs of the sleeping citizens. Then we hear something that sounds like a party. Upon investigating the uproar, two neighboring men are told the story of two men, supposedly friends, who picked two numbers for the lottery.Our star of the picture has his number and his friend his. When he asks his friend, would he share half of the dough, should his ticket be the winning number, his friend promptly says no. In fact, H.E. double hockey sticks no! is the way he acts about it.So when our man discovers he has the winning ticket and that it has been lost, through no fault of his own, he is frantic. Everyone is out for themselves, looking for this ticket, in something like a precursor to "The Great Race." Even though this is all a flashback, I was in knots the whole time and got so upset over every little thing in this all-for-me show-me-the-money cash-in-the-bank film. Watch Le Million today!

ilprofessore-1 The French director Rene Clair, who is often forgotten when the great pioneers of film technique are mentioned, made this innovative film in 1931 in the very early days of sound films. The delightful mix of silent-movie style slapstick, spoken and sung dialogue, opera parody and song, moving camera and inter-cutting obviously influenced Rodgers and Hart and Rouben Mamoulian who a year later attempted the same sort of musical, "Love Me Tonight," with Chevalier at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood. Clair's unique genius is in his ability to twist reality and create a fairy-tale world. In this film he sustains his particular brand of magic from the first model shots of the roofs of Paris to last scenes backstage at the opera. Yes, the story is very silly and highly improbable, but the charm of it, the Parisian charm, is undeniable. Much credit must be given to the cinematographer, the great Georges Périnal who later worked in England and photographed many of the great Alexander Korda films.

ndean A wonderful early musical film from Rene Clair, as fun and witty as his silent "The Italian Straw Hat". Using sound in a expressive way and not just for dialogue and effects, Clair influenced early musicals in America (the opera scene from A Night at the Opera is strongly influenced by Le Million, for example). Should (but won't) be seen by all cinephiles, and the DVD from Criterion is exactly as good as you'd expect. There's not a ton of extras, but most DVD extras I've seen are useless fluff, and the Clair interview on disc is one I hadn't ever seen. Get it while it's still around.