User reviews

This is one irresistible great cheerful- and technically greatly made movie!

The movie features some of the greatest looking sets you'll ever see in a '30's movie, even though it's all too obvious that they are sets, rather than real place locations. Often if a character would fall or shake a doorpost too aggressive, the entire set would obviously move.

The best moments of the movie were the silent, more old fashioned, slapstick kind of moments. It shows that René Clair's true heart was at silent movie-making. The overall humor is really great in this movie. Also of course the musical moments were more than great. This is a really enjoyable light and simple pleasant early French musical. Though the best moments are the silent moments, that does not mean that the movie is not filled with some great humorous dialog, that gets very well delivered by the main actors, who all seemed like stage actors to me, which in this case worked extremely well for the movie its overall style and pleasant no-worries atmosphere. No wonder this worked out so well, since this movie is actually based on stage play by Georges Berr.

It's a technical really great movie, with also some great innovation camera-work in it and some really great editing, that create some fast going and pleasant to watch enjoyable sequences. There is never a dull moment in this movie!

René Clair was such a clever director, who knew how to build up and plan comical moments within in movies. It's a very creative made movie, that despite its simplicity still at all times feel as a totally original and cleverly constructed movie, that never seizes to entertain.

The last half hour is especially unforgettably fun, without spoiling too much, and is really among the greatest, as well as most creative moments in early comedy film-making.

The movie is filled with some really enjoyable characters, who are of course all very stereotypical and silly and were obviously cast because of their looks. It all adds to the pleasant light comical atmosphere and cuteness of the movie.

One of the most pleasant movies you'll ever see!

8/10

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"Le Million" is a 1931 musical directed by Rene Clair. It's wonderful that it's available on DVD for audiences to see and enjoy it. The story concerns a starving Parisian artist Michele (Rene Lefevre) who is having a bad day. He is being hounded by every creditor in town, and as his fiancé Beatrice (Annabella) walks into his apartment, he is embracing his model. Then he realizes that he has won the Dutch lottery with his friend Prosper (Jean-Louis Allibert), but the ticket is in his coat pocket, and the coat is gone. The city-wide hunt then begins for the coat, which was taken by Beatrice and given to a needy person, who sold it to the opera singer Sopranelli. There is a hilarious scene in Sopranelli's dressing room as various people try to get the ticket out of the coat pocket. Beatrice and Michele wind up behind some scenery on the opera stage and relate to the duet that's being sung.

This film and Clair obviously influenced such talents as the Marx Brothers, Ernst Lubitsch, and Rouben Mamoulian. All the performances are good, with the beautiful Annabella, a brunette here, a standout as the ballerina Beatrice. Annabella was signed by 20th Century Fox and brought over to America around 1938, made Suez with Tyrone Power, and the two fell in love and decided to get married. In order to dissuade her and his biggest star from marrying, Zanuck offered her several films in Europe, but she refused to leave her fiancée. Zanuck made sure she didn't work much after that, effectively blacklisting her. She had a big Broadway success, worked on behalf of the troops during World War II, and returned to France after her divorce from Power. She retired in 1954. Her radio work with Power, and this film, show what a wonderful actress she was.

Very good film - highly recommended.

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.

I have lately got into the habit of purchasing any interesting DVD that the Criterion company releases. I figure that even if I dislike the movie, Criterion usually supplies enough extra material to compensate for any shortcomings in the actual film. I read up on them, and I buy the ones which are the most interesting to me.

Le Million is my latest purchase, and I must say that I was not disappointed in the film. It is cheery, funny, and romantic. Everything about it is quite excellent. The songs are wonderful. If I understood French, I would probably hum them and sing them all day long. The acting is very good for this kind of movie. American musicals of the classic Hollywood era relied more on song and dance than the actual characters and story, but in Le Million, the characters are rather well developed and the story, while not being anything extremely impressive, is not at all lacking. I loved the developments of the relationships, especially the relationship between the once best friends Michel and Prosper. The romantic moments are also very well developed. The direction is nearly perfect, with several very memorable moments. Probably the single most perfect scene of the film occurs right after the lead couple has an argument. They hide on the stage of an opera performance, and the opera singers sing lines which the couple, Michel and Beatrice, interpret to their own situation. This is definitely one of the high points in cinema history. The scene managed to make me laugh, to win me over with a very sweet romance, and make me smirk at just how clever the director was. I give this film a 9/10.

P.S. - Some information for anyone who has the same faith in Criterion that I do and is planning to buy it. Amongst the Criterion discs I now own, Le Million contains the fewest features. All it has is a photo gallery (not all that useful; one might flip through it once) and a rare television interview with Rene Clair, the director. This piece is of some interest. He was one of the many directors who had started out in silent film, and when talkies were first appearing, he said that they represented the death of film. I think most film-savvy people understand what these directors meant when they said that, but it is interesting to hear him explain it. Also, if you have read the description of this movie on Amazon.com, please note that they were wrong in one important respect: not every line in the film is sung. In fact, it contains no more songs than a regular musical. It is actually a lot more like a Chaplin or Buster Keaton or Marx Brothers film. My criticisms of the disc are not that important. Heck, Criterion has the right to smack me around for making those complaints. The fact is, their people probably spent hundreds of hours fixing up a film which only 20 (now 21!) people have voted for on imdb, and only about a hundred people, if that, will ever see the film. Heck, if you look at the Criterion web site, Le Million is nowhere to be found. I have no clue why not. It's something they should really be proud of (of course, their web site is surprisingly horrible). They did a fine job on this film. Bravo! They deserve all the money I can stand to give them!

When two starving artists learn their lottery ticket has won, the race is on, but — where's the ticket? Although as of today, this film is 82 years old, it is still one of the most watchable and enjoyable films I've seen. It has a bit of everything, humor, pathos, screwball comedy, drama...you name it. In this madcap race to find a winning lottery ticket, you may be reminded of some of the scavenger hunt films or other films such as Million Dollar Mystery, or It's a Mad Mad World, but this one stands by itself. Half Tom and Jerry cartoon, half musical, a little opera, starving artists, sly criminals, beautiful women and a really beleaguered taxi driver...and all funny. Not to be missed.

Besides being very amusing, this French musical feature is quite creative as well. René Clair's light touch is perfect for the material, and it gives the movie a style all its own. In particular, it stands out as one of the best of the earlier sound movies that adopted a musical format.

The story is the kind of simple but amusing premise that, in the right hands, can be built up into a hilarious situation. And that is what Clair does here - beginning with some entertaining misadventures that introduce the characters, he then sets up the main story about the lottery ticket, and from there on it builds up nicely both in humor and in complexity. The climactic sequence in the opera house is a well-crafted, extended slapstick sequence that also includes some interesting parallels.

The cast works well, with Annabella particularly standing out with her engaging performance as Béatrice.

The style is an interesting contrast from what eventually became the norm in movie musicals. The musical sequences, which vary considerably in length, are for the most part worked naturally into the flow of events, rather than being set off as separate numbers. Clair and the cast make this format work well. The overall result is a very enjoyable movie that you will also remember for its imaginative approach.

If one would see a René Clair film with the kind of distracted semi-attention which is the rule in TV watching - one might be better off doing something different.

Watching "Le Million" with all attention focused upon what takes place before eyes and ears will reveal a wealth of delightful details which keep this musical comedy going from the beginning to the end with its explosion of joy.

In the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende a journalist once wrote: "In my younger days I saw a film which made me feel like dancing all the way home from the cinema. This film is on TV tonight - see it!"

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.

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.

René Clair's second talkie is topsy-turvy musical comedy. "Le million" has a convoluted plot and a lot of jolly scenes. Unlike what are generally thought of as musicals, this isn't just an excuse for people to start singing messages to each other; the songs are integral to the plot. In the process, Clair - who was initially reluctant to embrace sound in movies - creates an unforgettable experience. Personally, I wouldn't call the movie a masterpiece, but it's guaranteed to be one of the most enjoyable times that you'll have while watching a movie. One could make the argument that the movie cares more about being pleasing to the eye than about having substance, but does that matter since its purpose is to be fun?

Definitely check it out.

French director Rene Clair was sad to see the silent era pass by. The veteran filmmaker "quiet" movies were admired during the 1920s, highlighted by his 1928 "The Italian Straw Hat." Clair viewed the early all-talking pictures, based mostly on staged plays, as relying on heavy dialogue. In his mind, the talk, talk, talk of these early audible films dragged down the visuals of what he felt movies were all about.

Clair's first part-talkie, 1930 'Under the Roofs of Paris,' still contained long silent segments to carry the plot forward. For his next movie, an adaptation of a Georges Berr and Marcel Guillemand play, Clair, in his innovative creative mind, not only accepted the new audible technology, his April 1931's "Le Million" turned out to be an inventive French musical comedy that showed the cinematic world how sound could be shaped in a new entertaining way. The tale has a poverty-stricken painter, Michel (Rene Lefevre), discovering his lottery ticket is a winner for one million Dutch florins (that's real cash). But the ticket sits inside his jacket, which he gave to his girlfriend, Beatrice (Annabella), to sew. Sympathetic to a criminal who was running from police, she gave it to him to elude the law.

Clair was one of the few auteurs at the time who wrote their own scripts, directed and edited the final version. Since part of the story deals with a ballerina (Beatrice) and is centered around a stage performance, "Le Million" contains a mix of song-and-dance numbers as well as witty dialogue. Clair was one of the first to have his songs advance the narrative of the plot instead of just stand alone set pieces solely designed to entertain. As film critic Dudley Andrew wrote, "Characters don't walk or gesture so much as half-dance their way from scene to scene."

Another cleaver use of sound occurs during the tussle for the jacket with the ticket still inside. Clair inserts a recording of a rugby crowd's cheers and applause to add an extra layer of comedy to this frenetic film. There are large segments where the visuals are shown with no dialogue, just a background soundtrack, reflecting Clair's love affair with his departed silent movie habits. As movie critic Pauline Kael noted, "no one else has ever been able to make a comedy move with such delicate, dreamlike inevitability. This movie is lyrical, choreographic, giddy--it's the best French musical of its period."

For those skeptics at the time who scoffed at talkies, and nostalgically clung to the hope audio dialogue would go by the way of the dinosaur, "Le Million" was Clair's retort to such thinking. He showed that with imagination and inventive images, including his famous opening shot of the cityscape of Paris, the visual medium could be enhanced by the imaginative use of sound to sustain a highly entertaining, uproariously humorous movie. The editors of "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" felt Clair was so successful in the new medium they included "Le Million" in their reference book.

Struggling artist René Lefèvre (Michel) is painting his latest model/mistress and gold-digger Vanda Gréville (Vanda) when his ballet-dancing fiancée Béatrice (Annabella) walks in on them and isn't happy with the situation. At the same time, we discover that Lefèvre is skint and a large group of people come calling for payment that he owes. He is in a pickle! There is hope. A lottery ticket will resolve everything if only the ticket can be located. So begins a lottery ticket hunt.

The film is a musical comedy and whilst there are moments that are quite funny, due to the manner in which the characters act the part or deliver the dialogue, I couldn't find any music. There is plenty of singing but no actual music. No tunes, just utter rubbish. There are also sequences of French bedroom farce, only set in an Opera House, with endless characters running around. It's pretty tiresome. And I'm afraid this type of comedy paired with the overlong musical sections renders the film a bit of a bore.

The two main characters who play the best friends clearly aren't best friends, the technique of laboriously singing the story to develop the plot grates the nerves and it's a shame. The film did inspire me to buy a lottery ticket. However, I've just come back from the shop with a bottle of wine but forgot to buy the ticket. Sacré bleu!

One of a rare breed of films which crosses elements of the silent and sound period. Le Million(1931) is excellent in its comic routes and brilliant in its storytelling abilitites. Rene Clair does wonders with the material which is top notch. Le Million(1931) is an inspiration to any comedy done within the seven decades.

René Lefèvre has won the lottery, but lost the ticket.

That's all René Clair needs to make a classic comedy about a place where people sing and dance, and fall in and out of love under the roofs of Paris. He had not been anxious to make a talkie film, but came to realize the possibilities of sound: not just canned theater, but something that combined the heightened reality of silent film with the noise and clamor and music of sound. His previous movie had set the tone for this, and here we have a movie that's even better, as the specter of riches appear and disappear with the joy of love with Annabella, friendship with Jean-Louis Allibert, and the sentimental larceny of Paul Ollivier and his troupe of apaches in evening clothes.

I have seen this movie once previously. I was stunned at its inventiveness, and have hesitated to look at it again. Could it live up to the warm, faded glow of my memory?

Yes.

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.

It begins with a wondrous swoop of the camera over the rooftops of Paris, at night. A man climbs a ladder and peeks into a lit skylight. There's a party going on, below. The party-goers ALL look up and see the man and tell him, IN SONG, that they're celebrating and they have a story to tell. They toss him a bottle of champagne. They sing and dance, as the shot dissolves to a couple alone in the room, kissing. It's an astonishing opening sequence. And so Rene Clair begins to weave his magical, charming, funny story. I like to bore people by telling them that I can tell if I'm going to like a movie within the first five minutes. "Le Million" took me all of five seconds. It is nothing more or less than a farce, a romp, with people of all shapes and sizes, all with varying motives tearing through hallways and popping in and out of doorways with dizzying regularity. Two coinciding chases collide. A "serious" opera morphs into a game of touch football. And every so often - quite often, in fact - people just start singing! There's a lovely operetta duet onstage that frames the real thing going on behind the scenes. And best of all, with all the fun poked at various characters, and all the little satirical jabs, there isn't a mean-spirited moment in the entire film. How rare is that? I wonder if Blake Edwards thought of this film when he was writing the script for "Victor/Victoria". And yes, Virginia, there is a fat lady - and she sings!

Had this movie been made just a few years later, I would have knocked down the score a point or two because the sound quality was rather poor. At times, the movie appeared to be a silent film during the in-between-scenes (normal ambient sounds are missing). But, given it was 1931 and a French movie, this is quite forgivable. Especially since this also occurs in later French films--by which time the sound difficulties should have been worked out completely (such as in L'Atalante from 1934).

Okay, apart from some minor sound problems, this is a cute little film about a missing winning lottery ticket and a long list of people trying to get it. And, during the search there are lots of jaunty little songs that you can't help but like. A nice charming film all-in-all.

Le million (1931)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely charming and inventive French comedy takes a simple idea and really expands it to something special. A starving artist name Michel (Rene Lefevre) is being hounded by collectors when he realizes that he's won the lottery. He rushes to get his coat where the ticket is but learns his girlfriend (Annabella) has given it away, which leads to a wild chase in hopes of getting it back. I wasn't sure what to expect when entering this film because I had heard that it contained some pretty strange things but within minutes I was caught up in the story and the way it was being played out. I don't think the movie is laugh out loud funny but it doesn't really need to be. In fact, I think the story could have gone for more slapstick and gotten bigger laughs but, in a strange way, it's smarter than that and goes for something completely different. Having the actors sing their dialogue makes this film come off very fresh today and I can't imagine and fresh and unique it must have been in 1931 when many sound films didn't sound all that great. The delivery of the music is top-notch and many of the "songs" are better than what Americans were hearing in their musicals then. Another major plus are the performances, which are all very charming but Lefevre really carries the thing as he floats around like a feather and really hits all the right moves. The one thing that didn't work too well for me was the rather long sequence at the opera. I thought some of it went on a tad bit too long, although the football scene here was greatly directed.

A truly great film, unlike anything you've ever seen. Hilarious, complicated, delightful and a musical. So original that I've never seen anything this different. Great direction by Rene Clair. It's easy to see the Chaplin and/or Clair influences including chase sequences, fight sequences, opera spoofs. An early sound/silent blend that is masterfully done. Unique and entertaining with great performances. This movie contains all the elements of comedy, music, farce, and timing. A must see, you will not be disappointed! Charming and thoroughly enjoyable. Excellent restoration print. Easy to read subtitles that match the musical text.

Rene Clair is among the most unique and underrated auteurs of French cinema. His films were often amusing and visually interesting, and on those levels his masterful musical-comedy "Le Million" certainly does not disappoint! The sets he uses are surreal and beautiful, and the way his camera soars through the action is nothing other than brilliant. This is a wonderfully made and entertaining movie that will please all of those with a tolerance for subtitles and an overall love of cinema. It's charmingly made and scripted, and the plot is not only outrageous and funny, but also quite entertaining and engaging.

The only real problem I had with this film was its lack of truly interesting characters. None of the characters were extremely well developed or three dimensional. However, this film is much more of a plot oriented film, the humor and tension comes from the situations rather than those in the situations. Unfortunately, films like this can never reach perfection, for a real cinematic masterpiece would incorporate both elements. However, this film is still miles away better than a vast majority you will ever see. I think it may be even better than last year's musical hit "La La Land"-another film that I really enjoyed!

Though modest by the standards of fare to come, it's still a little remarkable that in 1931, not too terribly long after the advent of talkies, we were already seeing honest to goodness musicals develop. Not just a musical, but a decidedly playful one reflecting a style that would grow more popular within a few years, and which at times recalls the mid-century live-action films of Disney. More than that, in what is only his second sound feature, it's readily apparent that filmmaker René Clair had already grown more comfortable with the new paradigm, for the sound design and image quality are stronger than in 1930's 'Sous les toits de Paris.' Though discrete narrative is sometimes sidelined for pure shenanigans, the storytelling also quickly comes across as being more polished. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Clair has somewhat reined in the impulse to toy with audio as he did the year prior, allowing him to focus more on the essentials. Whatever the case may be, I don't think there's much arguing that 'Le million' is distinctly a step up for Clair - and a highly enjoyable classic.

The race to retrieve a winning lottery ticket is a scenario primed for delightful situational humor and a cavalcade of silliness, and sure enough that's just what Clair gives us for the preponderance of these ninety minutes. In some instances I'm reminded a little of the type of bits that Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd employed in their silent comedies, including sight gags; factor in the smart and refined use of sound, and the result is solid fun from top to bottom. Why, some moments are just plain brilliant; whether credit belongs to Clair alone as writer and director, or also to playwrights Georges Berr and Marcel Guillemaud, in writing and in execution this is wonderfully sharp as all the pieces together, and ninety minutes pass surprisingly quickly. I would posit that early exposition is a little rough around the edges before the plot picks up in earnest - and, truthfully, the resolution of the plot feels a tad too neat and clean - but still, for as much of a good time as this is otherwise, any such concerns are minor and handily washed away.

In all other regards 'Le million' is superbly well made. The sets are utterly terrific, with costume design, hair, and makeup not far behind. The cast are splendid across the board, all gleefully embracing the frivolity of the proceedings, and it's especially in the comedic performances that one can discern the picture's kinship with silent titles of a few years before. With Clair expertly orchestrating every shot and scene for maximum effect, ultimately this is unfailingly entertaining once the action kicks into gear. I can understand how some modern viewers have a hard time abiding older movies, but high quality never truly gets old, and this is surely another great example. I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that it's a must-see, but anyone with an appreciation for films from this era will feel right at home here, and I think this rather earns a blanket recommendation. Don't necessarily go out of your way for it, yet if you do have a chance to watch then this is well worth anyone's time.

There are two ways to rate a movie, in a passive way, or transport yourself to the period when it was made and then see, whether it had some added value over the other movies of its genre? These added values, which we of today may conveniently overlook, were the mile stones through which the art (and science) of movies progressed.

Did this movie add? Compared to many movies it did, but at these times European (and expatriate Europeans who made Hollywood their home) had been exceptional. There are scores of even silent movies that were not only sublime but more eloquent than most of the talkies. Garbo being one of the major proponent of this art, but she wasn't alone. Gish, Pickford etc too almost reached that perfection in few cases. One can't overlook actors like Asta Nielson who weren't infant in acting during infancy of cinema (early 1910).

This movie, in addition to well placed songs, which in fact carried the story forward to quite some extent. Even the classicals, in La Boheme, was well made, despite (as some one pointed out, fat soprano). It had some other features too, one of them was the beautiful geometric pattern of roofs in the panoramic scan in the beginning and also interesting geometric patterns of the apartment during Tulip Chase (also in the early parts), these were pure piece of art. The story is nothing complex (but may be because there had been several movies on this theme), one I liked better, was Becker's Antoine et Antoinette, but that was more than 15 years junior to it, so a lot of merit point comes here.

Sit back, relax, and think it is an 1931 movie, and with the expectations tuned, one could really enjoy this movie.