Le Million

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s r Fitting that this movie that had been so elusive ended up being my 900 movie of the 1001 movies to see before you die. Thank goodness that TCM put it on and I was able to see it instead of buying a VHS or whatever to see it. It was a fun musical, laying the groundwork for many other films. However, it was rather silly and not one I plan to see again. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review William L A joyous, lively, and funny musical from the early days of sound; Le Million may certainly be simplistic, but it compensates with charm. (3.5/5) Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 08/12/20 Full Review Jon C Sheer delight In Le Million, Rene Clair, one of the cinema's great directors and great pioneers, created a gem of light comedy which for all its lightness is a groundbreaking and technically brilliant film which clearly influenced subsequent film-makers such as the Marx Brothers, Lubitsch, and Mamoulian. The plot, a witty story of a poor artist who wins a huge lottery jackpot but has to search frantically all over town for the missing ticket, is basically just a device to support a series of wonderfully witty comic scenes enacted in a dream world of the director's imagination. One of the most impressive things about this film is that, though it is set in the middle of Paris and includes nothing actually impossible, it achieves a sustained and involving fairy-tale/fantasy atmosphere, in which it seems quite natural that people sing as much as they talk, or that a tussle over a stolen jacket should take on the form of a football game. Another memorable element is that Le Million includes what may be the funniest opera ever put on film (O that blonde-braided soprano! "I laugh, ha! ha!") Also a delight is the casting: Clair has assembled a group of amazing, sharply different character actors, each of them illustrating with deadly satiric accuracy a bourgeois French "type," so that the film seems like a set of Daumier prints come to life. The hilarity takes a little while to get rolling, and I found the characters not as emotionally engaging as they can be even in a light comedy (as they are, for instance, in many Lubitsch films.) For these reasons I refrained from giving it the highest rating. But these minor cavils shouldn't distract from an enthusiastic recommendation. Should you see it? By all means. Highly recommended whether you want a classic and influential work of cinema or just a fun comedy. The Criterion DVD is good quality, though the print could have been better, but I assume they used the best available. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/08/16 Full Review Audience Member A penniless artist discovers he just won the lottery but left his ticket in his jacket which was in turn unknowingly given away by his fiancee to a...well, that's just giving away the movie. Among all of Rene Clair's 1930's musical comedies, this one is by far my favorite. It's got the best music (still not memorable but better than the other two), it's got the most laughs and it's the most well-directed. It's somewhat comparable to Preston Sturges, if I'm being all film geeky about it. You'll be surprised at how much fun you will have watching this black and white 1930's French film. I couldn't recommend it enough. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member A poor artist goes on a hilarious adventure trying to procure his old jacket with the winning lottery ticket in the pocket. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member A brilliant lighthearted musical comedy that is one of the early films to be shot in sound. It's directed with panache by René Clair. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Le Million

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