Synopsis
While being hounded by creditors, a debt-ridden artist discovers he has just won a lottery worth a million Dutch florins. Realizing that he has left the ticket in the pocket of his jacket, he attempts to retrieve it but discovers that his fianncé Beatrice has given away the jacket to a criminal in order to elude the police. He and his rival race to retrace the jacket which has passed to a brigand nicknamed "Grandpa Tulip" and then to a tenor singing "Les Bohémiens" at the opera theater that night.
Michel, arriving at the theater following a stint at the local jail, and Beatrice engage in a madcap chase through the theater as they endeavor to regain the ticket; during the chase the jacket flies out the window onto the top of a car. Fearing he has lost the ticket for good, Michel gets into the taxi of one of his creditors, only to find the sleeve of the jacket hanging in front of the window. After stopping the cab to remove the jacket from the top of the car, his attempt to search for t...
Credits
Director (1)
Actors (27)
Production and distribution (3)
- Executive Producer : Films Sonores Tobis
- Film exports/foreign sales : Newen Connect a TF1 Group Company
- French distribution : Films Sonores Tobis
Full credits (10)
- Adaptation : René Clair
- Directors of Photography : Georges Perinal, Georges Raulet
- Music Composers : Armand Bernard, Philippe Pares, Georges Van Parys
- Assistant Director : Georges Lacombe
- Editor : René Le Hénaff
- Sound Recordist : Hermann Storr
- Costume designer : Georges K. Benda
- Authors of original work : Marcel Guillemaud, Georges Berr
- Production Manager : Frank Clifford
- Production Designer : Lazare Meerson
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Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Fiction
- Sub-genre : Comedy
- Themes : Games, Theater
- Production language : French
- Production country : France
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About
Le Million was director René Clair's second sound film. Initially, he had been skeptical of the value that sound would bring, saying that it was "an unnatural creation, just useful for canned theater." He detested the other sound films of the day and their dedication to the slavish dialogue. He would change his feelings when he realized that he could also apply a soundtrack to a film, a strategy he used in Le Million, 3 years after the first sound film was released.
Paul Sherman of the Boston Hearld described the film as "lively and down-to-earth". Of Jeremy Heilman of Movie Martyr says that the "sophisticated use of the fledgling (sound) technology led to universal acclaim for the director, who became regarded as the first true master of the sound film." Elliot Stein of Criterion call the film "a synthesis, a perfect fusion of sound, dialogue, camera placement and editing. The mood may be ironic, sad or happy, but music and song are never far away.
Source : Wikipedia