Some filmmakers develop a specific style and spend their career mostly following that particular niche, and there are some that cast as wide a net as possible for the sake of constantly reinventing their craft, different styles and approaches to directing that keep everything exciting and unpredictable. In the case of René Clair, you never quite knew what to expect from him as a filmmaker, which is why every new endeavour we take with him feels exciting and almost revolutionary. However, it has prevented him from being associated with a particular film as his magnum opus, with the majority of the conversation around his career being focused on different stages of his filmography since he worked in cinema on both sides of the Atlantic, and was proficient enough in both to forge quite a legacy. However, everything seems to circle back to Le Million as his masterpiece, a sentiment that is certainly very difficult to argue against, since not only is this an incredible film on its terms, but its status as an inventive, bold and truly entrancing comedy has been mostly preserved, even amongst those who consider his overall oeuvre to be quite limited and not particularly exciting. It seems implausible that anyone could look at this film and not be entirely convinced that it is being helmed by a true master of his craft, and even at its most predictable, it feels wildly entertaining and always worth every moment of our time – and both in terms of the specific story being told, and the various metafictional elements that are just as important to note in terms of what the film is aiming to achieve, there is a lot to discuss, which is in itself quite an achievement for something seemingly so simple. It only goes to show the value in giving a film such as this the time it deserves to flourish, since the results are quite spellbinding, despite it being nearly a century since its release.

Le Million has an effortlessly simple premise – a down-on-his-luck man grows tired of living hand-to-mouth and seeks out ways to escape the working-class malaise that was thrust onto him by his predetermined economic status, and his salvation comes when he and his friend discover that he won the lottery – but the winning ticket goes missing, leading to a series of misadventures as our heroes traverse every corner of Paris to find the ticket, encountering a range of eccentric individuals along the way, some of their allies while the majority prove to be adversaries. It’s a premise that has been done several times, since the concept of an unexpected fortune being taken away before we even realize we had it is fertile ground for an entertaining comedy, which is exactly what compelled Clair and his cohorts to tell this story. Much of the appeal of Le Million doesn’t come in the story itself, which is predictable and plain, but rather in the way it is told. The film blends comedy, romance, action and musical, putting them all together and proving to be a multilayered exercise – from a modern perspective, bending genre isn’t only common, it is entirely expected, but looking at a film produced in 1931, when cinema was still comparatively in its infancy, it is a major achievement that is worth acknowledging. To give appropriate credit, the film was not entirely the brainchild of Clair, but rather adapted from a play by Georges Berr and Marcel Guillemand – and its origins on the stage are clear from beginning to end. However, this doesn’t disqualify the ingenuity that went into the creation of the film, which is a very strong affair that is layered with ideas that Clair brings to the production, small details that he adds to his adaptation that feel intentionally quite challenging to the status quo, and which he gleefully inserts at key moments to give off the illusion of something much more profound existing at the heart of this relatively simple narrative.

It may be foolish to spend too much time dwelling on the brief allusions to the deeper meaning that exists at the heart of Le Million, but it is clear that there is something more to this production than we initially find at the start of the story. Much of this is found through the characters – the idea of the working-class hero is certainly not pioneered by Clair or his collaborators, but it is refined in a way that is quite exciting and deeply compelling, and he is helped along by the actors, who embody these roles perfectly. René Lefèvre and Jean-Louis Allibert are terrific as two men who start as friends but find themselves pulled apart by their greed, which proves to be the ultimate test of their friendship. Both actors are not as well-known by contemporary standards as some of their peers, but they were extremely influential at the time, and their casting was very notable. Along with Annabella, who forms the third part of their trio, the actors play characters who reflect the malaise and underlying sadness of France between the two wars – the economy was still in shambles and the social system was unstable, but there was a select few that could benefit from the small cracks that appear in between the system that seeks to keep everyone in their place. Perhaps it is overthinking the themes slightly too much, but there is value in seeing these characters as representatives of the frustrated working class, who were willing to do the work to make a fortune, but constantly had their efforts squandered by the institutions, whose entire raison d’etre was to keep everyone in line, in fears that a single act of rebellion could lead to a mutiny – and if there is something about France that we understand to be universally accepted, it is the ability to protest against oppressive systems. It is in this sense of self-awareness and ingenuity that we find Le Million being at its most inventive, and Clair brings a lot of skillfulness to a story that could have easily been far less effective in terms of the majority of themes being reflected in the narrative.

If we step into the more technical side of the production, Le Million is as compelling as a visual work as it is a narrative one, and we find that Clair’s instincts consistently veer towards the creative side of the film – he had been given this terrific play to adapt, and while he does add his elements to the story, his biggest contribution was ensuring that the transition from the stage to screen was not only flawless but also compelling, since the idea of simply filming a stage production was the antithesis of what many of these directors intended to achieve, especially with the growth in technology at the time. At his core, Clair was someone who honed his craft in the silent era – it was when he started working as a director, and even later into his career, that the influence of the visuals took priority, a radical change from some of his contemporaries like Jean Renoir and Julien Duvivier, who saw dialogue and story as far more important. The traces of the silent era are abundantly clear in Le Million – the staging is reminiscent of this era, and the way he frames every scene comes across as being directly influenced by the work he had done in previous years. This was indeed only his second foray into sound film, and he was one of the many filmmakers who found the transition to be a bit more difficult, since it was impossible to immediately leap into this new medium without bringing some of the same traits over, at least momentarily. To his credit, it is never clunky or misplaced – instead, it feels earnest and comes across as quite beautiful in some of the quieter moments. The lingering impact of the silent era also gives the film a level of playfulness that comes through in the visuals, allowing Clair the chance to be extremely inventive without overstepping the boundaries and doing too much. He perfectly calibrates everything to fit in where it is supposed to, and it becomes an act of trying to understand exactly what makes this story so incredibly compelling without it becoming needlessly dense, a challenging process that Clair achieves with seemingly very little difficulty.

For some inexplicable reason, Clair’s stock as a unique and masterful filmmaker rapidly declined at some point over the past few decades and has yet to rise to where it was in the years surrounding the Second World War, which was the period where he was at his artistic and cultural peak. However, it is impossible to what a film like Le Million and not be utterly entranced by his incredible skillfulness as a director. It’s a simple story, but one that works exceptionally well, with the straightforward narrative combined with an almost dreamlike tone and madcap energy working in perfect synchronicity to be a layered, captivating comedy that seamlessly assimilates stunning visual prowess and beautiful music to create a multifaceted experience driven by an abundance of humour and heartfelt emotions. It’s nothing particularly serious, and we can find many similar stories that take the same approach of creating a shared goal between characters and having them relentlessly chase after it (sometimes quite literally, as was the case with this film), but the experience of seeing Clair’s magical touch in practice cannot be overlooked, especially in how it pulls various artistic strands together and creates something extremely memorable and truly quite provocative in its own small but significant way. Compelling and charming, and always ready to entertain with its larger-than-life personality and genuine emotions, Le Million is a true gem and one that is ripe for rediscovery for an entirely new generation of viewers.