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.

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!8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

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.

Rene Clair has a style best characterized by Vernon Young as "champagne on cornflakes." Le Million is ostensibly a kind of Preston Sturges plot - a man wins the lottery, but can't find the ticket. Musical numbers and ebullient camerawork and cutting make this a standout for early sound films (although Clair's own A nous la liberte was better). And the wonderful fuzz that has collected on early 30's films is still eminently there. What all these restorations fail to point out to the uninformed viewer is the physical hazards that a film had to endure for fifty or sixty years before a restorer got enough financing to re-create a film like Le Million. Perfect of its kind, yet ultimately cornflakes.