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Thanks for the memories!

From my favorite movies..

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Two of the previous reviews have the names of the main characters reversed, another is reviewing the wrong movie, and lots of them can't spell. But anyway, the film is both elegant and funny, the characters make wonderful facial expressions, and even though the version I watched was a little scanty with the subtitles, it wasn't hard to understand what was happening. I think the characters are very appealing. They are not sentimentalized as some of Chaplin's characters are, but they are still very sympathetic. What surprised me the most was how modern the sets looked - very spare and elegant. I don't know if actual places in the 1930's ever looked like the President's home, and I suspect very few places anywhere ever did, alas.

The contention that Charlie Chaplin ripped off Rene Clair's A NOUS LA LIBERTE may have merit (if not, we're talking about one of the greatest coincidences in the history of cinema)- but... When one considers the fact that Clair openly acknowledged Chaplin's influence on his own cinestyle, the point can almost be considered moot. (Certainly there are entire sequences- many of them silent- throughout A NOUS LA LIBERTE that echo Chaplin's style. Shockingly so.) At any rate, both Clair's film and Chaplin's "rip-off," MODERN TIMES, owe a debt to Fritz Lang's brilliant epic, METROPOLIS. (Osamu Tezuka, who would go on to be acknowledged as one of the seminal creators of contemporary manga and anime, would do his own manga version of METROPOLIS years later.) Regardless, Clair was a great filmmaker in his own right. UNDER THE ROOFS OF Paris, which literally begins and ends on the same note, is another Clair film worthy of note: the unprecedented use of sound alone makes this one a must-see for students of film. When it comes to the controversy of A NOUS LA LIBERTE versus MODERN TIMES, it's simply a case of six of one, half dozen of the other. They're both great films, by two of the greatest filmmakers to ever make films.

This early talkie is an unexpected joy to watch and an artful piece of transitional cinema. It's difficult to believe that Charlie Chaplin claimed he never saw René Clair's fanciful 1931 musical comedy since it predates many of the same leitmotifs that came up in "Modern Times" five years later, including pointed jabs at corporate greed interlaced with Keystone Cops-style slapstick. In fact, Clair seems completely inspired by Chaplin in the way he carefully orchestrates the chase scenes and the robotic assembly line in this film, so much so that Chaplin borrowed back the visual cues in "Modern Times".Clair sets up his story as an elaborate parable centered on two convicts, best friends Émile and Louis, who make toy horses in the prison assembly line. In a long-planned attempt to escape, Émile escapes thanks to a generous leg-up from Louis, who is caught and returned back to their cell. Years pass, and Émile becomes a successful industrialist in charge of a phonograph manufacturing business. Meanwhile, Louis serves out his term and upon release, ironically finds himself working in the assembly line of Émile's factory. After some hesitation, Louis and Émile reunite and join forces with a rapid-fire series of chaotic complications leading the two friends to realize that a life away from work may be their true fate.The film master does not belabor his sociopolitical statements about materialism, but it is intriguing in hindsight to appreciate the film's prescience in showing France disconnected from the encroaching Nazi menace. Moreover, the film boasts startling visual elements thanks to Lazare Meerson's unmistakably Expressionist art direction. Henri Marchand and Raymond Cordy make a fine comedy team as Émile and Louis, though what really shines is the timeless spirit that Clair imbues this film. The 2002 Criterion Collection DVD includes two deleted scenes, a brief 1998 interview with Clair's widow, and a twenty-minute short, "Entr'acte", that Clair made with French artists Francis Picabia and Erik Satie. Speaking of Chaplin, in an audio essay, film historian David Robinson describes the plagiarism suit that the film's producers brought against Charlie Chaplin when "Modern Times" was released.

This is a little gem of a film that doesn't date nearly as much as you would think, considering it come from the early thirties. The masterful hand of director Rene Clair overcomes an insubstantial plot and imbues the film with some fantastic visuals, humorous satire and some good clean knockabout fun. Two prisoners escape from custody and one reaches the top of the ladder while the other clings onto the bottom rung. Clair makes his feeling about capitalism clear by showing how the worker under the capitalist is as much a prisoner as the people locked in the jail. But any political overtones are not so much that they interrupt with the comic narrative and the film merrily continues with it's chases, bottom-kicking and all manner of good-natured silliness. Highly recommended.