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The knockabout early scenes follow a bouquet of flowers from the boss' drawer to the maiden's trash bin to the lothario's lapel while a Gallic version of Oliver Hardy watches nonplussed, just another day at the office. The old palm-reader peddles superstition for coins, the real magic lies in dreams or so realizes the bank teller (Jean Börlin) asleep at his desk. Freed from work and reality, the rêveur goes gallivanting in the woods and foils wrongdoers with a swift kick in the pants. An opening in a tree trunk gives way to a toboggan ride into a fairyland of balloon-filled halls and portals snapping like sharp mandibles. That's where René Clair's kinship with Keaton makes room for an ode to Méliès, a netherworld of sudden, continuous transfigurations: Bony crones morph into nymphs when kissed, the hero's beloved co-worker (Dolly Davis) is turned into a mouse and chased by Puss in Boots, he himself becomes a bulldog and faces a tiny guillotine. Oversized flowers and a fountain with papier-mâché crocodiles adorn the playground, where Glinda the Good Witch or Dorothy's slippers can be spotted. Clair keeps the inventions coming with a jaunt across the Notre Dame towers and a climax at the wax museum, with the Reign of Terror re-enacted by historical dummies with painted eyes. (Chaplin rushes to the rescue, literally, in a scuffle that leaves the floor littered with heads and limbs.) The enchanted leaves which shower the embracing lovers turn to sawdust in Le Million. With Albert Préjean, Jim Gérald, Paul Ollivier, and Marguerite Madys. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |