A Nous La Liberte (1931)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

A Nous La Liberte (1931) – R. Clair

At first, it’s a prison flick with all the inmates singing about the freedom they don’t have.  We see two of them plot their escape – but only one of them makes it.  He manages to work himself from street busker to factory owner in a quick montage.  His factory makes phonographs.  When his old cellmate appears working on the assembly line (later ripped off by Chaplin, although he settled the lawsuit without admitting it), the boss thinks he is about to be blackmailed. But instead, his friend just wants help winning the girl of his affections.  It doesn’t work and soon a gang of crooks really do appear to blackmail the boss.   In a twist that might only work in the France of the time, he abruptly donates his factory to the workers, let’s his money blow away in the wind, and hits the road as a tramp with his friend.  So, this makes it something of an anti-capitalist piece but blink and you could miss it.  Renoir’s The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) hits the nail more squarely on the head.  But Rene Clair’s earlier film is an early talkie that still contains some of the lyricism and wowing art direction of the silents but I think I prefer his Le Million (also 1931).