Le Dernier milliardaire (1934)
Directed by René Clair

Film Review

In a year that saw the near-collapse of the Third French Republic through a right-wing conspiracy after one of the greatest financial scandals in history, René Clair certainly had no end of juicy material to get his satirical teeth into.  The Stavisky Affair that had resulted in public riots and the resignation of Prime Minister Édouard Daladier was presumably uppermost in Clair's mind as he embarked on his most scurrilous of political satires in the spring of 1934, Le Dernier milliardaire.  The other pressing concerns of the time were a stagnant economy caused by the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism in France's European neighbours and fears that the far-right may gain power in France on the back of the Stavisky scandal.  Not the happiest of times in France's history, but Clair's philosophy was that where there's misery, there's mirth.

The idea that an incredibly wealthy businessman could gain control of a country and, in a state of crazed delirium, impose a dictatorship of the most ludicrous and divisive kind may seem like the stuff of far-fetched fantasy (at least it did five days before I started writing this), but this is the scenario that France narrowly escaped in the mid-1930s as a right-wing alliance of the über-rich and über-bigoted sought to wrest power from a weak left-leaning government.  René Clair's fictional Casinario, a bankrupt Ruritanian state on the Mediterranean (obviously Monaco), wasn't so far removed from present day France, so you'd have thought the film would have found a ready audience.  In fact, the film was to prove one of the director's biggest misfires.  The French nation saw little to laugh at in their prevailing woes and so Le Dernier milliardaire was judged tasteless and offensive.  This failure prompted Clair to leave his country and start making films in Britain and the United States.  He wouldn't return to France until 1946, to direct his first French film in over a decade, Le Silence est d'or (1947).

Le Dernier milliardaire was not René Clair's first satirical fling.  His earlier film À nous la liberté (1931) was a full-on assault on modern capitalism, scorning the pursuit of wealth for its own ends and the dehumanising effect of mechanisation.  Le Dernier milliardaire may have the anarchic feel of an early Marx Brothers film but it is just as scathing a piece of social commentary, and the reason why it performed so badly at the French box office is almost certainly because it was just too near the knuckle.  It was too easy to see how the absurdist nightmare that Clair's film presented could become a terrifying reality - as it effectively did six years later when France came under Nazi control, run by a puppet government that shamelessly exploited the powers invested in it for its own evil anti-Semitic ends.

Le Dernier milliardaire isn't as accomplished a work as À nous la liberté.  Its dramatis personae consists entirely of two-dimensional caricatures rather than believable individuals we can identify with, and the humour is far more scattergun, relying too much on slapstick and repeat gags to be as consistently funny and surprising as the director's previous satire.  Max Dearly is the film's trump card (the pun is of course deliberate) - he absolutely steals the film with ease as the billionaire businessman-turned-lunatic-dictator - his dramatic about-turns (caused by bits of scenery dropping on his head) make Donald Trump look like a model of iron-clad consistency.  Renée Saint-Cyr makes her mark at an early stage in her career, managing to be both funny and dazzlingly eye-catching as the wayward daughter of Marthe Mellot, who gives an amusing turn as the queen obsessed with saving her benighted land from financial ruin / totalitarian control.  (It takes a while for the well-meaning mad old matriarch to realise it's an 'either-or' option; you can't be both rich and free).

Clair's over-developed penchant for visual comedy makes up for the general silliness of the plot (which looks like something W.S. Gilbert may have come up with in his later years).  In a thriving casino, an obvious lack of liquidity forces its habitués to literally bet their shirt, their shoes and whatever else they happen to have on them at the roulette wheel.  When a suicidal gambler drops his gun on the table, his number comes up and he wins a handful of firearms, so he now has the happy prospect of sharing his suicide with his girlfriend (and presumably half a dozen depressed on-lookers).  A farmer pays for his dinner with one of his chickens, and gets an egg and small chick back in change.  The best gags are reserved for the part of the film that shows us Banco's dictatorship being put into practice.  It's the funniest parody of a propaganda film you can imagine.

After an edict is passed outlawing their use, hats of all kind are rounded up and thrown into the sea.  People of all ages are forced to take a break from their daily routine at set hours and perform exercises in public spaces.  Any person with a beard is required by law to wear short trousers, and anyone who dares to speak is arrested as a dissenter and thrown into prison.  After this merry send-up of German-style Fascism, just about everything that Clair's warped imagination then comes up with feels like an anti-climax, but there are still plenty of laughs to come as an assassination attempt is bungled and the odious Mr Banco gets his just deserts.  You'd almost think Clair hated bankers as much as he hated Fascists...

We all know that Chaplin 'stole' À nous la liberté and reworked it as Modern Times, but it's a fair speculation that he also saw Le Dernier milliardaire and took this as the inspiration for The Great Dictator, a film that has more satirical bite, and far more sustained humour, than Clair's quaint whimsical offering.  That said, there's no doubt that Clair's film has a much greater resonance with the strange old world we have somehow ended up with in the autumn of 2016.  You might even call it prophetic...

Film Synopsis

Casinario, a small principality on the Mediterranean coast, has run out of money.  The country's ruler, an ageing queen, sends out an urgent appeal to Mr Banco, the wealthiest man in the world, to save her nation with a substantial loan that he can easily afford.  In return, Banco, a former native of Casinario, will be allowed to marry the queen's incredibly beautiful daughter, Princess Isabelle - which is unfortunate as Isabelle is already engaged to another man, the conductor of the palace orchestra. Flattered, Banco gladly agrees to the arrangement, but not long after his arrival in his home country he receives a blow to the head that robs him of his mental faculties.

In a state of near imbecility, Banco assumes absolute control of Casinario and immediately imposes a dictatorship whereby everyone is expected to obey his every utterance or else be thrown into prison.  Mistaking Banco's raving insanity for political genius, the government immediately carries out his wishes, which include forcing bearded men to wear short trousers and making exercise in public places compulsory for everyone.  Hats, ties and chairs are outlawed - these have no place in a civilised society. In next to no time, Casinario is once more a happy and prosperous nation.  But not everyone approves of the changes that Banco has brought about.  Realising her mistake, the old queen decides that it is better to be poor and free than rich and enslaved.  The last billionaire has had his fun, but now he must die.  Unfortunately, Fate has an even worse surprise in store for him...