Millionnaires d'un jour (1949)
Directed by André Hunebelle

Film Review

Immediately after scoring one notable hit at the French box office with the proto-Bond spy thriller Mission à Tanger (1949), André Hunebelle found himself in the enviable position of directing a stellar cast for what was only his third feature, Millionnaires d'un jour.  Gaby Morlay, Pierre Brasseur and Ginette Leclerc were the star attractions for this Christmas-time extravaganza, but in addition to these three divas the film boasts a host of talented comedic performers, character actors and other assorted eccentrics, all of whom enjoyed great popularity with the cinema-going public.  Jean Brochard, Jacques Baumer, Pierre Larquey, Paul Demange, Yves Deniaud...  and there's even Louis de Funès, glimpsed only briefly (but still hard to miss) right at the start of his mammoth film career.  As you might fear, a film with such a distinguished cast can scarcely hope to live up to your expectations.  To say it misses its mark is putting things mildly.

Millionnaires d'un jour is very much a prototype for the kind of thematically linked anthology film that would become enormously popular in France in the following two decades.  The film is unusual in that all of the linked stories were written and directed by the same individuals (Alex Joffé and André Hunebelle respectively), whereas subsequent anthology films would most often consist of segments scripted and directed by completely different teams (this is what made the genre so effective and so successful - audiences were getting several films for the price of one cinema ticket).  This particular example of the genre suffers from a horribly weak premise (the idea of a mistaken winning lottery ticket is clearly a daft one which leads to some totally implausible plot developments) and the fact that one of the segments - a gritty gangster entry that allows Ginette Leclerc to play the femme fatale for all it is worth - appears completely out of place.  Hunebelle muddles his way through the entire film with his customary lack of flair and inspiration, and the result is a dull but amiable enough comedy that takes an unjustifiably weird film noir direction half-way through.  Just what you'd expect for a Yuletide release.

After a dreary comic opening (which is just about saved by some laugh-out-loud comedy 'business' from Max Révol, a far more credible comedian than the talentless, over-promoted Yves Deniaud), we're treated to what feels like the most utterly malicious send-up of all those grimly anodyne melodramas that Gaby Morlay made during the war.  In this, the film's highpoint, we delight in Jean Brochard happily tormenting the eternally martyred Morlay with his casual crypto-fascist tendencies.  Lightened by Paul Demange's impish presence, this second tale of woe is by far the easiest to digest, and you can't help wishing it had been spun out to feature length to spare us the other three installments. The jarring excursion into American-style gangster fare that follows (as comfortably as a viewing of the The Exorcist after a Looney Tunes cartoon) fails to be more than the laziest kind of pastiche, although Leclerc's sensual, sultry presence makes it worth the effort of watching.

The same can hardly be said for the concluding tale, in which André Gabriello and Pierre Larquey perform the histrionic equivalent of a Sumo wrestling match - it's as ugly and cheerless as it sounds.  Talk about conflicting sensations. Larquey makes you want to laugh yourself into a coma, Gabriello (a kind of Oliver Hardy for extreme masochists) makes you so nauseous that you wish you could spontaneously combust.  Millionnaires d'un jour is sporadically amusing but, failing miserably on both the directing and writing fronts, it has difficulty rating as first or even second rate entertainment - in spite of its welter of acting talent.  André Hunebelle started out as he meant to go on.

Film Synopsis

In a moment of distraction journalist Bernard Lajarrige makes the fatal error of publishing the wrong winning number of the national lottery in his newspaper.  In doing so, he unwittingly transforms the lives of  four disparate individuals who all buy a lottery ticket with the mistakenly published number.  For this supposed 'crime', Lajarrige is taken to court and hears how his victims have been affected by his negligence.  Antoine Bergas, a tramp, is ready to put an end to his sorrows when he runs into a sympathetic old sailor, Jules, who buys him a drink and a lottery ticket.  As it happens, Bergas has the winning ticket, but because its number does not match that the one in Lajarrige's newspaper, he tears it up in disgust.  He is then reunited with Jules, who mistakenly believes he has the winning ticket.

Victim number two is Hélène Berger, a housewife who has grown tired of her husband's ill-treatment of her.  Pierre Berger is a humdrum office worker who, resentful of being passed over for promotion, takes his frustrations out on his wife.  Thinking she has won the lottery, Hélène decides to rebel - but in doing so she helps to make her husband a changed man.  A less happy outcome is reserved for Greta Schmidt, the girlfriend of small-time hoodlum Francis.  When she learns that Francis has the winning lottery ticket, Greta goads his rival Marcel into murdering him - with disastrous results.  The unlucky quartet is completed by Jules Martin, a spry centenarian who can hardly believe he has won a fortune at his advanced age.  The mayor of the town of Villeneuve has arranged a ceremony in his honour and hopes to take advantage of the Martin's longevity to construct a new health resort.  The old man is so preoccupied with an old flame that the mayor's ambitions risk falling flat.  Money may not bring happiness, but it can change things - for better or for worse...