88% (2)  Le Million  81 min,  [Musical, Comedy]  [René Clair]  [04 Feb 1931]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 76%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Annabella, Jean-Louis Allibert, Paul Ollivier, René Lefèvre
Writer:  Georges Berr (play), René Clair, Marcel Guillemaud (play)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  France
Plot:  Michel, a Parisian artist, is being hounded by numerous impatient creditors. To make things worse, when he is embracing the woman whose portrait he is painting, he is surprised by his indignant fiancée Béatrice. Suddenly, Michel learns that he holds the winning ticket in the Dutch Lottery. But when he goes to retrieve the ticket from the pocket of his jacket, he finds that Béatrice has given the jacket to a stranger who was in need. Now everyone has a keen interest in finding that jacket.
Rotten Tomatoes:   René Lefèvre and Annabella are sheer delights, as is everything else in Le Million, René Clair's bright and winning early sound comedy. Clair has his actors sing their dialogue in a blithe and breezy way and utilizes a succession of surrealistic and Dadaesque touches to chronicle this lighthearted extended chase, concerning an artist racing through the streets of Paris (an amazing studio set constructed by Lazare Meerson) in order to retrieve a winning lottery ticket left in the pocket of a discarded jacket. Many of Clair's comic embellishments (like the dubbed-in sound effects of a football game over a portion of the chase) have been used endlessly in comedies ever since, but in Clair's hands, the old jokes still look fresh and magical. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
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79% (1)  Hotel du Nord  83 min,  [Drama, Romance]  [Marcel Carné]  [25 Mar 1939]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 79%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 nomination.
Actors:  Annabella, Arletty, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Louis Jouvet
Writer:  Eugène Dabit (novel), Henri Jeanson (dialogue), Henri Jeanson (adaptation), Jean Aurenche (adaptation)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  France
Plot:  A young couple, Renee and Pierre, take one night a room at the Hotel du Nord, in Paris, near the canal Saint-Martin. They want to die together, but after having shooted at Renee, Pierre lacks of courage and ran away. Another customer, Monsieur Edmond, a procurer, rescues her. When Renee goes out of the hospital, she is hired as a waitress at the hotel. Monsieur Edmond falls in love with her, but Renee is still thinking of Pierre ...
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70% (1)  La bandera  88 min,  APPROVED,  [Drama, Romance, War]  [Julien Duvivier]  [02 May 1939]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 70%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Annabella, Jean Gabin, Raymond Aimos, Robert Le Vigan
Writer:  Pierre Dumarchais (novel), Julien Duvivier (adaptation), Charles Spaak (adaptation)
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  France
Plot:  Pierre Gilieth has committed a murder in Paris. He flees to Barcelona, where he runs out of money. So he joins the Spanish Foreign Legion. He meets there two fellow countrymen, Mulot and Lucas. He tries to forget his fault... but Lucas's friendship soon appears to be less unselfish...
Rotten Tomatoes:   Less ambitious than his previous Golgotha, Julien Duvivier's La Bandera is nonetheless more entertaining. A Foreign Legion yarn, La Bandera downplays spectacular battle scenes in favor of a romantic triangle. Accused of murder, Pierre (Jean Gabin) joins the Legion, with detective Lucas (Robert Le Vigan) hot on his trail. Both Pierre and Lucas fall in love with beautiful Bedouin girl Aischa (Annabella), which only intensifies their hatred of one another. The two antagonists are eventually forced to bury the hatchet when fighting shoulder to shoulder against uprising natives. The ending is rather startling, inasmuch as the audience was expected the actor with the best screen billing to get the girl. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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70% (1)  Spring Shower  66 min,  [Drama]  [Pál Fejös]  [01 Sep 1935]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 70%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Annabella, Erzsi Bársony, Ilona Dajbukát, Steven Geray
Writer:  Ilona Fülöp
External Links:  IMDb     Language:  Hungarian    Country:  France, Hungary
Plot:  Marie, a servant in a bourgeois family, is dismissed and driven from the village when she becomes pregnant by the eldest daughter's fiance. She finds work as a maid in a bordello and gives ...
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67% (1)  Suez  104 min,  Approved,  [Drama, History, Romance]  [Allan Dwan]  [28 Oct 1938]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 67%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Annabella, J. Edward Bromberg, Loretta Young, Tyrone Power
Writer:  Sam Duncan (story), Philip Dunne (screenplay), Julien Josephson (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English, French    Country:  USA
Plot:  De Lesseps is a young aristocrat who conceives the idea for the Suez Canal. When Napoleon fails him, the British show interest. Though the production values make the film entertaining its historical content is generally agreed to be awful.
Rotten Tomatoes:   This is an epic Darryl F. Zanuck production that plays fast and loose with historical facts regarding early 19th century French politics and the building of the Suez Canal. Tyrone Power stars as Ferdinand de Lesseps, an engineer and son of a French nobleman (Harry Stephenson). At the start of the film, he is in love with Eugenie (Loretta Young), but so is the French President Louis Napoleon (Leon Ames). After his father is appointed French consul to Egypt, the younger de Lesseps travels there and conceives the idea of a canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas. Back in France, he is promised help by Eugenie, now Napoleon's mistress, in exchange for Count de Lesseps' agreement to dissolve the government temporarily. Napoleon then declares himself emperor, making Eugenie his empress. The elder de Lesseps dies of shock at the political betrayal, while the younger de Lesseps starts building the canal, overcoming attacks by tribal people and severe heat. France cuts off backing, and de Lesseps has to get help from England to finish the project. A sandstorm injures de Lesseps, and his French-Egyptian lover Toni (Annabella) straps him to a post to save him, sacrificing her own life for the canal. Power and Annabella married each other after the film. The descendants of de Lesseps sued 20th Century Fox for libel, but lost. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
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