This article was originally published on Starring NYC (now sadly defunct) and has been dusted off and spruced up for its Retro Movie Buff debut. The thumbnail history of American cinema goes something like this: In the beginning, there was Edison. In the 1890s, Thomas Alva Edison—or rather his employee, W.K.L. Dickson—developed the Kinetograph, […]
René Clair’s Cloud Cuckoo Land: ‘Le Million’ (1931)
Watching Le Million is like getting pulled into the world’s most enthusiastic chorus line: you don’t know all the steps, but you’re having much too much fun to stop. It’s midnight in Paris and there’s a large party going on in a garret—but why? Flashback to earlier in the day, when penniless painter Michel (René […]