À Nous la Liberté ***** (1931, Raymond Cordy, Henri Marchand, Rolla France) – Classic Movie Review 9851

Raymond Cordy and Henri Marchand star in writer-director René Clair’s dazzlingly witty 1931 left-wing satirical comedy À Nous la Liberté [Freedom for Us], in which Louis (Raymond Cordy) escapes from jail and works his way up to gramophone factory owner.

Cordy’s old cellmate Émile (Henri Marchand) finds a job at the factory, Cordy is blackmailed and eventually they tramp off on the road together.

At the time of the Great Depression, Clair takes pertinent swipes at work, mass production and factory conditions (in other words, he sees them as the equivalent of prison), all in the most entertaining way, with music, sound effects and dazzling use of the camera.

It is brilliantly clever to express so many serious ideas and offer such an incisive critique of society’s ills in a funny and poetic comedy, and Clair achieves it magnificently. The timely theme is mankind dominated by machines – the shape of things to come.

It is the first film not in English to receive an Oscar nomination (for Best Art Direction, Lazare Meerson).

Charles Chaplin re-used several of the assembly-line sequence ideas for his 1936 Modern Times, and Clair thought their use was the sincerest flattery, though the production company, Tobis, sued United Artists and Charles Chaplin for plagiarism in a lawsuit that went on for more than a decade through World War Two. Chaplin finally settled, prompted by his lawyers. Clair refused to join lawsuit, Chaplin never admitted to plagiarism and somehow the two remained friends.

It runs 104 minutes, with US cut versions at 83 minutes (re-release) and 97 minutes. In 1950 Clair re-edited and cut the film from existing prints. The Nazis destroyed the negative.

Also in the cast are Rolla France, Paul Ollivier [Paul Olivier], Jacques Shelly, Germaine Aussey, André Michaud, Léon Lorin, William Burke and Vincent Hyspa.

René Clair wrote the story and screenplay.

À Nous la Liberté [Freedom for Us] is directed by René Clair, runs 104 minutes, 83 minutes (re-release) and 97 minutes, is made by Films Sonores Tobis, is released by Films Sonores Tobis (1931) (France), Universal Pictures (1932) (UK) and Harold Auten (1932) (US), is written by René Clair (story and screenplay), is shot by Georges Périnal, is produced by Frank Clifford, is scored by Georges Auric and is designed by Lazare Meerson.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9851

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