Born in Paris in 1898 and died in 1981, René Clair was a poet and journalist who became a film director in the silent era. His Entr'acte (1924), with a script by Francis Picabia, was a Dadaist short, and An Italian Straw Hat (1928) a comic farce. With the arrival of sound he made light, musical comedies about Parisian streets, such as Under the Roofs of Paris and Le Million, and À nous la liberté (1931), a satire on factories that was said to have influenced Chaplin's Modern Times. He worked in Hollywood during the war, and in 1960 he became the first film director to be elected to the Académie française.
Filmography
- Entr'acte (1924)
- Paris Qui Dort (1924)
- An Italian Straw Hat (1928)
- Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)
- À nous la liberté (1931)
- Le Million (1931)
- The Ghost Goes West (1935)
- I Married a Witch (1942)
- And Then There Were None (1945)
- Man About Town (1947)
- Beauties of the Night (1952)
- The Grand Maneuver (1955)
- Gates of Paris (1957)