If I Had A Million $$$$$$

With tonight’s 6/49 lottery riding at around $20 million – though latest reports suggest that those sort of figures may be a marketing ploy – we started talking at the office about the first thing we would do if we won. A few of the suggestions were frankly too scatological to be included on a family (?) blog.

It did bring to mind one of our favorite old movies – if I recall it was the first movie Laurent ever copied on our old Beta machine – If I Had A Million. A rich old man (Richard Bennett) lies dying and rather than give the money to his greedy relatives he takes names from a phone book. This leads to episodes starring many of Paramounts biggest stars and finest directors of the period: W.C. Fields, Alison Skipworth, Gary Cooper, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, May Robson, Ernst Lubitsch, James Cruze and Norman Tuarog. The Fields-Skipworth (as retired vaudevillians Rollo Peters and Emily LaRue) is the funniest sketch and Robson (as an old lady confined to a nursing home) appears in the most touching but it is the briefest segment that I have always enjoyed the most. Devised by and starring the great Charles Laughton and directed by Lubitsch , it comes closest to one of my dearest fantasies.



If tonight turns out to be my night you may see that scene recreated tomorrow in the hallowed halls of Transport Canada.