Le Million - Plot

Plot

While being hounded by creditors, a debt-ridden artist discovers he has just won a lottery worth a million Dutch florins. Realizing that he has left the ticket in the pocket of his jacket, he attempts to retrieve it but discovers that his fianncé Beatrice has given away the jacket to a criminal in order to elude the police. He and his rival race to retrace the jacket which has passed to a brigand nicknamed "Grandpa Tulip" and then to a tenor singing "Les Bohémiens" at the opera theater that night.

Michel, arriving at the theater following a stint at the local jail, and Beatrice engage in a madcap chase through the theater as they endeavor to regain the ticket; during the chase the jacket flies out the window onto the top of a car. Fearing he has lost the ticket for good, Michel gets into the taxi of one of his creditors, only to find the sleeve of the jacket hanging in front of the window. After stopping the cab to remove the jacket from the top of the car, his attempt to search for the ticket in the pocket is thwarted by associates of Grandpa Tulip, who force him to hand over the jacket. Leaving dejected, he returns to his apartment to find his creditors in good spirits, as they think that they will be repaid. Before he gives them the bad news, Tulip enters the apartment with a jacket. Thinking that this is his original jacket, Michel searches the pockets. Finding them empty, he tells Tulip that he actually wanted a ticket in the pocket, which Tulip subsequently produces, having taken it out of the jacket before giving it away.