
French Avant-GardeFilm 17 of 18
Un chapeau de paille d'Italie
René Clair, Albatros, 1928, from the Labiche farce. On his wedding day Fadinard's horse eats a married woman's Italian straw hat in the Bois; her lover will not let her go home without a match; the wedding party sits downstairs while he hunts a copy. Albert Préjean is the groom. Clair times doors and hats the way he timed the frozen city. Cinémathèque restorations are the usual show print. A one-gag play, directed as if the furniture were in on it.
A horse eats a hat and a wedding party sits downstairs for the rest of the film. Clair times doors the way he timed the frozen city. The avant-garde's playfulness aimed at a paying crowd, and the crowd came. Watch the wedding guests, who never learn what is wrong and never stop being wrong about it.