Yoyo, der Millionär (1965)

Yoyo, der Millionär: Directed by Pierre Étaix. With Pierre Étaix, Claudine Auger, Philippe Dionnet, Luce Klein. A man has everything: dozens of servants, a palace, vast woods, gardens, a lake, mechanical toys, private entertainment troupes of musicians and dancers. He has it all – but love. When alone, he sits at a desk, sighing, and looking at a photograph of a pretty girl. One day, the circus descended onto his palace, and amidst all the fun it brought, he recognized the Amazon on the white horse – the girl in the photograph. The girl is now the mother of a small boy, Yo-Yo, whom she considers that looks like the millionaire, even under a clown’s make-up. The boy will spend some time in the palace, in awe of so much riches, but he will leave (in a dream-like scene) on the tusks of the elephant. Time passes – and one day Yo-Yo will be the owner of his father’s palace in decay. Starting from scratch, he will rebuilt it, and be praised as a great clown, an artist, a film-maker, a millionaire. Yet, something is amiss…

“I remember in 1965 seeing a clip of this movie on TV the week it came out. It featured a rich woman being driven slowly round the square by her chauffeur and u0026#39;walkingu0026#39; her dog by sitting in the back of the limousine with her dog on a lead to the pavement. That quirky and humorous image stuck in my impressionable young head and I promised myself I would go and see it when it came to the local cinema. Needless to say, it never did and it has never been on TV or DVD that Iu0026#39;m aware of.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIu0026#39;m still waiting…u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is so often the case in the UK. I am a huge fan of Japanese cinema but most of the movies reviewed highly on sites like Midnight Eye never get over here. Are subtitles so unbearable to UK moviegoers? We lap up some of the tripe from Hollywood but anything where English is not the main language really struggles. One thing is for sure, most of the challenging and original stuff is not coming from Los Angeles.”