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À nous la liberté is a 1931 film by René Clair concerning the escape of a convict and his subsequent rise up the industrial ladder. It makes a comment about society through the fact that it depicts industrial working conditions as not much different from being in prison. The film had two scenes cut out of it after its original release by its director (many fans of the film, though, have expressed objection over this especially since the cut footage adds up to about ten minutes of "essential" footage).
The film later created a controversy with the release of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, which bore some similarities to this film (such as the conveyor belt gags). In the end, instead of going to court Chaplin just paid them but it took around a decade. Chaplin maintained that he had never seen the film, as did everyone else at the studio. René Clair, himself, was never a part of the case and actually quite embarrassed about it since he had a great admiration for Chaplin and constantly said that we are all in debt to him and that any sort of inspiration Chaplin could have gotten from his film would be an honor to him.