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"The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" (originally titled "The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo") is a popular British music hall song published in 1891 by Fred Gilbert, a theatrical agent who had begun to write comic songs as a sideline some twenty years previously.^[1] The song was popularised by singer and comedian Charles Coborn.

The song became a staple of Coborn's act, performed on tour in different languages throughout the world. Coborn confirmed that Gilbert's inspiration was the gambler and confidence trickster Charles Wells.^[2]^[3] Wells was reported to have won one-and-a-half million francs^[4] at the Monte Carlo casino, using the profits from previous fraud. However, others suggested as the model include Joseph Jagger (see Men who broke the bank at Monte Carlo) and Kenneth MacKenzie Clark, father of the art historian Kenneth Clark.^[5]

Coborn wrote in his 1928 autobiography that to the best of his recollection he first sang the song in 'the latter part of 1891.'^[6] An advertisement in a London newspaper suggests, however, that he first performed it in public in mid-February 1892.^[7] The song remained popular from the 1890s until the late 1940s, and is still referenced in popular culture today. Coborn, then aged 82, performed the song in both English and French in the 1934 British film Say It with Flowers.^[8]

In popular culture

The song title inspired the 1935 US romantic comedy The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo. Although the song appears in the film, the narrative bears little relation to either the song or to the story of Charles Wells. The film and song were involved in the copyright case Francis, Day & Hunter Ltd v Twentieth Century Fox Corp.

A parody titled The Tanks That Broke the Ranks Out in Picardy was written in 1916.

The song appears in Booth Tarkington's 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons,^[9] as well as in Orson Welles' 1942 film adaptation.

In the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) sings the tune while riding across the desert to the camp of Prince Faisal.

A short excerpt is included in the 1970 film The Railway Children.

In Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow, Tyrone Slothrop, evidently knowing the song but not having understood the lyrics properly, spends time in Monte Carlo fruitlessly looking for the Bois de Boulogne.^[10]

Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).

The melody of the song is used in the season eleven episode of American Dad! "The Shrink". After the lead character, Stan, employs a CIA shrink ray in order to live in a miniature city of his own creation, the character sings "The Man Who Built the World in His Basement".

In the Novel "What We Become" (2012) from Arturo Pérez-Reverte, the main character Max is singing the song in the end of the novel.

In the 2017 film Alien: Covenant, in mimicry of his idol Lawrence of Arabia, the android David sings the words of the song's title while he is cutting his own hair in the mirror.^[11]

Aloysius Parker sings a brief snatch of the song in the Thunderbirds episode "The Duchess Affair".

After George Soros made a profit of $1 billion during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis by means of a successful short sale of US$10 billion worth of pounds sterling, he has been called "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England"^[12]

Lyrics

I've just got here, to Paris, from the sunny southern shore;
I to Monte Carlo went, just to raise my winter's rent.
Dame Fortune smiled upon me as she'd never done before,
And I've now such lots of money, I'm a gent.
Yes, I've now such lots of money, I'm a gent.

As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne
With an independent air
You can hear the girls declare
"He must be a Millionaire."
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.

I stay indoors 'til after lunch, and then my daily walk
To the great Triumphal Arch is one grand triumphal march,
Observed by each observer with the keenness of a hawk,
I'm a mass of money, linen, silk and starch -
I'm a mass of money, linen, silk and starch.

Chorus

I patronised the tables at the Monte Carlo hell
Till they hadn't got a sou for a Christian or a Jew;
So I quickly went to Paris for the charms of mad'moiselle,
Who's the lodestone of my heart – what can I do,
When with twenty tongues she swears that she'll be true?

Chorus

References

^ Baker, R.A., British Music Hall – an illustrated history (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Family History, 2014)
^ Michael Kilgarriff (1998) Sing Us One of the Old Songs: A Guide to Popular Song 1860–1920
^ Coborn, C.: The Man who Broke the Bank (pp. 227-8): (London: Hutchinson, c. 1928)
^ The Times, 13 July 1893
^ Secrest, Meryle (1984). Kenneth Clark: A Biography. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. p. 6.
^ Coborn, C.: The Man who Broke the Bank (p. 228): (London: Hutchinson, c. 1928)
^ The Era, 13 February 1892
^ "Say It with Flowers". IMDb.com. 22 May 1934. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
^ Tarkington, Booth (1918). The Magnificent Ambersons. p. 97.
^ Weisenburger, Steven C. (30 November 1988). A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel. University of Georgia Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0820310251.
^ Vilkomerson, Sara (22 May 2017). "Michael Fassbender Explains What It Was Like to Play Both Walter and David in 'Alien: Covenant'". EW.com.
^ Ferguson, Niall; Schlefer, Jonathan (9 September 2009). "Who Broke the Bank of England?". Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Case No. 709-026. SSRN 1485674.