GIGI

Louis Jourdan and Leslie Caron

GIGI (1958). Director: Vincente Minelli.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a young French girl (of about sixteen?) who is being raised by her grandmother, Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold). She is also taught lessons in deportment by her Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans), as it seems the girl is being groomed to be the courtesan to some wealthy man to avoid a life of comparative poverty. Gigi's mother is not in the picture.

The title tune: "What miracle has made you the way you are?

Gigi and her grandmother have been befriended by wealthy sugar manufacturer and playboy Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), who thinks Gigi is just a charming child until ... Could Gaston be the man who will wind up keeping Gigi, but will the independent-minded Gigi even go for this arrangement? Gigi first came to life in a 1944 novella by the French writer Colette. It was made into a film in 1949 in France, and then turned into a 1951 Broadway play starring Audrey Hepburn. Lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe turned it into a musical film in 1958 (not bringing it to Broadway until 1973),

"I Remember It Well"

Leslie Caron made the perfect choice to play the lead role. (Hepburn was a little too old at that time and certainly not French.) One could argue that the storyline is slight, an inferior variation on Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, and there are other things you could quibble about, but it has a pleasant score and is extremely well-acted by Caron and everyone else. This, of course, includes Maurice Chevalier [Love Me Tonight], who plays Gaston's uncle, and gets to sing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore," as well as the amusing and sentimental number "I Remember It Well," a duet with Gingold. Arguably the two most memorable songs are the bouncy "The Night They Invented Champagne" and the soaring title tune sung by Gaston. Eva Gabor [The Mad Magician] and Jacques Bergerac [Twist of Fate] are fun as Gaston's lover Liane, and her skating instructor, with whom she has the audacity to have a romantic rendezvous.

Despite the satisfying ending are there perhaps undertones of misogyny behind the ever-so-polite and genteel goings-on? One doesn't think too much of the grandmother and aunt who expect Gigi to be, in some ways, little better than a prostitute. And Gaston, a wealthy man in Paris who sings about being eternally bored, is not very sympathetic. Rich and living in Paris -- and bored! What the f--k is his problem?  Like many early CinemaScope movies there is a scarcity of close-ups that might pull the viewer more into the action and the movie is only on occasion cinematic. And what on earth was Minelli thinking in the second scene at Maxim's where he allows an anxious extra -- a lady at the next table -- to repeatedly distract the audience's attention away from Gaston and Gigi? Still Gigi is entertaining and classy, and if you can ignore its hokier aspects you may find it charming. It won the Best Picture Oscar.

Verdict: A sugary confection. ***1/2. 

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

Gene Kelly and Nina Foch

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951). Director: Vincente Minnelli.

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is a struggling American painter working in Paris. His friend, Adam (Oscar Levant) -- "the world's oldest child prodigy" -- is a struggling composer who dreams of conducting his own symphony. Adam is friends with musical star Henri (Georges Guetary), who is engaged to waif-like Lise (Leslie Caron, in her film debut). Lise was taken in and protected from the Nazis by Henri, and she feels that she owes him. The trouble is that Lise falls for Jerry when she meets him, and vice versa, even as his patroness, Milo (Nina Foch), is falling for him. This is all played out in Alan Jay Lerner's screenplay in gorgeous Technicolor, with lots of dancing and some vintage songs by the Gershwins. Highlights include Kelly, Guetary and Levant performing "By Strauss;" Kelly tap-dancing with a group of children to "I Got Rhythm;" Kelly and Caron dancing by the Seine (or what passes for same) to "Our Love is Here to Stay;" Kelly and Guetary singing "S'wonderful," both unaware that they're singing about the same woman; and the long, beautiful climactic ballet with Caron [Valentino] and Kelly as the principals. Guetary, born in Egypt but of Greek heritage, was a handsome and charming entertainer who mostly did films in Europe. His big number in this is "Stairway to Paradise," where he comes off like a French Desi Arnaz -- in other words, he can put over a song but he hasn't got much of a voice, which is much too high and even shrill at times. The role of Henri was supposed to be a much older man, and even putting some gray in Guetary's hair doesn't make him look older than Kelly, who was his senior by a couple of years. Kelly and Caron are excellent; Levant [The Cobweb] is good if typically (and tiresomely?) dsypepetic; Nina Foch [St. Benny the Dip] adds some substance to her thankless role of Milo; and there are brief appearances by Noel Neill and Madge Blake, the latter of whom appears to good advantage in a charming scene in a perfume shop. I don't think it's giving anything away to say that the two lovers get together at the end, but whether their union will actually work in the long run is highly questionable. Others have noted that the other people in love with Caron and Kelly are treated somewhat shabbily. If they withdraw their financial support, the two lovers may indeed find themselves starving on the streets of Paris!

Verdict: Very enjoyable musical with a lot of talent on display. ***.