WORLD TOUR Day 40 - Paris, France
BEFORE: Back-to-back Best Picture Oscar winners, both set in Paris, both starring Leslie Caron. I'm done with New York Comic-Con and I'm ready to finish this cinematic journey.
THE PLOT: Three friends struggle to find work in Paris. However, things become more complicated when two of them fall in love with the same woman.
AFTER: Maybe I should have taken an extra day to get back into my routine, since I did doze off in the middle of this. If I hadn't been brain-fried by four days in a convention center, and physically exhausted by loading and unloading a van, that might not have happened.
Still, I got the gist of this one, and I went back to where I fell asleep and finished the film. I don't think this one's my cup of tea either, and that's not a knock on Gene Kelly, since I'm a fan from "Singin' in the Rain" and some of his other films. But I'm not big on dance in general, and especially not when it gets all arty. Tap, OK, but ballet, non. And modern interpretive dance? No way.
This film started all weird because I didn't see how the pieces were going to fit together at first. Once the love triangle/quadrangle was revealed it became a bit more obvious, and then it threatened to become too obvious. We do want our star-crossed lovers to end up together, after all, despite the other complications and obligations in their lives - but there's a danger in making their path to that place too easy.
The lead character, a painter, also has an heiress/patron who's interested in him romantically. Which seems like an ideal situation for any man - when a rich woman wants to buy your paintings and also sleep with you, the only acceptable answer besides "yes" should be "Hell, yes!" So what is it, exactly, about that situation that leads him to fall for another girl? Especially when he has to work hard to win her over. Is it true love, or just male pride in winning over a girl, instead of being a kept man?
Once again, an unintended theme has developed - in "Girl With a Pearl Earring" there was the platonic relationship between the older artist and the younger maid, and in "Gigi" the platonic (at first) relationship between the older wealthy man and the young courtesan. Tonight it's the relationship between the older musician and the young perfume salesman, who he sheltered during the war. And if I tie back to "A Room With a View", both this film and that one had engagements that were broken so that the truer lovers could be together.
I appreciate the spectacle of this one, though the elaborately staged dance numbers aren't my thing either. The Gershwin songs are straight-up classics like "Our Love Is Here to Stay" and "I Got Rhythm", but the ones at the start of the film, "By Strauss" and "Tra-La-La" don't seem to measure up. There's too much riffing - lyrics that just feel like filler - and the on-screen antics between Gene Kelly and his pal seem very forced. Gene Kelly's better when he interacts with the children of Paris for "I Got Rhythm".
Also, the song in which Henri describes his girlfriend via musical conversation made no sense - why keep saying what she is only to contradict each character trait with the next line? How can a woman, any woman, be all those different things? Or is Henri having difficulty describing her due to a language barrier?
Also starring Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, Nina Foch.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pianos
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