April in Paris (1952) - film review

A junior government official, Winthrop Putnam, sees his career aspirations evaporate when he realises that he has invited the wrong woman to represent the American theatre at an exposition in Paris.  An invitation intended for the actress Ethel Barrymore is mistakenly sent to an unknown chorus line girl, Ethel Jackson.  Fortunately for Winthrom, his superiors regard this not as an error but as a masterstroke, since it shows that the government still has the common touch.  Although Winthrop is engaged to be married (to his boss’s daughter), he falls in love with Ethel on the boat trip to Paris.  An incurably romantic Frenchman, Philippe Fouquet, contrives to bring them together...

It’s clearly an uphill task, but Doris Day manages to breathe life into this anemic and rather silly musical comedy, aided and abetted by song and dance man Ray Bolger and fading French matinee idol Claude Dauphin.   The scriptwriters should have been boiled in oil (olive oil, that is, with a soupçon of garlic) since it appears that absolutely no thought went into the plot and you are left wondering just why a film called April in Paris is set mainly on a boat.   The comedy is somewhat hit and miss (with regrettably more of the latter than the former) but, thankfully, most of the musical numbers hit the spot and prevent the whole thing from sinking more spectacularly than the Titanic.  This may not be in the first or even the second division of Hollywood musicals, but it just about passes for entertainment, thanks mainly to the joie de vivre that Doris Day brings to it.  April in Paris is one of those films that should be reserved for a late night viewing, when your critical faculties are dimmed and a mild soporific is called for to ease you gently into the arms of Morpheus.

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