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April in Paris (1952)
David Butler | Comedy / Musical / Romance |
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Synopsis
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...
 More American Comedy  More American Musical |
Film Review
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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