Paris When It Sizzles (1964) - film review

Richard Benson has just two days to complete a screenplay which  he has been commissioned to write by producer Alexander Meyerheim.  But all he has come up with so far is the title: The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower.  Benson has spent the last year living the life of the wealthy playboy on the French Riviera and now, his deadline fast approaching, he heads off a severe mental block with strong liquor.   To speed things up, he hires a secretary, Gabrielle.  She is a vivacious young woman who instantly fires his imagination.  After a few false starts, a storyline begins to take shape.  It is Bastille Day.  The setting is Paris.  An attractive ingénue named Gaby falls for a mysterious stranger, Rick, who turns out to be a liar and a thief.   Pursued by Inspector Gilet, Rick prepares a daring robbery, not knowing that Gaby is in fact working for the police – or is she?  As this madcap plot thickens faster than quick-drying cement, Richard and Gabielle soon realise that they are falling in love...

Exactly one decade on from their first successful pairing in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina (1954), Audrey Hepburn and William Holden were brought together for an even more implausible romantic entanglement.   Paris When It Sizzles is a totally unhinged remake of the French film classic La Fête à Henriette (1952), directed by Julien Duvivier and scripted by Henri Jeanson.  The film retains the Gallic flavour by setting all of the action in France (Paris and the Côte d’Azur naturellement), with cinematographer Claude Renoir (nephew of the legendary filmmaker Jean Renoir) capturing the colour, romance and splendour of the French capital in summer.  This film may be madder than a series of March hare conventions but it is at least shot with supreme elegance.

At the time the film was made, Hepburn was a major star and had overtaken Holden (formerly Hollywood’s golden boy) in box office appeal.   Experiencing problems in both his personal and professional life, Holden’s career was beginning to wane as he suffered increasingly from depression and alcoholism.  This could explain why the Hepburn-Holden pairing in this film feels unbalanced and their on-screen romance unconvincing.  Hepburn is as radiant as ever and her scenes with Tony Curtis (impersonating a method actor to perfection) are hilarious.  Holden gives a good impression of a manic depressive drunk and is about as funny as a breeze block.

Paris When It Sizzles has a great deal of charm, in spite of (or because of) its obvious imperfections.  What probably started out as a well-meant satire on the art of movie-making ended up as a chaotic deconstructed mess, next to which Woody Allen’s more free format offerings are a model of coherence and restraint.  But this is probably what makes the film so appealing.  Where else would you find Audrey Hepburn being chased through a dark cave by William Holden made up as Dracula?   What other film offers cameo appearances from Marlene Dietrich and Noel Coward and musical numbers from Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire?  No one is ever going to own up to putting this film on his or her Top 100 list but who can admit to disliking it?   Just because it’s silly and structureless doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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