Tag: Paris

Film Review: Paris When It Sizzles

You every get that feeling when all you want to do is to sit down in front of the TV and watch something that doesn’t require too much effort? Something that doesn’t ask too much of your concentration? Maybe you’ve been on your feet all day toiling and sweating and you’re physically exhausted or maybe you’ve got too much on your plate and it’s hard to focus on any one thing and all you wish is for something to take your mind of it for a little while. Either way, sometimes losing yourself in a slice of good-looking, light-hearted silliness can be just the ticket. Paris When It Sizzles is just such a slice of good-looking, light-hearted silliness.

It’s a 1964 romantic comedy and it stars William Holden and Audrey Hepburn who ten years earlier had set tongues wagging by having a brief romance of their own while making the film Sabrina. Holden was married at the time, after all. However, this most delicate bloom of an actress decided to end the relationship either on account that her lover was plagued with alcoholism or that he’d undergone a vasectomy and couldn’t have children. Or both. Years later Holden apparently still carried a torch for her so one can imagine their feelings when Paramount Studios insisted on them making the film together. Fortunately for us, if there was any awkwardness between the stars, it didn’t translate to the screen.

The plot revolves around Holden’s playboy screenwriter Richard Benson (he played another screenwriter in Sunset Boulevard 1950) who hires Hepburn’s secretary Gabrielle Simpson to stay with him in his hotel room over Bastille weekend in order to type up the screenplay that he has promised to his boss, Alexander Myerheim (Noel Coward). Trouble is, even though he’s already been paid for it, he hasn’t got a clue what he’s going to write and the several possibilities he comes up with stink. But he is soon inspired by the lovely Gabrielle and comes up with the title, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. The rest of the film flits between their growing relationship in the hotel room and the imagined film playing out as Benson narrates. The end result is of course, utterly predictable but the journey is a lot of fun and it involves inept police and international spies. It also takes a few hilarious potshots at the movie business and there are several noteworthy cameos too, particularly from an uncredited Tony Curtis.

I laughed loudest at Curtis’s antics (his comedic ability has always appealed to me – see Some Like It Hot, The Persuaders etc) particularly towards the end when he shares the screen with Holden but the truth is, while the film has some incredibly silly moments, the entire cast manages to carry the absurdity of the story in an almost pantomime-like style and for me, this ensures there are laughs to be had all the way. There are a couple of marvellous cameos too (don’t we just love cameos?), one if which is the voice of one of the greatest singers the world has ever known. Check it out. I guarantee you’ll laugh – or at the very least giggle.

The film was directed by Richard Quine whose other credits include Bell Book and Candle (1958) and How to Murder Your Wife (1965). George Axelrod, – he of The Seven Year Itch (1952) fame – adapted the screenplay from an earlier French film called Holiday for Henrietta (1952). The music is from Nelson Riddle – composer, bandleader, arranger – who worked with some of the greatest singing talents ever and the exterior shots of Paris, which make you just want to go there, come courtesy of cinematographer Charles Lang, whose credits include A Farewell to Arms (1932), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Magnificent Seven (1960). Whether it’s a bright sunny day or a neon-lit night shot, seeing Paris on film always makes me want to jump on Eurostar.

While it might not have a place in the pantheon of romantic comedies like say, Hepburn’s Roman Holiday (1953) or Jack Lemmon’s The Apartment (1960), it is worth a look. It teems with that glamorous ’60s European chic and there are some great lines from some of Hollywood’s greatest stars. And besides, you didn’t want to be  entertained too much anyway.

 

Film Review: Rififi

Ah, the heist movie! Love them or loathe them, just thinking about them conjures up images of a group of misfits enduring painstaking preparation overseen by some intelligent mastermind. Of masked gunmen overpowering unsuspecting night-watchmen. Of safecracking equipment and smoke grenades. Of fast getaway cars. All the ingredients for a thrill-a-moment spectacle.

Hollywood obviously loves them. The success of remakes like Ocean’s Eleven (and its sequels), The Italian Job and The Thomas Crown Affair is proof that, for the most part, we do too. There are of course, dozens of titles worthy of viewing, both old and new, but if you want to watch one of the most influential of them all, then I recommend the 1955 French classic, Rififi.

Even though Rififi is filmed in glorious Paris, the French capital has never looked so bleak. Director Jules Dassin, argued on more than one occasion with his cameraman by insisting he didn’t want to shoot in sunshine. He wanted the overall look of the film to be grey and cold and consequently it’s about as far removed from the glitz and glamour of somewhere like Ocean’s Eleven’s setting of Las Vegas as it’s possible to get. Dassin wanted gritty realism and boy! – that’s exactly what he got. Indeed, so real is it’s actual heist scene – an incredible 30 minute segment void of any dialogue or music – that upon its release in ’55, several countries banned it on the grounds that it was akin to watching a training film for anyone wishing to commit burglary. A reviewer in the Los Angeles Times referred to it as a “master class in breaking and entering as well as filmmaking”. Burglaries mimicking the film’s scene began occurring around the world. Dassin responded to critics by claiming that the film showed how difficult it actually was to carry out a crime.

Jules Dassin was American by birth and found success as a director in the ’40s, particularly with a number of noir films. But when the communist witch hunts burned through Hollywood like wildfire he was blacklisted and consequently decided to move to Paris to continue looking for work. Nothing came his way for five years until he was offered Rififi, an adaptation of Auguste Le Breton’s novel of the same name and despite shooting on a low budget and with a no-name cast, the film revived his career.

The film follows Tony le Stéphanois (played by Jean Servais), an ageing gangster recently released from a five year prison stretch for jewel theft. Down on his luck, he meets up with two gangster friends Jo le Suédois (Carl Mohner) and Mario Ferrati (Robert Manuel) who propose to him a smash-and-grab job from a parisian jeweler’s window display. Initially Tony refuses but when he learns that his girl has hooked up with nightclub owner and rival gangster Pierre Grutter (Marcel Lupovici), he accepts the job on condition that they go for the safe inside rather than simply what is in the window. Mario suggests they bring in expert Italian safecracker César le Milanais (played by Jules Dassin under the pseudonym Perlo Vita). The four men then concoct and rehearse an intricate plan to break into the jeweler’s and disarm the (then) state-of-the-art alarm system. The heist is pulled without any major hiccup but the problems arise, as they so often do in this type of story, in the aftermath. And with that, I shall say no more about the plot. I should hate to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.

Not only did Rififi revive its director’s career but it also found success in America, making Dassin the first artist to come back from the Hollywood blacklist. The film was praised by audiences and critics alike and won several awards during the ’55-’56 season. It also quickly became a hugely influential marker for many heist films that followed. If you’ve never seen it, give it a look and see what all the fuss is about. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

 

Film Review: Breathless (À Bout de Souffle)

Very few films can lay claim to being called innovative; after all, film-making is fundamentally a craft and a craft is basically an activity that involves making something with one’s hands. There are a number of well-trodden steps to follow in order to attain the end result in much the same way as there is when making a cake. First you do this, then this and then this and so on. In essence, the camera captures the shots and then the screen shows the result but of course, there can be an entire directory of additional technical processes in between, not to mention all that comes before the camera is even taken off the truck.

But each one of these processes is a craft unto itself and the individuals involved are all skilled technicians of their own particular field whether that’s to do with the actor’s wardrobe, the make-up they wear, the design of the sets, the editing, the special effects, the coordination of stunts, the lighting, or the cinematography (the list can go on), but they all have steps to follow; steps that define their job, their reason for being involved.

However, film-making is also an art; a medium for expression and an outlet for creativity. Part of that creativity could be defined as bending the rules, of thinking outside the box, of trying something new. This is innovation.

One film that can definitely be labelled innovative and still sleep soundly at night is Breathless, or if you prefer the French title – À Bout de Souffle. Released in 1960 to both critical and box office success, it quite simply rewrote the rule book, certainly for editing style. Its use of jump-cuts was totally radical for the time and to watch it now, amazes and horrifies in equal measure. Some of the editing is in-your-face noticeable and looks positively amateurish, jarring even – as though the film stock snapped and was poorly spliced back together – and yet it adds a nuance of freshness and intensity to the film that wouldn’t be there if the editing was smooth. Love it or loathe it, it was a stroke of genius. It was also filmed entirely on a hand-held camera (tracking shots were courtesy of a wheelchair or a postal cart with the camera hidden and the lens poking through a hole because no permission was given from French officials) and with virtually no additional lighting – made possible by using a specific type of film stock that needed to be painstakingly modified.

It was director Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature length film and was one of the earliest examples of the French New Wave of cinema or Nouvelle Vague and it would go on to become one of the most influential films of that era. The young Godard was very critical of mainstream cinema, saying it “emphasised craft over innovation” and many of his films challenged the well-established conventions of traditional Hollywood as well as that of French cinema. Together with his group of contemporaries that included Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut (who both wrote the foundations of Breathless), he set about shaking up the establishment and the way it was perceived that films could be made. He has influenced numerous directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo and Bernardo Bertolucci and is often ranked by critics as one of the greatest directors of all time.

The plot of Breathless revolves around a petty criminal named Michel Poiccard (played sublimely by the then soon-to-be-famous Jean-Paul Belmondo), who fancies himself as a sort of Humphrey Bogart tough guy stereotype. He steals a car in Marseille and then shoots the policeman who has pursued him out into the country. Now a penniless fugitive, he flees to Paris and hides out with an American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), a student and aspiring journalist who sells newspapers along the Champs Élysées to earn her living. He spends his time attempting to seduce her while trying to call in a loan from a local hood so that he can fund their escape to Italy. The police soon make the link between her and her boyfriend and when questioned by them, Patricia learns that Michel is on the run for murder. She eventually betrays him and yada yada yada. Watch it and you’ll find out what happens. Oh and an added bonus – Paris has never looked cooler!