Paris When it Sizzles

I had high hopes for Paris When it Sizzles. I enjoy Audrey Hepburn movies. She was so gorgeous, although I don't know that she was a particularly good actor. A few years ago I made the plan to watch all her movies, I started with Breakfast at Tiffany's, and last year I watched Funny Face (also largely set in Paris). I've watched My Fair Lady this year too, but don't think I got around to blogging about it. 

After our recent trip to Paris I thrilled the boys with my pick for Friday Night Movie Night last week when I picked Paris When It Sizzles. I didn't know anything about it, but Audrey looked cute on the cover, and there was the Eiffel Tower too. Sadly neither Audrey, even clad head to toe in Givenchy, and wearing Givenchy perfume, or the Parisian setting can save this awful film. A preposterous story, Audrey's character Gabrielle Simpson turns up at alcholic scriptwriter Richard Benson's (William Holden) hotel room to help him knock out a movie script in two days. 

Gabby arriving complete with birdcage
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They brainstorm a number of increasingly ridiculous ideas, which are acted out before our eyes. It's all too ridiculous, and only funny in a farcical way. It's silly. Really silly. Master Wicker actually enjoyed it well enough, and laughed in a different way to the nervous can this really be happening laughter of his parents. 

I wonder if Givenchy designed these too?
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Paris When It Sizzles is much more interesting to think about than to watch. A remake of a 1952 French film La Fete a Henriette/ Holiday for Henrietta. Wiki tells us that both Hepburn and Holden were forced by their studio to make the film as part of their contractual obligations. Complicating matters the main stars had had an affair while making Sabrina a full decade earlier. It wasn't just Richard Benson who was an alcoholic, William Holden was battling alcoholism during the filming. Miss Hepburn's perfume is credited (Givenchy natch). 

Actually the bird was one of my favourite characters. You need to know a modicum of French history to appreciate why the bird is called Richelieu, and get the jokes about cardinals. 

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We saw that portrait in London! It dominates a room at the National Gallery. There was a similar portrait in the Louvre too.

Paris When It Sizzles sadly doesn't. I can't recommend it at all. Watch Funny Face instead for a dose of Paris avec Audrey. 

Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme from Paulita at
An Accidental Blog

Funny Face

A friend and I are (slowly, too slowly) working our way through all of Audrey Hepburn's oevre. Last year we watched Breakfast at Tiffanys. Oh dear, it was over a year ago! We'll have to step up the pace....

Last night we watched Funny Face (1957). A movie that neither of us really knew anything about. We picked it as it was short (99 minutes) and Audrey was wearing a killer suit and hat on the back cover. Sadly it only made a brief appearance in the film, but I discovered that Hepburn formed a lasting relationship, and personal friendship with Hubert de Givenchy starting with Sabrina in 1954. Miss Hepburn's Paris Wardrobe got it's own credit at the start- naturally it was by Givenchy.

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Paris was an unexpected but delightful character in Funny Face. Audrey Hepburn plays Jo Stockton who is discovered as the face of Quality Magazine whilst working in an intellectual, philosophical bookshop (Embryo Concepts) in Grenwich Village, New York. She is whisked away to Paris to showcase Givenchy's designs and Paris itself. Audrey and her major costars- Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson all burst into song on arriving in Paris. A response I can fully understand.

But I was quite astonished how dark and dirty Paris looked! Her iconic buildings are grimy. The Opera Garnier and the Statue of Joan of Arc are not shiny with gilt. She has clearly been cleaned up in the intervening decades, and looks the better for it I think.

Most of the locations are instantly recognisable to anyone who is familiar with Paris. Opera Garnier. The Winged Victory of Samothrace- I shall think of Audrey in that stunning red dress next visit, when I'm on those very stairs with 460 other people.

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The Eiffel Tower of course. Arc du Triomphe, and the Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel. One location had me stumped. A lovely little chateau, that forms a backdrop for the final scene. Naturally enough someone has done all the detective work for me. It is the Chateau de la Reine Blanche in the Coye-la-Foret, north of Paris, near Chantilly. A day trip to Chantilly is on the cards for the next visit to Paris actually, so you never know, I might visit here too.

Another discomforting aspect was the 30 year age difference between the major stars. Hepburn's Jo, is a sweet young ingenue, is courted by Fred Astaire's photographer Dick Avery. Hepburn here is 28, Astaire 58. The third main star was also a surprise to me, Kay Thompson, more famous to me for writing her series of Eloise books, it was great to see in action as the editor of Quality magazine, a fashion editor ruling things long before Anna Wintour and any devils wearing Prada.

The story itself is all a bit silly, but it was a great backdrop to a lovely evening. Homemade pumpkin soup. A bottle of Moscato. And some Fancypants Magic Bars. Lots of laughs. Great stuff.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

It's a strange experience watching such a famous movie as Breakfast at Tiffany's. The images of Audrey Hepburn/Holly Golightly are so iconic, that all her outfits look familiar. Holly's gorgeous LBD from the opening scene.

That fabulous hat that Holly wears to visit Sing Sing.

Although mercifully, images of this hat appear to be not so commonplace.

It's like she ran into one of those fancy chickens while rushing around a corner and somehow the poor creature got impaled on her forehead.

These images are all so commonplace, so absolutely iconic, that it makes you think you have seen the movie, when in fact you haven't seen it at all. You know it's set in New York. You know that she has a thing for Tiffany's. You know that there's something vaguely unseemly about it all. The familiarity makes you think that you know the story. And then it starts, and clearly, you've never seen the movie, and in fact have absolutely no idea what it is about. 

You have no idea that it is associated with Moon River. You have no idea that Holly Golightly is quite loopy, and refuses to name her cat (who plays more than a minor role in the movie) because of the possible impermanence. And then it was so exciting to later discover that Orangey the talented cat actor, won two feline Oscars for his work. 

As a long term shiftworker I can't but help but coveting her alluring eyemask and ear plugs with tassels.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a great movie to watch, and an excellent way for my friend and I to kick off our Audrey Hepburn phase, watching Movies Made Before We Were Born. There is an intriguing morality to this movie, which belies the Truman Capote novella I suspect- a novella that I now most definitely want to read.