Beautiful, slow-moving, musical lacking dance production numbers, but not without charm, (L&M3)


I have seen "Gigi" three times, at intervals of about 15 years. The first two times I thought it was interminable and very boring. I still think it is far too long and insipid. The (Oscar-winning) screen adaptation of the (nonmusical) play that launched Audrey Hepburn makes it difficult to see that the attractive young girl is being prepared (by her grandmother and a maternal aunt) for a life of prostitution (or of being a higher class kept woman), but I have become fonder of Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier each time I've seen the movie. Chevalier 's mugging is, no doubt, an acquired taste, and one that I have only partially acquired, but he does have three (two and a half?) of the four best songs.

As Gaston Lachaille, Louis Jordan looks the part of a suave roue, but only talks the title song. Leslie Caron strikes me as having been too old for the part. She has no good songs, and her skills as a dancer are unutilized. (A few years later, in "The L-Shaped Room" Caron showed that she could act as well as charm and sing and dance. And after being wasted in Chocolat, she has a more substantial role in the recent intercontinental soap opera "Le Divorce.")

I wonder if those who have asserted that "Gigi" is the greatest of movie musicals have ever seen the musicals in which people, you know, like D-A-N-C-E! (e.g., "Singing in the Rain" or "Band Wagon" or "Cabaret" or Busby Berkeley movies or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies...) "Gigi" wasn't even Minelli's best Parisian musical of the 50s (Caron actually got to dance with Gene Kelly in "An American in Paris").

While "Gigi" has a certain charm (saccharine as it is compared to Colette's novella...), for me "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was the best 1958 movie ("The Big Country" and "The Defiant Ones" are also more interesting), so I also disagree with the Oscaring. (And, even more so, the statuette for best editing!!!)

Still, "Gigi" has the opulent (if phony) MGM musical look (outstanding art decoration, assured camerawork (by Joseph Ruttenberg) good acting (in so far as acting is required, which is not very far) and some good sons, especially "I remember it well." (In the current era of hyper-concern about lustful looks at minors, "Thank Heavens for Little Girls" might be removed and a few slow-motion killings added. And there is something close to incest in Gaston Lachaille's suddenly noticing that Gigi has become a potential sex object, rather than the little girl he has long known.)

(Entirely BTW, having starred in the Lerner & Lowe musical movie of the nonmusical play based on Collette's novella, Caron went on to star in the nonmusical movie based on the hit musical "Fanny" based on Cesar Pagnol's trilogy; there was also an earlier nonmusical French version of "Gigi." And it was the next year's winner, not "Gigi" that I consider the worst 1950s movie to win a "best picture" Oscar": for the list by decades see http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-E51-2CC0B514-399D819C-prod5.)

The DVD includes only a trailer for the movie.

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This lean n' mean contribution is an expansion of an amazon.com review. For other L&M pieces, see http://www.epinions.com/content_4149256324.





Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age