Gigi (1958)



“This story is about a little girl. It could be about any one of those little girls playing there. But it isn't. It's about one in particular. Her name is Gigi.”

            Gigi is considered the last great musical MGM released. It is in the tradition of their greatest musicals from decades past with its extravagant sets, elaborate costumes, and excellent songs and score.

            The beginning of the film is narrated by Honoré Lachille (Maurice Chevalier). He lets us know that the story will be about a young girl named Gigi (Leslie Caron). As soon as we meet Gigi we know she is not like other girls. She is a young, free spirited girl. Her grandmother and aunt try to teach her to be a proper young lady with good manners. Gigi wants nothing to do with the lessons her aunt gives but she just goes with the motions.  

            Honoré’s nephew Gaston (Louis Jourdan) likes to come to visit Gigi and her grandmother because they are not wealthy like him and they do not pretend to be anything different than who they are around him. Gaston is a playboy who has a new woman on his arm every week. His latest woman was caught by him with another man. The woman committed suicide from being so distraught. Gaston decides to go on holiday to the shore to get away from the gossip and prying eyes. He also decides to bring Gigi and her grandmother.

            On holiday Gaston sees that Gigi is not just a cute little girl but a beautiful young woman. The two have a very good time together. The grandmother sees this so she has her sister step up her lessons with Gigi to make her more proper so Gaston will take care of her… as in make her one of his mistresses.

            Gigi at first does not want to go ahead with the arrangements made for her but she comes to realize that she is in love with him and she would rather be miserable with him than without him. Gaston takes her out but he sees the cute, innocent tomboy is not the person he had fallen in love with. She is proper and acting like a grown woman much like the many others he has been with and he does not like this Gigi.

            Just like in original Cinderella story the poor girl get the man who has everything.

            This is an MGM musical at its best. The songs are catchy and the costumes are visually stunning. Vincente Minnelli captured a Paris of imagination. He shows us the Paris we dream about falling in love in. The songs are not just sung on a soundstage but are actually “performed” and acted throughout the actual city. My favorite scene is when Gaston and Honoré walk into a restaurant where before they entered was talk and music. Once they walk in the music and the talk stops. After a few seconds everyone sings about the gossip they have heard about each man. How perfect is that? People do that all the time, they stop what they are doing when they see someone walking in and start talking about that person.

            Famed photographer Cecil Beaton designed the costumes as well as some of the scenery. He had previously designed the costumes for My Fair Lady. His costumes for the women are very elaborate and flowy. The colors of the costumes are magnificent. I can definitely tell Beaton did his homework on clothing of the late 1800s/early 1900s. I am not entirely sure what scenery Beaton created but the sets for Honoré’s room and the restaurant I loved. The sets are styled in Art Nouveau with the sweeping, delicate curves in the wood and the golden yellows.

            The songs are some of the catchiest from MGM’s musicals. My favorite song is “The Parisians” simply for the fact that Gigi sings that she cannot understand how things could be love and how they are always making love. I occasionally find myself thinking of Gaston singing “It’s a Bore” it is perfect to sum him up he is just bored with doing the same things day in and day out. I guarantee that you will be singing “Thank Heaven” in your head for days. All the lyrics and music written by Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and Andre Previn with the orchestration by Conrad Salinger.

            I am not sure how I feel about the cast. Leslie Caron was very good as Gigi she had the perfect look for a young girl who could be a tomboy but in the end look very pretty. I just wish she had had the chance to dance like she did in An American in Paris. You can see in certain scenes she has the body movements of a dancer. Louis Jourdan was ok. Like Caron he had the perfect look for his character. Maurice Chevalier I had never seen in a film before this. I was not impressed with him as an actor or singer the first time around and I still am not impressed (especially after seeing him act and sing Love Me Tonight where he did nothing for me). Casting these three leads was perfect since they were the only real French actors.

            My mom- excuse me, Santa- had bought me Gigi and An American in Paris for Christmas one year. I had never even heard of these films before that time. When I asked her why she got these films for me she told me they were old films and figured that I would enjoy them. I did and do enjoy both films very much. Gigi I enjoy watching for the costumes and sets and the location shots. As far as the story goes I am not too much of a big fan of it as well as the acting but like all MGM musicals it is so much fun to watch.

            I think as a girl I would love to know a rich man who was friends with me at first and enjoyed my company and then we both realized with love each other and we could be in a Paris like the film. Oh how some love stories in films bring my rarely felt/seen/known girlie side out.

Love Me Tonight (1932)





         Love Me Tonight is a Pre- Code musical made in 1932. The musical stars a young Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. The story bored me to death but there were a few scenes that were rather interesting because they were things not really done in a musical but since this is a pre-code it got away with a lot.

            Maurice Chevalier plays a French tailor named Maurice. His friend Gilbert whose family is of some nobility has not paid him for the suits that were made for him so Maurice is now in a bit of trouble with the people who make the fabrics and sell him shirts. Maurice decides he will go to Gilbert’s chateau to get the money from him. On the way there he helps a woman named Jeanette (Jeanette MacDonald) who has run her horse and carriage off the road. Maurice is taken with Jeanette but she is not. At the chateau Gilbert says he cannot pay Maurice because his uncle will not give him anymore money. When asked who Maurice is Gilbert lies saying that Maurice is a baron. Jeanette lives in the chateau and the two meet again. They fall in love and she is distraught when she finds out that Maurice is a tailor. But then she decides she really loves him and runs after him. THE END.

                Wow that was even more boring to write than it was to watch.

            So why on earth did I even sit through this film? Joseph Mankiewicz says it nicely “For me, the highlight of the picture was a young actress named Myrna Loy. Light and lissome and lovely, Myrna’s the reason you forgot who played opposite Chevalier- she was a singer; she sang. She got Chevalier, but, as I remember it, Myrna got the picture.” And let me reinforce that quote and tell you she certainly stole the whole film. Loy’s parts were the only good ones her lines were hysterical and she delivered them so naturally. She plays the man hungry Countess Valentine. Valentine is so bored with everything she literally takes a nap anywhere. One scene Gilbert comes in (who happens to play Major Applegate in Bringing Up Baby) after Jeanette has fainted and ask her “Could you go for a doctor?” and Valentine replies “Yes- bring him right in!” haha. Another scene when everyone in the chateau is about to go on a hunt Jeanette asks Valentine “Do you ever think of anything but men” and Valentine replies “Yes, schoolboys”! She has so many other good lines too but these are the best.

            In her autobiography, Loy recalls about the film “They are the corniest lines in the world when you hear them now, but the house ripped open. I mean the preview audience just yelled.” She goes on to say that this is when she realized she had the talent to be funny. She also recalls how in a scene where the chateau holds a dress ball she was supposed to wear a pretty empire dress but Jeanette MacDonald was jealous of the way Loy looked so she made Loy change dresses. This left Loy running down to wardrobe with a friend where they found a very nice black lace dress. And who just so happens to be the stand out of the whole ball? Jeanette MacDonald who, now?

            Although the film was slow I did enjoy watching Maurice Chevalier perform. The only other time I have ever seen him in a film was Gigi and by that time he was much older. He was wonderful but I had some difficulty understanding him his accent was so thick. I really liked the scene where he is singing “Isn’t it Romantic” (which I cannot hear without thinking of the movie Haunted Honeymoon) and we see him singing it through a three paneled mirror. I liked the way that was filmed it added a little bit more.

            The rest of the film is quite a bore. Jeanette MacDonald was so outrageously annoying along with these three old biddies who were whining and almost fainting over everything. I just wanted it to end.

            Many scenes were cut out in 1949 because of “decency.” Myrna Loy’s only singing part in any of her films was cut out during a reprise of the song “Mimi” because her naval could be seen through her “revealing” nightgown (even Myrna Loy was mad about this). Yeah, the censors back then would have a panic attack if they could see what was getting through today. There was also another song taken out and mentions of “virgin springs.” Thank you very much Mr. Joseph Breen for taking out these parts, you pain in the ass. The missing scenes have been deemed lost.            

            Love Me Tonight is worth seeing at least once. It is interesting to see this Pre-code musical especially because sound was still in its infancy and not yet perfected. Myrna Loy is reason enough to sit through it since she stole the whole film.

If you do not have an interest in seeing the entire thing of Love Me Tonight just to see Myrna Loy watch this video: