← Back to Reviews
in
Gigi
It won nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for the legendary Vincente Minnelli, but after my first viewing of the 1958 classic Gigi, I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out why.
Based on a novel by Collette, this is the story of a rich French playboy named Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), bored with his playboy lifestyle and only finds escape in the form of his friendship with a pretty young tomboy named Gigi (Leslie Caron) who is in the midst of being trained to be a Courtesan for a wealthy man by her grandmother (Hermione Gingold), a former paramour of his charming uncle (Maurice Chevalier). When Gaston's relationship with the glamorous Liane (Eva Gabor) falls apart, he jets off to Monte Carlo, where he realizes that his feelings for Gigi are more romantic than he imagined.
Don't get me wrong...this film is a feast for the eyes and ears, exquisitely mounted with incredible on-location photography in Paris, incredible settings, and drop dead gorgeous costumes, but all of this glamour and tinsel is really disguising what is a rather unsavory story, though it is cleverly camouflaged through Alan Jay Lerner's Oscar winning screenplay, filled with wit and double entendres, but when you strip away all the gloss, what you have here is a story about a young girl being trained to be a prostitute and a playboy who breaks up with a girl who immediately commits suicide and his reaction is to throw one party after another.
I'm pretty sure a lot of the appeal of this story also lies with the enchanting score by Lerner and Lowe, the team behind My Fair Lady and Camelot. The lilting score includes "Thank heavens for Little Girls", "The Night They Invented Champagne", "The Parisians", "She is Not Thinking of Me", "I Remember it Well", "It's a Bore", "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" and the Oscar winning title tune. It should be noted that, with the exception of Maurice Chevalier, none of the leads do their own singing.
Some of the Oscars the film won like set design and Cecil Beaton's breathtaking costumes were richly deserved, but Best Picture? Was this really a better film than The Defiant Ones, Auntie Mame or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which were all nominated that year? And this might be a bit of a nitpick, but how are you going to mount this humongous musical, cast Leslie Caron in the title role, and not have her do a single dance step?
Caron is well cast in the title role and I've never enjoyed Louis Jourdan onscreen more. Needless to say, Maurice Chevalier steals every scene he's in and I must also give a shout out to Isabel Jeans as Aunt Alicia, but I have to believe Vincente Minnelli's Oscar was more of a sentiment/body of work thing, because this film, as competent as it is a technical achievement, did not live up to its reputation.
It won nine Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for the legendary Vincente Minnelli, but after my first viewing of the 1958 classic Gigi, I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out why.
Based on a novel by Collette, this is the story of a rich French playboy named Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), bored with his playboy lifestyle and only finds escape in the form of his friendship with a pretty young tomboy named Gigi (Leslie Caron) who is in the midst of being trained to be a Courtesan for a wealthy man by her grandmother (Hermione Gingold), a former paramour of his charming uncle (Maurice Chevalier). When Gaston's relationship with the glamorous Liane (Eva Gabor) falls apart, he jets off to Monte Carlo, where he realizes that his feelings for Gigi are more romantic than he imagined.
Don't get me wrong...this film is a feast for the eyes and ears, exquisitely mounted with incredible on-location photography in Paris, incredible settings, and drop dead gorgeous costumes, but all of this glamour and tinsel is really disguising what is a rather unsavory story, though it is cleverly camouflaged through Alan Jay Lerner's Oscar winning screenplay, filled with wit and double entendres, but when you strip away all the gloss, what you have here is a story about a young girl being trained to be a prostitute and a playboy who breaks up with a girl who immediately commits suicide and his reaction is to throw one party after another.
I'm pretty sure a lot of the appeal of this story also lies with the enchanting score by Lerner and Lowe, the team behind My Fair Lady and Camelot. The lilting score includes "Thank heavens for Little Girls", "The Night They Invented Champagne", "The Parisians", "She is Not Thinking of Me", "I Remember it Well", "It's a Bore", "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" and the Oscar winning title tune. It should be noted that, with the exception of Maurice Chevalier, none of the leads do their own singing.
Some of the Oscars the film won like set design and Cecil Beaton's breathtaking costumes were richly deserved, but Best Picture? Was this really a better film than The Defiant Ones, Auntie Mame or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which were all nominated that year? And this might be a bit of a nitpick, but how are you going to mount this humongous musical, cast Leslie Caron in the title role, and not have her do a single dance step?
Caron is well cast in the title role and I've never enjoyed Louis Jourdan onscreen more. Needless to say, Maurice Chevalier steals every scene he's in and I must also give a shout out to Isabel Jeans as Aunt Alicia, but I have to believe Vincente Minnelli's Oscar was more of a sentiment/body of work thing, because this film, as competent as it is a technical achievement, did not live up to its reputation.