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NO THANKS, HEAVEN To its credit, Vincente Minnelli’s Gigi is more “organic” than the movie of Cole Porter’s Can-Can or the movie of My Fair Lady. You can take in some fresh air; Minnelli hasn’t allowed his “hundred or more hidden things” style of décor or Cecil Beaton’s costumes to constrict the audience, though one could surely do without all the red velvet and ornamentation over at Grandmama’s place. And there’s something not exactly “fresh” about Leslie Caron in the title role—she acts excessively more juvenile than what need be suggested—but she doesn’t embarrass herself. A prettified musical about a courtesan-in-training might be ideal for the Chauvins who miss being pampered by a cultivated piece on the side, but it’s likely not to bode well with today’s hypersensitivity regarding glorified sex procuring. The theme is unavoidable. There’s no escape from another damning feature—the lazy Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe score, structurely lifted nearly whole cloth from their My Fair Lady. Chronologically, Gigi is the forerunner to what George Cukor would make us suffer in the screen version of MFL: in both is a deadness at the core, except with the latter it’s a monumental deadness. We’d have to be charitable to conclude the performers assembled here—Caron, Louis Jourdan, Maurice Chevalier, Hermione Gingold, Isabel Jeans—have much lasting appeal other than as speech-affected tourist guides. (You may never again want to hear another word uttered by Jeans, whose voice is an irritating mix of Edith Evans and Joan Greenwood.) Jourdan’s slick and debonair, comfortable in period suits, and no slouch in elocuting the fey lyrics. But his appeal has cautionary limitations: the longer we watch him with his hands on his hips the greater the peril in wondering if he’s not courting the wrong sex. (Can’t think of a single movie in which he’s certifiably straight.) The movie has a supposedly celebrated sequence at the famed Maxim’s but what’s to celebrate has never been evident: the restaurant looks even more like a super plushy movie set because it mostly is. Displeased with the way Paris’s ritzy gossip central was photographed, Lerner convinced MGM to reshoot in a studio replication, directed by Charles Walters subbing for Minnelli who was already working on another movie. Popular musical, well received and much-loved among the booboisie in the late 50s (especially when compared to other 50s musicals such as Guys and Dolls with audience-killer Vivian Blaine, High Society with Porter’s upchucker “True Love,” the puny and unaccountable Silk Stockings, and Les Girls with Gene Kelley choosing doggie Mitzi Gaynor over Kay Kendall and almost making the same mistake with Natalie Wood in Marjorie Morningstar). On this page is displayed the Michael Todd, but the original name of the theatre was the Harris, under which Gigi opened roadshow on 7/8/1958, running for 24 weeks before moving next door to the Cinestage, also rs, for an additional nine. From there it went to the Loop, pp & cp. In CinemaScope. Won all nine Oscars nominated for: best picture, director, adapted screenplay (A.J.Lerner), color cinematography (Joseph Rutterberg), art direction, costume, song, music scoring (André Previn), film editing. ROLL OVER IMAGE
Text COPYRIGHT © 2002 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved. |
