Innocents in Paris

Nnocents in Paris is an interesting film, especially for those who are fans of Louis de Funès. This early role gives us a glimpse of the comedic genius that he would eventually become, and his performance is one of the highlights of the movie. The film, directed by Gordon Parry, is a light-hearted comedy that follows a group of British tourists experiencing Paris in their own quirky ways.

While it's delightful to see de Funès in one of his early roles, the film itself doesn't offer much in terms of story. The plot is rather thin and feels more like a series of loosely connected vignettes than a cohesive narrative. There are moments of charm and humor, particularly when de Funès is on screen, but overall, the film lacks the wit and energy that characterize his later works.

For those interested in cinema history or fans of Louis de Funès, Innocents in Paris is worth a watch. However, if you're looking for a film with a strong storyline and memorable characters, this one might not quite satisfy. I give it a 6/10, mainly for the nostalgic value and the pleasure of seeing de Funès in his early days, though the film itself is fairly forgettable.

Innocents In Paris is several tales interwoven of a few British subjects going over the Channel on a weekend jaunt to gay Paree. For some like stuffy British diplomat Alastair Sim it's business as he's at a European economic conference as the British delegate. Pleasure almost gets forced on him as he arranges a back channel meeting with Russian delegate Peter Illing who shows Sim the pleasures of vodka and champagne and a few other things that Paris offers. They even get a little business done.

Margaret Rutherford is just Margaret Rutherford as an eccentric painter who for a weekend does a Gene Kelly as she paints and sells her product in the streets of Montmartre.

Romance in this film is handled by young Claire Bloom who gets some heavy wooing by Claude Dauphin. That one doesn't go quite on course, still it's a once in a lifetime experience.

That and a few others make Innocents In Paris a delightful experience and a look at post World War 2 Paris. It still holds up well because the experiences are eternal.

After the war, France was a mess — an agricultural economy with a bad reputation world- wide because of near universal collaboration with the Nazis. America resolved to rebuild Europe and part of the plan was to cast Paris as a romantic place, in spite of its history. Hard to believe today, but Paris is wholly a cinematic invention.

The instruction went out to US and UK studios. The US studios went along to protect valuable monopolies, already eroding. UK studios required a subsidy. Many famous and important films followed.

This is one of the subsidized UK films. (Included in the story is a joke about the safety of air travel. The first British airliner was a disaster, with many crashes.)

Several Londoners visit Paris for the weekend and have their lives changed by the romanticism of the place and people. As with most subsidized films, including many French films to this day, it stinks.

The story is broken into five threads: a statesman, Scotsman, young pretty woman, old bat, and marine in a marching band.

The young woman is Claire Bloom when she was pretty. But the only thread that has any charm at all is the one that follows Margaret Rutherford and her always present husband, Stringer Davis. She's unique, inventing a character that has become a stereotype.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

A British romantic comedy, although it occasionally falls short of the ease of more popular humor, overall, it is quite pleasant and harmless entertainment.

Even though it adds nothing to the genre, which was never, in fact, very characteristic of British cinema, which oscillates more easily between vaudeville comedy and passionate drama, these Innocents in Paris has the gift of revealing the beginnings of mass tourism, still very incipient, of mixing a Franco-British cast, where names like Margaret Rutherford, Claire Bloom or Louis de Funés stand out and finally, of revealing itself a little of the innocence of the title, which only suits it well, beeing a romantic comedy.

It won't last in anyone's memory, but it also won't offend the viewer's good taste or intelligence.

Half a dozen British subjects board a plane for a weekend flight to France and find themselves innocents in Paris. It's one of those movies in which several individual stories take place at a common venue, here with a mostly humorous theme. With a couple of comedy pros like Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford headlining the cast, Claire Bloom (fresh from her role in Chaplin's LIMELIGHT and James Copeland in more romantic plots and lesser stars to fill in the gaps, there's something for everyone.

It's a thoroughly pleasant effort with a script by Anatole de Grunewald and enough actual French talent to lend the necessary Gallic charm to the proceedings. Sim and Rutherford are, as always, delights, and the rest are amusing in their standard stories, although I can understand why the 100-minute movie is usually cut; although the subplot with Laurence Harvey as a French valet de chambre is good, the movie, as a whole, seemed to drag a bit.