Is Paris Burning?

I made my first trip to Paris this past year. There are remembrances of World War Two on nearly every street corner, plaques with the names of resistance fighters who died during the war and during the Liberation. And France's military history is also on display, from monuments to Louis XIII, to Napoleon, and to their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. As Americans we forget sometimes that the French army lost millions during World War One, and struggled with how to fight the Second World War. Losing Paris was a humiliating defeat that the Free French army needed desperately to avenge. This film does a pretty engaging job of telling the story from a French point of view. Like many war films from the time it's a little too long, some celebrity cameos are miscast, and some facts and events are abridged. But unlike some other films from the period, it has some humor, and some great pathos. There's also great footage of the real liberation intercut with the narrative. If you've ever been to Paris, it's a beautiful travelogue of all the famous public spaces, seen through eyes from 1945 and 1966. I can only imagine seeing it in widescreen, and I hope to get a non-dubbed version soon.

About 350 years earlier Henry of Navarre had captured just about all of France, but Paris and had been ruling as Henry IV for about five years but he decided he wasn't really king without his capital. He converted to the Catholic religion and Paris became united with the rest of the country. Henry decided that Paris was indeed worth a mass.

Fast forward to 1944. Maybe militarily Paris wasn't worth that much in defeating Hitler, but for the morale of a people being liberated from a brutal conqueror it was invaluable. When the forces of the Resistance in its many branches could no longer be contained with Allied armies only days from Paris, battle plans got changed and a Free French Division under General Phillippe Leclerc went in and helped the Resistance take the city.

Paris brule-t-il is the French cinema's answer to The Longest Day. It is dotted with cameos from French, German, and American film players and makes very effective use of newsreel footage blended into the finished product. You really do think you are watching an actual filmed record of the events as they happened.

The lead in this film is German actor Gert Frobe, better known to audiences as James Bond nemesis Goldfinger. The film opens with him being given command of the city by Hitler himself and given very specific orders to destroy the city before it was recaptured.

Frobe knows it and finally admits that the war is lost. He's concerned about what history will think of him should he do this terrible thing. He gets a direct order from Hannes Messemer playing Alfred Jodl and a reminder of what Hitler does to those who disobey him. Frobe's character General Von Choltitz died shortly after this film debuted and Jodl was executed after being tried at Nuremberg.

Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Yves Montand are all playing roles of Resistance members. Leslie Caron has a poignant small part as a woman trying unsuccessfully to get her husband freed before the Nazis ship him off to Germany before retreating.

Americans in this film are Kirk Douglas as General Patton, Glenn Ford, as General Bradley and Robert Stack as General Siebert. Those three were put in briefly to insure some American box office in a French story. Funny no one thought of Douglas for the Patton biographical film classic four years later.

Orson Welles has a much bigger part as the Swedish consul general in Paris who negotiates between the Nazis and the Resistance before the Free French Division arrives. Another one of those brilliantly executed parts by Welles he did to get money for his own projects.

Director Rene Clement really made the people of Paris the star of this film. It is their tribute picture and a terrible reminder to people in every nation what it is like to live under a tyranny.

The film concerns about the Allies advance on Paris during WWII, in a remarkable act of courage, several French Resistance groups(Bruno Cremer,Alain Delon,Jean Paul Belmondo,Georges Geret,Bernard Fresson, among others) confront to regain Paris from the Nazis, who rule tyrannically the city and detailing the last days before the liberation. The German general in charge Von Choltitz (Get Froebe) is under direct orders from Hitler to destroy Paris, rather than left to the Allied, commanded by general Omar Bradley(Glenn Ford) and general Patton(Kirk Douglas) . But the Resistance fighters eventually take over Paris and Van Choltitz decides not to burn the city but to let intact to the liberators , as he thought which destroying it no useful for the future like a mankind legacy.

This is a spectacular pseudo-documentary style developing the liberation of Paris with the Resistance factions and tryings to burn the city by Nazy hierarchy . It's a co-production French and Paramount US with a plethora of international actors, many of them playing cameos and prestigious intervention. Special mention to Bruno Cremer as Resistance chief , Orson Welles as Sweden consul and Leslie Caron as fighter wishing to free her husband. The short details-characters about Resistance leaders only for a minutes are based on the stories of real-life people. Appear historical characters well incarnated by famous players Omar Bradley(Glenn Ford),George Patton(Kirk Douglas) General Lecrec(Claude Rich), Von Choltitz(Get Froebe), among others. The title movie comes from the continuous phone calls realized by Hitler to Von Choltitz that always began with : It's Paris burning ?. The movie was filmed in atmospheric black and white which allow the edition adding actual-life footage but also the main reason was the German swastikas flags but the French Mayor rejected to let the black and red in Paris and they would agree sole to gray and black version of flag that looked real when shot.

The motion picture displays an interesting script by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola, based on Larry Collins and Dominic Pierre novel who give you a much better perspective about role each Resistance faction played in the Paris liberation. The picture was deservedly nominated to Academy Award for best Art Direction, and best cinematography by Marcel Grignon, though didn't achieve none. The movie is professionally directed by Rene Clement, though sometimes is confuse and contains some flaws.

This is a good movie, but only if you have read the book. Otherwise, it would appear to be muddled and difficult to follow. There were so many different resistance factions operating in Paris at the time of the liberation it is difficult to keep them straight. The movie doesn't help you in that regard. Reading the book gives you a much better perspective on the part each faction played in the liberation.

The little vignettes you see with characters appearing in the film for only a few minutes are all true. Unfortunately, they don't always make sense to an uninformed viewer and they give the viewer the sense of a badly edited film.

The true story of the last few days before the liberation is extremely remarkable. Hitler sent a hard core general he trusted to destroy Paris. It is incredible that he disobeyed orders and saved the city.

What I really loved about the movie was the city itself. It is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The film was shot mostly in the actual locations where the events portrayed took place. As a lover of history, I have been fortunate to have visited Paris more than once and walked these locations fully aware of what happened there. That makes this movie special for me. But, the film does have problems.

Besides being a bit disjointed, the French and German dialog were dubbed in English. It would have been better with subtitles, although many of the same actors did their own English dubbing. The film is in black and white, which doesn't bother me, but it might have been better in color. One of the main reasons for B&W was the Nazi flags. The French authorities refused to allow red and black Nazi flags to fly in Paris, even for a movie. They agreed only to have black and gray flags. But the black and white filming also allowed the blending of authentic war footage with the movie. Also remember that another similar film, The Longest Day, was shot a couple of years earlier in B&W.

The film is filled with a small army of great international actors. That was fun, although I didn't buy Kirk Douglas as General Patton. Gert Frobe (Goldfinger) was excellent as the German general in charge of Paris and Charles Boyer was also excellent in his small role. The music was composed by Maurice Jarre and is just wonderful. Whenever I am in Paris, the music continually runs through my head. As a side note, Jarre obviously borrowed much of this soundtrack for use in "Grand Prix".

In short, this is a historical movie rather than a great film. I recommend you read the book to get the full impact of the movie. But understand this remarkable story of the liberation is stranger than fiction, which makes it a good read. And, if you ever visit Paris the movie will take on a whole new perspective.

This film is a very well done dramatisation of the account of the liberation of Paris in August of 1944.History buffs take note;notice the mascot names of the tanks in General Leclerc's Free French armoured division.Many had Spanish names such as "Madrid" "Teruel" & "Zaragosa" as these vehicles were manned by anti-Fascist Spanish refugee fighters who played a largely important yet mostly un-acknowledged part largely ignored by mainstream historians about the WW2 period.