I began running ‘Saturday Night Cinema” feature since 2007 and I have searched for an embeddable version online of tonight’s Saturday Night Cinema classic but alas, it eluded- until now, that is. Gigione of The master of the American musical,Vincent Minnelli’s Gigi is tour de force and love letter to Colette’s Paris. It’s simply gorgeous. With so many outstanding performances in the film, it is to Maurice Chevalier’s great credit that he is able to steal the show.
The magical partnership of Alan Jay Lerner, author and lyricist, and music man Frederick Loewe, has brought delight to the screen, as it has to the stage. Loewe’s and Lerner’s work on MGM’s Metrocolor, Cinemascope production of “Gigi,” possesses the same charm, cleverness, wit and melody that made “My Fair Lady” one of the fairest musical comedies of all time.
Just as Lerner adapted George Bernard Shaw’s play, “Pygmalion,” to the Broadway stage and wrote the lyrics for Loewe’s melodic score, so did he turn Colette’s famous story of a girl who was raised to be courtesan, into a witty, amusing, sophisticated scenario for the screen. Lerner’s lyrics and Loewe’s tunes are beautifully blended into an enchanting musical film production.
Given Loewe and Lerner, Vincente Minnelli, as director, costume and production designs by Cecil Beaton, Metro has an unbeatable combination for a musical film. Also given Maurice Chevalier, Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, Isabel Jeans, Jacques Bergerac and John Abbott to represent the Colette characters, and they’ve got top-drawer entertainment.
The film has only one drawback and that is the frank and shocking talk in one scene between the adolescent girl and her prospective lover who is a man of the world. It is strictly Colette, but it limits the film’s appeal, making it an entertainment for a special, worldly-wise type of audience and not for people of all conditions and ages.
Authur Freed produced the picture for Metro and he and the executives of the New York office made a wise choice in presenting it like a stage show. “Gigi” had a gala opening night at the Royale Theatre and it will be shown nightly, including Sundays, with matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
New York Daily News published this on May 16, 1958.
(New York Daily News )
With so many outstanding performances in the film, it is to Maurice Chevalier’s great credit that he is able to steal the show. For steal it he does, right from under the cute and adorable nose of Leslie Caron, playing the Parisian schoolgirl, who turns into a lovely woman overnight. She is clever, amusing and has the sort of gamin appeal that helped to make “Lilli” an enchanting film.
Jourdan plays the bored playboy with a fine sense of comedy and he delivers the Loewe-Lerner songs in the same narrative style that Rex Harrison originated in “My Fair Lady.” He sings “It’s a Bore,” and the soliloquies “Gigi,” and “She’s Not Thinking of Me.” Caron does “The Parisians,” “The Night They Invented Champagne,” the hit song of the film, and the lovely melody, “Say a Prayer For Me.”
Chevalier puts over “Thank Heaven For Little Girls” delightfully and does a duet with Hermione called “I Remember Well,” and brings down the house with “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore.”
The photography is superb, with many scenes taking on a three-dimension appearance. The direction is excellent and Freed is to be congratulated on the production as a whole, as the story is presented in an original and enticing manner.
Most of the outdoor scenes were photographed on location in Paris and the famous Maxim’s is used as background for several amusing sequences. “Gigi” was made into a French film, with Danielle Delorme, some years ago, and was later adapted to the stage in English as a starring vehicle for Audrey Hepburn.
Mr. Beaton’s designs are terrific—a splurge of elegance and whim, offering fin-desiècle Paris in an endless parade of plushy places and costumes. And within this fine frame of swanky settings, Vincente Minnelli has marshaled a cast to give a set of performances that, for quality and harmony, are superb.Leslie Caron, the little lady who helped to make “Lili” a memorable film, gets something of the same sort of magic of youthful rapture as the heroine in this.
Louis Jourdan is suave as the hero who holds out against her blossoming charms, and Maurice Chevalier is wonderfully easy as a mellowing boulevardier.As the grandmother and great-aunt, Hermione Gingold and Isabel Jeans give elaborately humorous exhibitions of the airs and attitudes of ancient dames; Eva Gabor is posh as a passing mistress and John Abbott is droll as a valet.Of Mr. Loewe’s musical numbers, “Gigi” is probably the best, though M. Chevalier makes something quite beguiling of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” He also inbues with cheerful poignance “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore,” and he and Miss Gingold sing a duet of wit and wisdom to “I Remember It Well.” You will also find reminiscent the vastly colorful “Waltz at Maxim’s.”Perhaps Messrs. Lerner, Loewe and Beaton have stolen “Gigi” from themselves, but they have no reason to regret or disguise it. They’ve left their “Lady” fingerprints for all to see.
The Cast
GIGI, screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner; based on the novel by Colette; songs with lyrics by Mr. Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe; directed by Vincente Minnelli; produced by Arthur Freed; presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Royale Theatre (Forty-fifth Street, West of Broadway). Running time: 116 minutes.
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Seems to be the story of a shrewd gigolo and bon viant, a poacher,
taylor-made to my former existence. Frau Geller still hasn’t given up
on her secret dream of the noble prince on the gray, typical woman!
Today it seems surreal to me, but it really happened. It must have been circa 80 women.
Some were so hot that they even forgot their period as an obstacle, I was as sharp as a
knife that I ignored it. I jumped from bed to bed, from chest to chest, from pussy to pussy.
What was astonishing was that none of these well-groomed and clean women atta-
ched importance to condoms. That means in plain language, they all wanted my ge-
nes. When I later did an HIV test because a first woman required it, it was a rebirth.
I’m not uninterested in “love”, but my demands rarely allow special women to
share with an intimate experience. In the meantime (20 years) I have realized
that emotional independence is much more important than sexual dependence.
Every time I think about what pet names I used to worship and ado-
re the respective woman, today I have to laugh at how the sex hor-
mones had me firmly under control, and with them these women!
The greatest power a man can unfold is to be mas-
ter of a woman, but to send her away. For the power
over oneself is more important than being her victim.
What is the principle: A man who squanders his sexual power diminishes his essence.
He has to pay a price for every temptation, and it’s due no later than the next morning.
There used to be initiation rites that turned men into men. They taught each other pain and
deprivation. This is the principle. The man becomes a man through renunciation and endu-rance, otherwise he will never possess this quality. One could abbreviate it as “the power to
say no”. In a world where Mom and the supermarket are always available, a hard lesson..
If the “woman” is the greatest temptation for the
man – then the woman is also the greatest chan-
ce for him to mature and grow into a man and an
independent personality! Actually quite LOGICAL.
The ultimate MCA, to signal a woman: “You can meet me naked, upsi-
de down splayed legs, promise me to fulfill all my secret sexual desi-
res, jump on my bones, and yet I have better plans. Out of my eyes!”
The “enjoyment” and gain is much greater than “10 minutes of sex” – and
lasts a lifetime. You wimps can finally pat youself on the shoulder. You have
overcome & conquered yourselves, no longer fools, have taken the decision.
Are men all assholes, and women all witches? No, not by nature, there were always
well-established rules between them that allowed both to make a profit, to make a
“gender arrangement”. These were destroyed sustainably. Today, women and men
are in a permanent war because of this, which was very well intended if one takes
the “Frankfurt School” seriously. Cultural Marxism is necessarily a gender Marxism.
Psychologically it is clear to me today that a man needs this experience in order to
be freed from his “mother complex”. Otherwise, he’ll be an immature idiot forever.
Mother complex expresses itself e.g. in the fact that men prefer
long legs. Because as children they looked up to their mothers.
Women are happy to counter this infantile need with high heels.
I landed in the beds of rich women in Blankenese, who lent me
their car keys, and I took the Triumph TR4 drunk over the Elb-
chaussee. Good thing everything went well. I’m favored by fate.
Mark Steiner
4 years ago
From Mr. Sour Grapes: looks like the weekend has arrived in full force (‘scuse me, farce). Time to forget about the trouble the nation is is, how it is in danger of collapse, and (can’t make this up) how that our future of viewing entertainment is seriously threatened by those who work 24/7, weekends, holidays and holy days of obligation and Shabbat included, to plan, plot and complete the destruction of the nation that at one time had strong family values and was God-fearing. Soros & Co. don’t go to the movies.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on a Sunday back in December 7, 1941 shook the nation awake. 9/11/01 should have, but look what has happened since.
“Go shopping” we were told after 9/11. Only now, go shopping and you may end up on the wrong end of a gun in the hands of Allahu Akbar. Who will get a pass in the courts because, after all, he was not a terrorist, only a disgruntled former employee of Starbucks. And he votes Demoncratic.
You’re either for us, or for the terrorists. Go back to the movies.
It is the conflict of our age, yet no one dares talk about it. The true story of the Islamic Supremacist war on free speech as told by those on the front lines fighting for our First Amendment rights,
.
Pamela Geller tells her own story of how she became one of the world's foremost activists for the freedom of speech,
individual rights, and equality of rights for all. "It's my story, it's what happens when someone fights for freedom in America today,"
Geller explained.
Today Islamic supremacists are demanding more accommodation of Islamic principles
and practices than ever, and daily growing more aggressive in eroding our freedoms – with politically
correct public officials only too happy..
Popular conservative blogger Pamela Geller and New York Times bestselling author
Robert Spencer sound a wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our
hard-won...
The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks is a groundbreaking documentary on the controversy
over the planned Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.
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