Gigi (1958)

• Review: *** (out of ****)
• Starring: Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, Jacques Bergerac, Isabel Jeans, John Abbott
• Director: Vincente Minnelli
• Screenplay: Alan Jay Lerner (Novel by Colette)
• Length: 119 min.
• MPAA Rating: G

Paris.Director Vincente Minnelli takes audiences back to the French capital foranother musical journey in Gigi.

The film opens with the estimable Maurice Chevalier as thecantankerous bachelor Honore Lachaille singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls”.His lament speaks of how quickly children grow up to become the women he seesaround him. The little girls he watches are carefree whereas the adults aroundthem are refined and sophisticated. It is obvious he longs for the kind ofwillful spirit these young girls possess but we find out later he had giventhat chance up long ago.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) is the kind of girl he sings about.She’s a tomboy at heart, constantly joking and hardly taking the grown-up lifeseriously. While her mother leads the “dubious” life of a singer (and is onlyever heard singing off screen), Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold) and AuntAlicia (Isabel Jeans) have taken it on themselves to raise Gigi the “right” wayand ensure she becomes a proper lady.

Constantly hanging around the winsome girl, Gaston Lachaille(Louis Jourdan) regularly laments about the boring women he meets who are hungup on style and fashion and seem unconcerned with fun. He doesn’t see itimmediately but he soon realizes that Gigi is everything he’s ever wanted in agirl and more. Unfortunately for her, Gigi doesn’t realize the reasons for hisaffections and begins putting on the façade she’s been taught, causing a riftin their relationship.

Perhaps more vivid than his first Best Picture winner An American in Paris, Minnelli, with thehelp of cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg, creates a beautiful palette ofcolors to bring Gigi vividly off thescreen. The music is far catchier than the more vaudevillian styles of American in Paris and is delivered moreconvincingly by Chevalier and Jourdan.

All of the technical elements work dazzlingly well together.The performances are sufficient to tell the story, though Jourdan is too stifffor someone so in love with insouciance. Caron outperforms Jourdan, but as thefilm’s leads, their work is notably unimpressive. Chevalier and Gingold stealthe show from their compatriots giving the audience an entertaining diversion.

Minnelli’s faults follow him from American in Paris to Gigi.The film drags a great deal despite the musical jauntiness. Minnelli seemsabjectly content with keeping the camera still while the action is going on.While he focused too heavily on dance in Paris, he’neglected it in Gigi. The fun of thisstyle of musical picture is its lighthearted nature and ability to transportthe audience to place it might never see or might not even exist. Gigi does transport the viewer tobeautiful French settings, but the film periodically wanders aimlessly.

Gigi is fun and amusingbut is little more than escapist entertainment. It is certainly characteristicof the musical style of the period but lacks the emotional impact of shows like My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music. Minnelli knows how to deliver Academy favoritesand though the film has quite a few problems, it at least does what it sets outto do: entertain.

-Wesley Lovell (November 13, 2006)