The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)
Through all our years spent toiling in the Video entertainment business, we never failed to notice this film always turned up in DVD collections of titles fallen into the public domain......making them fair game for anybody or any company wanting to duplicate copies for a fast buck.
Among that very mixed bag of cinema, this one always caught our eye (along with the sparkling Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn thriller 'Charade'.) How the hell did these high profile, top star movies end up out of copyright protection by their studios? Did someone in the MGM and Universal accounting and/or legal departments screw up big time?
They sure did. While we've watched 'Charade' countless times as a BQ favorite, we'd never got around to 'The Last Time I Saw Paris', a weepy romance derived from an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. Given its high pedigree and star power (Elizabeth Taylor, Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Donna Reed, Eva Gabor) we finally caught up with it a few days ago. (It streams on every site imaginable, most of them free. But beware, picture quality varies on public domain titles.....if a free site has a crappy version, try a different one.
Verdict: Watchable, yes. But so much went so glaringly wrong with this movie, we could understand why nobody at MGM seemed bothered when it slipped through the legal cracks and into the free market.
This gushingly soapy drama was set in post World War 2 Paris which discarded the Fitzgerald setting of Paris in the late 1920's anything-goes Jazz Age. where everyone partied hearty as the horrid makings of WW2 began to slowly incubate.
Director and co-screenwriter Richard Brooks hated the studio-enforced time change but soldiered on. War correspondent journalist Charles Wills (Johnson) encounters the two daughters of freewheeling, ne'er-do-well expatriate American James Ellswirth (Pidgeon). Daughter Helen (Reed) is smitten with Charles, but he only has eyes for the stunning, wild-child sister Helen (Taylor), whom he marries.
As the post war years progress, Charles's fruitless attempts to write and publish his novels turn him embittered and frequently drunk. As he loses himself in booze and auto racing, he swoons over a much married semi-celebrity. (Gabor) while a heartbroken Helen find comfort in a dashing tennis bum (a very young and male model-ish Roger Moore). (And keep in mind, this is 1950's moviemaking, so there's no sex in either liaison...)
Can gut-wrenching tragedy be far behind? Oh, you betcha and the film goes all out to shamelessly squeeze gallons of tears out of helpless audiences during its final 15 minutes.
Huge HUGE problem here: Van Johnson.
A pleasant, lightweight actor better fit for MGM musicals and comedies, his role is so far out of his depth and range, it's painful to watch him attempt it. Through the first two thirds of the film, he behaves like he stumbled into an alternate version of the MGM musical 'An American In Paris', only one with no songs or dances. He goes for laughs every time he spots an opportunity in the script but the film overall wasn't built for comedy. When the story finally lurches into full fledged tearful pathos, Johnson struggles as best he can, but we couldn't help wondering why MGM didn't assign this part to someone in their stable of actors with more gravitas and acting chops.
There's a truly bizarre monologue sequence that stunned us. Johnson, stumbling home after a drunken night on the town, delivers his version of the nasty argument he expects to have with Taylor when she gets a load of his condition. Enacting both his and Taylor's supposed dialogue with each other, it sounds like a bravura bit of comedy dropped in from another script altogether. But what in world is it doing in this movie??
As cornball, obvious and soap opera-ish as it was, we weren't bored watching the film play out amid the usual MGM polish and high gloss. Taylor is at her most glamorous, Pidgeon delivers a few witty lines, but poor cutie-pie Donna Reed's forced to spend most of the time glowering with rejection. And it was nice to see the adorable little Sandy Descher as Johnson and Taylor's daughter, the very same year she'd become an instant sci-fi classic icon as the traumatized, shrieking survivor of giant ants in "Them!".
For classic movie buffs who take an special interest in old-school studio chestnuts, this one's ridiculously easy and available to find. Just don't expect all that much when you take it in.....2 stars (**).
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