REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:         


PARIS WHEN IT SIZZLES. Paramount, 1964. William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, Noel Coward, with appearances by Marlene Dietrich, Mel Ferrer, Frank Sinatra and Tony Curtis. Written by George Axelrod, based on the film Holiday for Henrietta (La fête à Henriette, 1952) written by Julien Duvivier and Henri Jeanson. Directed by Richard Quine.

   Someone’s going to have to help me with this; I’ve seen Paris When It Sizzles a bunch of times and I still can’t figure out whether it’s a sophisticated bit of avant-garde filmmaking that slipped in under the Hollywood radar — or a complete flop.

   It’s certainly a styish affair, with guest stars, location shooting in Paris and Antibes, lavish sets and two mega-stars. The photography is lush, the colors bright and the music bouncy, but at times all the Paramount splendour mitigates against the intimacy of what is essentially a two-character/one-set story.

   Said story is set (unsteadily) on the premise of an overpaid, boozy, middle-aged screenwriter (guess who?) who, having run through the exorbitant fee paid him to write a screenplay, is holed up in a luxury hotel in Paris trying desperately to churn out a story. Enter Audrey Hepburn as his day-job typist tuned amanuensis and we’re launched into a knowing duologue about film theory that turns into a love story.

   Only there’s a bit more to it than that; as Holden and Hepburn craft their tale, the movie suddenly turns into the film they’re writing, a slick caper-flick (starring Holden & Hepburn, natch) about international thieves, dogged cops and …

    … and then we suddenly cut back to our stars in the hotel room, re-writing the story as they hedge their emotional bets, hearts on sleeves but cards close to the vest….

    … and then back to the film-in-the film, as the characters flirt with danger and each other, bluffing about their motives and feelings as they get closer to the big score and the police move in on them….

   I don’t know how Holiday for Henrietta (the film this was based on) handled all this, but the notion was sufficiently off-beat at the time that when Robbe-Grillet used it a few years later in Trans-Europ Express (1966) the critics called it avant-garde. Paramount was so nervous about the concept as to hold off releasing the film for two years, and when it finally escaped it was roundly razzed by critics who couldn’t resist rhyming sizzle and fizzle.

   And in fact, some of the most elaborate gags in the film fall totally flat. Writer George Axelrod (The Manchurian Candidate, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter) is wonderfully trenchant when dissecting pop culture and the movies, but someone (I hope it wasn’t he) decided to inject lethal doses of broad slapstick and overdone excess.     (*)

   (*)   “overdone excess” Isn’t that a bit redundant? Well I’ve always felt that excess serves an aesthetic function in some movies, but you have to be careful not to overdo it.

   Anyway, I should mention in passing that Tony Curtis is screamingly funny as a sulky bit-player, and though the biggest moments of Paris/Sizzles deflate themselves, the quieter bits sneak pleasantly up on one. Shaw once observed that our faults and our virtues don’t come in matched sets like bookends, and perhaps this is true of films as well as people. This film anyway.