Musical Mondays - Week 18 - Gigi

[taylor anne photo 11311]

This is a little off topic but in honor of Cameron's guga, does anybody her know what any of their relatives favourite movies are? Addition, if so have you seen it and what did you think of it?

I think my mom's favorite movie is In Her Shoes which I find extremely charming. Toni Collette is a master class in acting and it's actually maybe the one movie I can say I enjoy Cameron Diaz. But she prefers overall movies that have a lot of thinking to do afterwards. Like in recent years she absolutely LOVED Arrival and Another Earth. I 100% think she would pick an indie drama that will make you cry over a silly comedy any day. So why In Her Shoes is the winner is something I'll never be able to answer lol.

 

Not to make this a sad sack comment but my dad died 10 years ago so if my memory is correct his favorite movie was Caddyshack, but I know he loved Bruce Almighty cause when we saw it he laughed like crazy and quoted it a ton. He was definitely a silly comedy kinda guy lol.

[SaraK 1980]

My parents aren't big movie people, they're more a fan of tv. My dad has honestly asked why I rewatch movies before instead of new ones. My dad likes dumb actions, my mom is a fan of the Oscar contenders and they both enjoy dry comedies. As kids we had a VHS copy of Monty Python in our car for our road trips because my parents said if we had to watch a movie repeatedly that they needed to be able to enjoy it with out watching. So since my dad picked that one, I'd say that's his favorite.

(Side note - we also had Happy Gilmore and Mission Impossible 2 and that's it. Those three for YEARS were the only movies we watched on our multiple yearly treks from Chicago to Cleveland or spring breaks drives to Florida. )

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

Apologies it took this long but FINALLY watched Gigi. I am very glad Cameron picked this as I'd heard about it and that cover art is definitely eye-catching.

 

My thoughts:

1) I thought it was Honore goading Gaston that made him break up with the suicide lady so publicly. Gaston was just going to walk off but was prodded into making a spectacle of it.

 

2) I do agree that the suicide was handled badly by "society". Even if a person is known for multiple attempts they ARE attempts! In the movie Harold and Maude all Harold's "attempts" aren't real. He rigs the noose like it would be on stage, his immolation is of a dummy, etc. In Gigi the paramour's attempts are real attempts. She really does try but believes she hasn't taken enough, cuts "across the stream" instead of "down the river", etc. Yet one of these days the attempt will go wrong and she WILL die. I've been depressed enough to think about suicide but never attempted. Even the thought of attempting it scares the hell out of me.

 

3) I had trouble with all the casting (except Hermione Gingold - I've only seen a few movies of hers but this is the first sympathetic character I've seen her play). I couldn't believe Louis Jourdan whether he was angry or loving. Maybe, as others have noted, the ADR was so off that I had trouble suspending disbelief. Oddly though I only had ADR issues with Gaston and Honore. I never noticed it with the ladies. I was a little taken with his turn at the end but was surprised he jumped all the way to marriage. As others have said better, Maurice Chevalier was unnecessary. I would have liked him as a "chorus", showing up at the beginning and end, but not as a player throughout the movie. There's another movie I recently watched where one of the main actors shows up throughout but in a variety of roles. It's fun to watch the actor's virtuosity in taking on each character but I was aware I was watching the actor play a character instead of watching the character in the movie.

 

4) I liked Leslie Caron through most of the movie. I was surprised to read in this thread that she was 27 at the time of filming. She seemed much younger, especially near the end (more on this in a moment). Since the thread mentioned she was a dancer I thought they had picked someone very close to the character's age since that person would already have been used to performing, rehearsals, etc. Having seen the film now I'm not sure anyone else could have played her. IMDB and Wikipedia note she'd been living in England for so long that she'd lost her French accent so her songs were dubbed. I find it hard to believe she couldn't have put on a French accent for the part and the songs. The DVD has a sample of her singing so if anyone has that please let me know how she sounds. The part I didn't like her in was near the end where she started actually acting as a lady. Maybe it was the contrast between the teenager and the lady but she seemed even more "childish", almost like she was pulling a face to show she was back to Gigi.

 

5) I am very surprised that Lerner and Loewe didn't make a stage show out of this first in order to work out the kinks and storyline issues. According to IMDB Lerner had one more film to make for MGM (in what capacity it isn't clear - I assume screenwriter since Lerner & Loewe weren't originally going to write the music & lyrics) so he picked Colette's novel. IMDB also notes the entire film preproduction process took only four-and-a-half months. If they'd had more time maybe things would have worked better overall.

 

They had also just opened My Fair Lady so all the comparisons in this thread are very apt. I also think they had a "We're successful so anything we do will be good" mindset where a little more constructive criticism would have served them well.) They adapted one song from a show 10 years prior that Lerner had written the script for. The song "Say a Prayer for Me Tonight" was supposed to have been in My Fair Lady.

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

ETA to clarify about Leslie Caron:

I liked her very much as a lady. I could see the attractiveness and she was amazing. She was also good as Gigi up to the point where she and the two aunts went to the dress shop. Once she started dressing in those elaborate dresses (and her whole mannerism changes) I had trouble believing her when she went back to being Gigi the teenager. Especially when Gaston was wooing and dumping her.