Gigi

Rating:
Summary: THANK HEAVEN FOR "GIGI"!
Review: "Gigi" is a musical masterpiece in every sense of the word. It is a pure confection of delight, color, and beauty, handled like a true artist by director Vincente Minnelli with an inspiring group of artists. MGM's last crowning glory is a joy to watch, and is simply perfection. From its marvelous performances from a perfect cast to its sparkling score by Lerner and Loewe, it can only be described as a genuine classic.

The story tells of a young coming-of-age girl, Gigi (a delightfully gamine Leslie Caron), who is trained by her eccentric Grandmamma (Hermione Gingold) and Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans) to be a courtesan to a handsome well-to-do playboy, Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan), who has recently broken up with his latest amour (Eva Gabor). Training the awkward Gigi in everything from table manners ("Bad table manners, my dear Gigi, have broken up more households than infidelity") to drinking wine ("Sip it! A little at a time!") to choosing a cigar for a gentleman. When Gigi undergoes a transformation into an elegant lady, Gaston realizes that he would like to court the enthusiastic young woman... but Gigi has some conditions of her own. Overlooking the whole picture is Gaston's jubilant uncle, Honore Lachaille (the marvelous Maurice Chevalier, in the performance of his career).

Minnelli realizes one of his finest hours as a director, creating the perfect musical through his actors, through vibrant, sumptuous cinematography, which is glowing beauty as only Minnelli could create. The exquisite set designs are inspired, as are the elegantly chic costumes, both designed by "My Fair Lady"'s Cecil Beaton. The lively script makes for many golden scenes, and one of the most beautiful scores ever written for a movie: Chevalier's glowing tribute to all little girls everywhere, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", the uptempo delight of Caron, Jourdan, and Gingold singing "The Night They Invented Champagne", Chevalier and Gingold's memories of their love affair of long ago in the beautiful "I Remember It Well", and Jourdan's love-sick yearnings in the glorious title song, "Gigi", is a thrill never to be forgotten.

The picture was a gilded treasure in 1958, garnering and winning every single one of its nine Oscar nominations, including Best Editing, Best Art Direction/Set Direction (Color), Best Costume Design (Color), Best Cinematography (Color), Best Scoring, Best Original Song ("Gigi"), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (Minnelli), and the coveted Best Picture of the Year. And it is still a treasure today: it will bring a smile to your face every time you see it. Thank heaven for "Gigi", the great finale of the classic MGM musicals, and one of THE greatest musicals of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Sparkling, Colorful Musical Romance From The 50's
Review: 1959: Gigi won Best Picture, Best Song and Best Costumes, as well as numerous other awards. Director Vincente Minelli, Liza Minnelli's father, directed a film that had already impressed audiences in the 50's as a Broadway musical. Both the stage musical and the film are based on French author Gabrielle Collette's novella, "Gigi". It is essentially about a young woman named Gigi (Leslie Caron, who looks and acts very much like Audrey Hepburn), trained as a courtesan by her aunts to catch the attention of the wealthy and famous playboy Gaston (Louis Jordan). Maurice Chevalier makes a special appearance as Honore, an elderly former playboy, whose charming wit and warm humor steals the show in most scenes.

Despite the review of the other viewer, Gigi can be enjoyed by everyone. Young girls should not fear the innuendo and implied relationship between courtesan and client. A courtesan was the only career for a woman pre-Women's Rights. To be a courtesan ensured their survival and stability. It is fortunate now that a courtesan or "mistress" is no longer merely the only option for a woman who wants to make an independent living of her own. The 50's is generally considered an innocent era, full of sugar-coated sentimentality and uncomplicated romance. With Gigi, we are dealing with a beautiful, innocent young woman blossoming into womanhood, in love with a decadent man who, for the most part, has no desire to marry and would rather have Gigi as a mistress. In the film, the courtesan/client relationship is refered to as "taken care of beautifully". It is obvious that Gigi, for all her girlish charm and vibrant spirits, has a smart and strong head on her shoulder. She is aware that as Gaston's partner, she would have to share his bed and become a public figure. She wants none of it. She is truly in love with Gaston. I.E. "I would rather be miserable with you than without you." Amidst the implied decadence of 19th century Paris, the Belle Epoque, fountains, lush mansions, broad streets, champagne and waltzes, eveningwear, and diamonds - true love is finally fulfilled and consummated by marriage. Great performances by Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier, as well as Gigi's aunt (Hermione Guilguld). The score and lyrics are the product of Lerner and Lowe, and the orchestra superbly conducted by Andre Previn. The French-style 19th century costumes are provided by Cecil Beaton, who did the same with My Fair Lady. On DVD, Gigi is a joy to watch, enjoyable by fans of great musicals and accessible to people of all ages, but especially for romantics. The DVD comes equipped with subtitles, soundtrack and special features.

Rating:
Summary: Watch it for Leslie Caron!
Review: I had never seen the Best Picture of 1958, the year of my birth. Turner Classic Movies (possibly the best channel of all available televison channels) provided many of the Best Picture winners during the month of February so I finally got to see it.
Although quite dated and politically incorrect (I challenge you to see/hear Maurice Chevalier sing "Thank Heavens for Little Girls" and not think it so) this movie is a perfect vehicle for Leslie Caron. She is funny, charming and winsome. Effective as both a young girl and then convincingly blossoming into a young lady, Miss Caron is entirely believable in her role. Hermione Gingold plays her guardian aunt with Maurice Chevalier the uncle of her suitor. Louis Jourdan is charming but I found Monsieur Chevalier to be what my mother used to call a "professional Frenchman". Laughing off the suicide of one of his nephew's mistresses is totally unacceptable and I also found Chevalier's mannerisms tedious.

On the whole I found that by watching the movie strictly for the performances of Caron, Gingold and Jourdan it was very enjoyable. Paris was lovely, the costumes gorgeous and Vincente Minelli's direction superb.

Rating:
Summary: A Charming Romantic Musical Classic!
Review: Vincente Minnelli, director responsible for such musicals as Meet Me In St. Louis (with Judy Garland who became his wife) and the father of current singer Liza Minnelli, really reached an apex in his career with the making of Gigi. Gigi is based on French female writer Gabrielle Colette's short novel about a Paris girl in the 19th century trained by her doting aunts to live the life of a courtesan. She is, nevertheless, the attraction to the story. Not only do we see Gigi grow and ultimately fall in love and marry a man no one expected- decadent playboy Gaston. Gigi is played by Leslie Caron, a ballerina turned actress who was the equal(and looks a lot like the more famous Audrey Hepburn). Leslie Caron's performance is charming, striking and very well made, her chemistry with Gaston (played by Louis Jordan), her interactions with her aunts and the fatherly presence of Maurice Chevalier is all part of a rich tapestry of the musical. The costumes are by Cecil Beaton, who was also the clothing designer for My Fair Lady. The music is riveting, waltz-like and as charming as any operetta, the songs, especially "Gigi", "Thank Heavens For Little Girls" "The Night They Invented Champagne " and "The Parisians" are all perfectly snug in this delightful story about a young woman, an older man, love, money, pleasure and growth. The entire film is as sugary and as tasty as a French dessert. Viva Gigi!

Rating:
Summary: Enchanting Musical Filled With Memorable Songs!
Review: This is a musical delight. Vincent Minnelli always had his eye out for perfection when it came to making his musicals and this one comes close. The beautiful and exotic Leslie Caron shines as Gigi. But it is Maurice Chevalier who steals every scene he's in and gets to sing 'Thank Heaven For Little Girls' which is my favorite out of the whole movie. Louis Jordan is also great as Gigi's admirer. Unusually high quality music and songs, thanks to the musical geniuses Lerner & Loewe. The film has a timelessness and a charm that is sadly missing in today's films, this was the last great MGM Musical. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 9!

Rating:
Summary: Substance, not sparkle -- the triumph of innocence in "Gigi"
Review: When Yeats mourned, "The ceremony of innocence is drowned," he was prophesying the loss of all that is decent in the coming 20th century - and he was crying out for us to fight for all we are worth to prize the innocence of the young, to put aside all self-indulgent pursuits in the face of innocence. "Gigi" is set against all the magnificence the world can offer as a backdrop for the test of innocence against the cunning and the carnal. The movie's real appeal comes not from its lush setting, costumes and flight from our crass age into the Impressionist gentility of fin-de-siècle Paris, but ultimately from Aristotle's pet component of any literary work of merit: the plot. And "Gigi" has a plot that never fades for an instant. In truly entertaining fashion we watch as the fate of the heroine's innocence comes to hang on the edge of a knife from the movie's sunny beginning to its climactic end. For lovely, irresistible Paris is, in reality, a turbulent arena where the innocent are thrown to all the well-tailored wolves of Society, to fend for themselves with nothing but their hearts and their integrity as protection against a life-lived-hollow.

The watchword for "Gigi" is paradox, that steady companion of reality. Look for it everywhere, in the boredom that pervades the intricate lives of the rich elite versus the interest and charm that young Gigi exudes when she simply enters a room. The simple, the "straight of heart," are the enviable ones, while the titans gnash their teeth (and one another's) in their futile pursuit of a remedy for an ennui that becomes downright pathological. Leisure becomes the hardest work of all for the upper classes; titillation requires higher and higher doses, until no amount of frivolity - France's special export to the world - will give joy. Where, the movie asks, is all this legendary Gallic joie-de-vivre? The wealthiest of them all, Gaston (played to perfection by Louis Jordan), is so far past the pursuit of money that he alone of his class has the composure to look around himself, take his life's bearings, and realize that the Emperor is quite naked. And so he is driven on his strange, unconscious heroic quest to live an authentic life. It begins when, on an impulse, he hops out of a carriage ride with his uncle, Paris's veteran joie-de-vivre mentor (played to sheer magnificence by Maurice Chevalier), and seeks refuge in the simple house of Hermione Gingold, who plays Gigi's grandmother.

Chevalier represents the Parisian romantic idol of his age. One gets the feeling in watching him in "Gigi" that he was almost spending his entire movie career simply in apprenticeship for this seminal role. For I do not think we could really understand the frantic romanticizing of the 19th century French without his incredibly compelling, appealing performance - it flows so naturally from his every pore that it seems less like acting than living the bon vivant code he preaches. And yet, having reached the pinnacle of self-interest, Parisian style, he is still touched by Gigi's grandmother, just as his nephew is ultimately won over to real love by the innocent one, Gigi herself. We are, in fact, educable! And the undercurrent of joy that pervades this masterpiece of filmmaking is centered around this buoyant theme: we can all be taught to realize virtue.

Gigi is Gaston's soulmate, though neither knows what that means at the movie's start. He is too emotionally stunted to realize she is a woman - and wouldn't know what to do with a woman besides woo her - and she is unaware that she is leaving childhood. The movie chronicles the maturing of both partners-to-be: Gigi from physical and emotional adolescence to womanhood, Gaston from the emotional adolescence that Society has demanded, to manhood. There is realism in the depiction of all this gaiety, as we watch Gaston try desperately to follow his uncle's "sage" advice, clinging sulkingly to his boorish, feckless bachelorhood and blaming Gigi for being "unreasonable" in wanting marriage over a high-priced affair. His antics make him the more likeable, as we identify with whatever false ideal we might have clung to long after it had outlived its usefulness. In the case of "the Parisians" that Gigi rants against in her early soliloquy, it is the puerile, incessant pursuit of romantic adventure long after grown adults should have found their mate that has gone stale ... and made their lives atrophy as pathetic parodies of eternal 17-year olds. The victim of all this pursuing is innocence - in this case, the innocent love that a young woman can bring to her mate only once, not in the absurd repetition of romantic pursuit that characterized adulterous Paris.

Does Gigi conquer this silly, dangerous sensuality alone? No, again paradox moves to the forefront, and Gaston discovers for himself the infinite spiritual beauty of true love that Gigi has been trying to express to him. In her moment of weakness, he finds the need to become strong - and so useful to his mate. And thus in the end, love conquers its counterfeit, amorousness.

"Gigi" is a warning to our own age that has set itself on its own reckless pursuit of loving relationships, turning nature on its head in the process and life into a cosmic game of trivial pursuit. In raising before us the challenge to love, no less relevant to us now, the artist's value to Society rises above mere diversion. The challenge is whether we even now can listen to the message of "Gigi," whether we in our own jaded Society can pull back from the abyss of terminal, self-centered sensuality and rediscover the God-given joy of our heart's true desire ... innocent love become mature through fidelity.

Rating:
Summary: Great movie, poorly reproduced DVD
Review: If you want a copy of Gigi because you love the film, this is the only version available. What a shame. It was produced from a print with bobs and scratches and blurry colors and on occasion, focus. There are no special features, as with other major MGM musicals. The score is enchanting as are the performances. This is not a DVD to own, rent it, and wait for the studio to put out a restored version, whenever that may be.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and become politically and esthetically incorrect!
Review: I see the raging opinions of people who consider this an "awful" movie. This is on the grounds that the music is for "oldies" and the lyrics "inane", on the one hand. On the other hand they find the plot "mysoginistic" and machoist. Nonsense. They judge a beautiful work of art of the past with today's values. Have they considered that maybe today's values are wrong as any time values are wrong and scoffed at only some years later...? I suppose this people admire things like Brando's "The Wilde One" and things like that. They are entitled to their opinion, as we are entitled to ours.

In the first place, the music is gorgeous and exhilarating. Most of the songs are very witty, intelligent, they tell more than they seem to say. It was the great Lerner who wrote them. Is has benn considered a great musical, it won Academy awards, and it is alright. I suppose that the plot would'nt have been mysoginist if Gigi had poured wax on Gaston's back, both stark naked (to quote from a film I recently saw: "Body of evidence" with Madonna). Sure. And very realistic, too... Ha, ha...

France at the turn of the century was like that, and the film is basically faithful to Colette's short story. It is a moving story turned into a musical and a comedy. Most of the characters are amoral but personally fair. Chevalier is charming all allong, so is Leslie Caron.

So stay away those post-modern freaks, politically correct mongers and that kind of people. You'd be furious at mere joie-de-vivre and mischievous play.

Rating:
Summary: A personal Favorite!
Review: I've been watching this movie since I was a little girl and I could watch it over and ver again every day. It's a very touching story!

Rating:
Summary: Idle Rich amuse themselves musically in 1900 Paris
Review: Paris, ca. 1900. A charming Leslie Caron lives the rosy life, treated to every luxury by her wealthy grandmother, but must start worrying about settling down. A somewhat more mature suitor, Luis Jordan is torn between the worldly, sophisticated Zza Zza Gabor and the still-in-her-teens Caron.

Maurice Chevalier delivers some memorable tunes, while prancing about town, giving advice to the young ones. "Thank Heavens For Little Girls", "I Remember It Well" and the title song are outstanding. Seeing the "upper crust" live so leasurely without any care, while the masses struggle is still not exactly amusing, but increasingly offensive. Production values are top notch, as is the music, but the story is quickly aging.***