"April in Paris" was originally a song from a 1932 Broadway musical revue entitled "Walk a Little Faster". Although the show was not a great success, the song proved highly popular and was recorded by a number of artists. The story goes that a friend of the lyricist E Y Harburg was inspired by its romantic picture of Paris in springtime to visit the French capital during that month but his holiday was ruined by bad weather. Upon his return to America he complained loudly to Harburg who replied "I wouldn't know. I've never been to Paris in April. I was there in June but I needed two syllables to fit the music".
Some twenty years later the title came to the attention of someone in Hollywood who decided (as Hollywood producers sometimes do) that it was too good to waste on a mere song and that should also be a film entitled "April in Paris", and this is the result. "Pretty Woman" and "Sweet Home Alabama" are more recent examples of the same phenomenon. Despite the title, only the last few scenes actually take place in Paris; most of the action takes place in Washington, New York or on a transatlantic liner.
Samuel Winthrop Putnam is a junior official with the US State Department. (His official title is Assistant Secretary to the Assistant to the Undersecretary of State). He has been tasked with organising American participation in an International Festival of the Arts in Paris. He intends to invite Ethel Barrymore to represent American theatre, but owing to a mix-up the invitation is sent to a Broadway chorus girl named Ethel Jackson. (It is never explained how this happens. It might have been more plausible if the heroine had a surname like "Barrington" or "Barrowman" rather than "Jackson"). This being a romantic comedy, Ethel and Winthrop have to meet on the way to Paris and fall in love.
This being a romantic comedy, however, there also have to be a couple of obstacles to their love. The first is that Winthrop (or Sam, as Ethel prefers to call him) is engaged to Marcia, the pushy, snobbish daughter of his boss. The second is that Ethel seems to have a second admirer in the shape of French singer Philippe Fouquet, although it is eventually revealed that Philippe is actually a happily married family man. (He needs to keep this embarrassing secret hidden from the French public who like to believe that all French public figures, especially entertainers, are successful skirt-chasing lotharios).
Doris Day can be something of an acquired taste and. I must admit, one I have never really been able to acquire, particularly in romantic comedy where she could come across as being just too sugary sweet to be true, as she does here. Ethel may be nicknamed "Dynamite", but she gives little hint of anything explosive hidden beneath her placid exterior. Ray Bolger seemed miscast as Winthrop; he would have been 48 in 1952, old enough to be Doris Day's father. This may not always have mattered in the fifties, when older man/younger woman love stories were the rule rather than the exception in the cinema, but in this particular film the age difference seems inappropriate. Winthrop, who has been with the State Department for ten years and still has hopes of promotion followed by a political career, is probably supposed to be in his early thirties, not his late forties. Bolger, moreover, did not have a particularly good singing voice, although on the evidence of this film he was clearly a talented dancer.
Quite apart from the casting, the main problem with this film (which is, after all, supposed to be a musical) lies with the music. About the only songs which remain in the memory are the title song (written twenty years earlier) and "Auprès de ma Blonde", a traditional French folksong. The original songs written for the film itself are all very bland and forgettable. The film is also supposed to be a comedy, but much of the humour seems tame and contrived. (When the action finally moves to Paris, there is a running gag about the April weather not living up to Ethel's expectations; the scriptwriter must have heard that same anecdote about Harburg and his friend). "April in Paris" seems to have been popular when it first appeared in 1952, but it is one of those films which has lost much of its appeal over the years. 5/10
Some twenty years later the title came to the attention of someone in Hollywood who decided (as Hollywood producers sometimes do) that it was too good to waste on a mere song and that should also be a film entitled "April in Paris", and this is the result. "Pretty Woman" and "Sweet Home Alabama" are more recent examples of the same phenomenon. Despite the title, only the last few scenes actually take place in Paris; most of the action takes place in Washington, New York or on a transatlantic liner.
Samuel Winthrop Putnam is a junior official with the US State Department. (His official title is Assistant Secretary to the Assistant to the Undersecretary of State). He has been tasked with organising American participation in an International Festival of the Arts in Paris. He intends to invite Ethel Barrymore to represent American theatre, but owing to a mix-up the invitation is sent to a Broadway chorus girl named Ethel Jackson. (It is never explained how this happens. It might have been more plausible if the heroine had a surname like "Barrington" or "Barrowman" rather than "Jackson"). This being a romantic comedy, Ethel and Winthrop have to meet on the way to Paris and fall in love.
This being a romantic comedy, however, there also have to be a couple of obstacles to their love. The first is that Winthrop (or Sam, as Ethel prefers to call him) is engaged to Marcia, the pushy, snobbish daughter of his boss. The second is that Ethel seems to have a second admirer in the shape of French singer Philippe Fouquet, although it is eventually revealed that Philippe is actually a happily married family man. (He needs to keep this embarrassing secret hidden from the French public who like to believe that all French public figures, especially entertainers, are successful skirt-chasing lotharios).
Doris Day can be something of an acquired taste and. I must admit, one I have never really been able to acquire, particularly in romantic comedy where she could come across as being just too sugary sweet to be true, as she does here. Ethel may be nicknamed "Dynamite", but she gives little hint of anything explosive hidden beneath her placid exterior. Ray Bolger seemed miscast as Winthrop; he would have been 48 in 1952, old enough to be Doris Day's father. This may not always have mattered in the fifties, when older man/younger woman love stories were the rule rather than the exception in the cinema, but in this particular film the age difference seems inappropriate. Winthrop, who has been with the State Department for ten years and still has hopes of promotion followed by a political career, is probably supposed to be in his early thirties, not his late forties. Bolger, moreover, did not have a particularly good singing voice, although on the evidence of this film he was clearly a talented dancer.
Quite apart from the casting, the main problem with this film (which is, after all, supposed to be a musical) lies with the music. About the only songs which remain in the memory are the title song (written twenty years earlier) and "Auprès de ma Blonde", a traditional French folksong. The original songs written for the film itself are all very bland and forgettable. The film is also supposed to be a comedy, but much of the humour seems tame and contrived. (When the action finally moves to Paris, there is a running gag about the April weather not living up to Ethel's expectations; the scriptwriter must have heard that same anecdote about Harburg and his friend). "April in Paris" seems to have been popular when it first appeared in 1952, but it is one of those films which has lost much of its appeal over the years. 5/10