I have never been to Paris, but I wonder what it is about the place that lends itself to films about assorted, unrelated characters. The first one that comes to my mind is 2006’s Paris, Je T’aime, but that may be supplanted by 1953’s Innocents in Paris now that I have seen it.
This charming and effervescent film is a comedy with touches of light drama. That comedy is played in a variety of manners, depending upon the characters.
The cast is a solid mix of people recognizable to Anglophiles with an interest in a particular era of cinema. Chief among these is Alastair Sim as a seriously straight-laced government official of some sort, sent as the delegate for an international economic conference. Margaret Rutherford, the best incarnation of Miss Marple, is basically that character without a mystery to solve, and instead having strong interest in capturing the city in painting. A young Claire Bloom goes looking for love. I’m not sure what the Scot James Copeland hopes to find there, but he might find love as well. Ronald Shiner is a doofus in the Army marching band, there with the rest of the corps to assist in the Tour de France in some capacity I never fully ascertained.
These various British fish find themselves out of water now that they’re on the other side of the channel. Sim experiences great difficulty getting Soviet counterpart Peter Illing to say yes to any proposal he floats, until the two bond over a long night of serious drinking at a Russian bar, resulting in a signed agreement written on a tablecloth. The stuffy Jimmy Edwards finds a home away from home, when he seemingly spends the entire weekend in an establishment that is a British pub which is even ran by an actual Brit. Bloom will be wooed by Claude Dauphin, who I initially assumed was the personification of Pepe Le Pew, only for him to be surprisingly more nuanced and less of a cad than I expected. Copeland will meet a young woman (Monique Gerard) in an honest-to-god meet-cute where she repairs his kilt after he tears it in an accidental recreation of the famous Mailyn Monroe “skirt over an updraft” bit. Shiner almost engages the services of beautiful prostitute Gaby Bruyere until he sees her putting her daughter to bed, and he decides to just leave her the money. However nice that gesture might be, I wondered if he realized she is still just going to be turning tricks every night after that.
I was surprised by that outcome of Shiner’s adventures, as his storyline has the broadest, coarsest comedy. In comparison, the funniest parts of Sim’s storyline are rather refined, in keeping with this being an unusual turn for the actor who had usually played either rascals or mischievous detectives. Rutherford has many of the best bits, such as when she unwittingly finds ones of her paintings in competition for purchase by a patron of the arts. Even better is when she confuses a Louvre guard by asking about the Brit she met the day before, while he thinks she’s asking if he has seen Da Vinci walking around the place.
Although this is a largely set-bound production, there is still much location footage. One especially interesting moment has Shiner visiting the real Moulin Rouge. I never knew it had a ceiling fan which is the blades of a windmill. One thing I found deeply bizarre is this military man’s sheepish reaction to the can-can routine. Similarly, he is appalled by pornographic photos a man on the street tries to sell him. I guess Shiner has been in the military since the 1800’s and was raised by Puritans.
There are lots of odd little quirks here, some more intentional than others. Copeland gets a great deal of attention from French women amused by the sight of a man essentially wearing a skirt, with one of them providing the interesting contrast of her being the one wearing the pants. And something I could not anticipate is Bloom waking up in Dauphin’s apartment and she turns from the window to reveal she has transformed into a dead ringer for Sarah Silverman. I also like the bit where Bloom cooks a full English for him and he disposes of the contents of his plate into an urn when she’s out of the room. I wonder what he did with that urn afterwards? I like to think he threw it away instead of just emptying and cleaning it.
One thing I couldn’t help but think throughout the runtime is how different things must have been then. Like seemingly every movie of this kind and at that time, it seems the Tour de France must have been happening one a week, given it is always there to disrupt the attempts of people to cross a street blocked for it. Then there’s the Mona Lisa, which apparently used to be larger and just right out there in the open for the very few visitors to observe it. That guy who has been trying to paint a copy of it every day tells Rutherford that “there’s something between me and the Mona Lisa.” That would be quite true if this was the present day, as he would find between himself and the painting a huge crowd and thick bulletproof glass.
There’s even more to find and enjoy in Innocents in Paris, but I will leave that to the viewer to discover. One thing I will say is I was surprised by cameos from Christopher Lee (in what isn’t even a speaking part), Richard Wattis (in the Richard Wattis role) and Kenneth Williams (already playing the kind of flamboyantly gay man his career would be built on).
Dir: Gordon Parry
Starring a ton of people. Just read the review.
Watched on StudioCanal UK blu-ray (region B).