The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)

Producer: Jack Cummings. Copyright 1954 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 18 November 1954. U.S. release: 19 November 1954. U.K. release: February 1955. Australian release: 12 March 1955. Sydney opening at the Liberty. 10,423 feet. 116 minutes. COMMENT: Elizabeth Taylor is certainly gorgeously costumed; and likewise indulgently treated by her photographer, hairdresser and make-up man. These worthies take great care to ensure that neither Eva Gabor nor Donna Reed have a hope of out-shining Liz. True, Miss Gabor is still presented in an attractive light, but Donna Reed looks positively dowdy. Still she is cast as the heavy - and her role is comparatively small anyway - so I suppose I can't reasonably complain. But what I can complain about is the acting. Just about all the acting is totally mechanical. The only exceptions are oddly enough Elizabeth Taylor herself, who brings a bit of fire and vivacity to her characterization, and to a lesser extent, Miss Gabor. The rest of the players go through their appropriate, one-dimensional emotions like wind-up automatons whom the director has set in motion: Van Johnson worried, Walter Pidgeon blasé, Donna Reed heavily serious, Kurt Kasznar ostentatiously sympathetic, Roger Moore politely punctilious, and so on. It's also obvious that the movie is directed by a writer who is inordinately in love with his own words - no matter how mundane, trite or ordinary. He has all his players speak slowly, distinctly, calmly, carefully enunciating each syllable as if offering the audience a succession of priceless jewels. So as not to distract our attention from these verbal treasures, he persistently sets up his camera in the most pedestrian and unobtrusive positions. With dialogue as dull as this, a plot that is nothing more than a slow-moving cliché, and characters so resolutely banal and impossibly stilted, it would be hard to imagine a more complete disservice to the memory and talent of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Expansively produced, with Van Johnson actually on location in Paris for some scenes, the film manages an occasional bit of flavor, even once or twice a smidgen of heart. But we hear that same old Kern/Hammerstein tune six or seven times too often. OTHER VIEWS: This emotional melodrama is bad enough judged on its own merits, but seems even worse when one considers its source - F. Scott Fitzgerald's story, Babylon Revisited. Director Richard Brooks, in collaboration with writers Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein, took a finely written, persuasively disenchanted story and turned it into a cliché-ridden tub of the most superficial twaddle. - TV Times.

Snoozy melodrama has two redeeming values -- The director repeatedly found a way to show Elizabeth Taylor barely dressed. Liz in full Technicolor negligees is probably worth 5 stars all on its own, frankly. At one point she looks in a full-length mirror and moans, ''I'll never be a size 10 again.'' Sadly, she was right. There's a bonus for fans of Young Frankenstein. About half way through The Last Time I Slept In Paris, who shows up but Eva Gabor with her turned-up nose, breathy lisp and - yes, after she changes for dinner - a blue taffeta dress. RIP Madeleine Kahn. Problem is shortly thereafter Liz and the inexplicably popular Van Johnson discover they're rich thanks to some oil wells and -- Liz hacks off her beautiful hair to resemble pixie Shirley MacLaine. Not that there's anything wrong with that when you're Shirley MacLaine, but why would Liz Taylor do so? So the producers could show the passage of time? Bad idea. Hack Van Johnson - filthy rich and married to Elixabeth Taylor - whines b/c publishers hate his writing. What an insufferable loser. Watch for Liz tearing a sheet of paper from Van's typewriter and seeing the nonsense he's written - shades of Jacko in The Shining. And lastly - holy smokes - Roger Moore was ridiculously good looking. Van Johnson might as well have just walked off the movie set right then and there.

The DVD was in a 10-pack Drama special, so I watched to see the celebrated Elizabeth Taylor. But if I'd known that the film was based on a story by F Scott Fitzgerald, I probably wouldn't have bothered.Fitzgerald's writing reflects his own pointless, selfish, self-centred, shallow and decadent life-style, and the film follows that throughout. It's an autobiography about nothing.The film is saved from getting a 1 rating by the generally good acting, and especially that of Donna Reed and Walter Pidgeon.When Charles (Johnson) meets the two daughters of another useless wastrel, (Pidgeon) he obviously like Marion (Reed) but then falls for the flashy Helen (Taylor). Perhaps later, much later, he regrets that choice.The film is set over a time span of eight or more years, but Van Johnson looks exactly the same from the first to the last scenes. Not one hair out of place in spite of once spending the whole night on the town with a broad, and later getting soaking wet! That is poor directing/producing. At least Taylor gets a new hair-style later.

It's an update of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" for writer Van Johnson (as Charles Wills), recalling his whirlwind post-World War II encounter with beautiful and curvaceous sisters Elizabeth Taylor and Donna Reed (as Helen and Marion Ellswirth), in Paris. When beautiful Ms. Taylor secures Mr. Johnson's hand in marriage, beautiful Ms. Reed weds George Dolenz (as Claude Matine). This is one of Mr. Dolenz' higher profile roles; he was the father of "The Monkees" drummer Micky Dolenz.Veteran Walter Pidgeon (as James Ellswirth) gives some worthless Texas oil wells to Johnson, as a wedding gift; then, when the oil unexpectedly starts to flow, life changes for everyone. Multi-married Hungarian beauty Eva Gabor (later of "Green Acres") distracts Johnson from Taylor, and handsome young Roger Moore (later "James Bond") distracts Taylor from Johnson. Everyone is easily distracted. Alcohol dully plays a role in the story, especially, but unconvincingly, affecting star Johnson.**** The Last Time I Saw Paris (11/18/54) Richard Brooks ~ Van Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor, Donna Reed, Walter Pidgeon