Audrey Hepburn plays a typist come to do the dictation of a famous movie writer (!) to help him finish his script.
Unfortunately, the writer (William Holden) took the producer's money weeks ago and hasn't done a scrap of work. When the typist arrives, full of hero worship, she discovers he has two days to finish and deliver a completed script -- and all he has is the title: "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower." Though "Paris" is all about how the two write the screenplay, this is not a movie about the throes of creation (any more than another comedy about a writer, "Throw momma from the Train.")
The problem with movies about writers is that a writer's life consists of sitting around staring at the blank pages in the typewriter (then) or a blank computer screen (now). Usually some outside element has to be introduced to make a movie about a writer interesting. "Paris" makes the process of writing the screenplay a surrogate for wooing, as the increasingly desperate (and amorous) Holden dictates to Hepburn (who, as an aspiring writer, offers a few suggestions of her own).
What makes this movie more a fantasy than a romantic comedy is that the movie they are writing -- "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower" -- plays out on-screen, with Holden and Hepburn taking the leads.
It must have looked really good on paper. And some of it plays well (as when Holden, after dictating the plot of his movie changes his mind and starts again from an earlier scene, making the movie-within-a-movie rewind). It's all good fun, the way these two people who are falling in love and refuse to admit it, preferring to play out their fantasies in the film they are writing. Holden and Hepburn are perfectly charming doing it.
Unfortunately, the movie they're writing is too silly for words. If this is the stuff Holden cranks out for a living, it's a wonder he's rich and famous (are any movie writers rich and/or famous?) There is some good stuff here. An unbilled Tony Curtis (a major star at the time) is a delight as he makes repeated and unflattering appearances in "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower." Curtis had made comedies ("Some Like it Hot") but was coming off several serious movies ("Taras Bulba," 'The Outsider," "The Great Impostor") when he was slipped into "Paris when it Sizzles." This movie seems to mark Curtis' slide into increasingly inconsequential 60s comedies.
More often, "Paris When it Sizzles" fizzles as it makes the mistake of the sillier 1960s comedies. For instance, at a "wild party" (a must in the more inane comedies of the period) Mel Ferrer, who everyone at the time knew as Audrey Hepburn's husband, as well as a big-screen actor in his own right, makes an unbilled cameo playing Dr. Jekyll. There's no rhyme or reason to his appearance, other than to give a giggle to readers of "Photoplay" at the appearance of Hepburn's hubbie. Yet someone must have thought Ferrer's mere appearance would have had the audience rolling in the aisles.
"Paris" possibly helped inspire that sort of 1960s wackiness where film-makers thought simply being silly for the sake of silliness, apropos of nothing, with a twist of pseudo-psychedelicness, would prove funny. "What's New Pussycat", "Casino Royale" and other nonsense ensued.
Hepburn didn't like the finished flick, and Holden may well have had this movie in mind when he wondered if acting was any way for a grown man to make a living; but "Paris" slips under the wire as a success on the star power of Holden, Hepburn and Curtis (and a billed appearance by Noel Coward, who was a grand old man of entertainment at that time, though he's too old here to show why). Even with all that star power the movie sometimes seems to be running on fumes, especially when it gets just a smidge too silly. But it never tries to be anything other than what it is. It has no pretensions. It simply is; and if you like silliness, and big movie stars acting like children, and don't want to watch a movie that makes you think much, you might enjoy this stuff.
One word about the romance angle. Much is made about the age difference between Holden and Hepburn. It's only eleven years. Hepburn was thirty-five or so at the time, while Holden was yet on the sunny side of fifty. But Holden is beginning to show wear (especially when he dons his glasses) while Hepburn (possibly due to ingenious makeup) looks fresh as a daisy. Obviously Hepburn isn't playing a thirty-five-year-old. But they're both adults and they seem to be enjoying themselves.
The biggest puzzle is the title. It seems like a better title would be "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower." But I suppose that might mislead some people into thinking it was a tense, Hitchcockian mystery.
Unfortunately, the writer (William Holden) took the producer's money weeks ago and hasn't done a scrap of work. When the typist arrives, full of hero worship, she discovers he has two days to finish and deliver a completed script -- and all he has is the title: "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower." Though "Paris" is all about how the two write the screenplay, this is not a movie about the throes of creation (any more than another comedy about a writer, "Throw momma from the Train.")
The problem with movies about writers is that a writer's life consists of sitting around staring at the blank pages in the typewriter (then) or a blank computer screen (now). Usually some outside element has to be introduced to make a movie about a writer interesting. "Paris" makes the process of writing the screenplay a surrogate for wooing, as the increasingly desperate (and amorous) Holden dictates to Hepburn (who, as an aspiring writer, offers a few suggestions of her own).
What makes this movie more a fantasy than a romantic comedy is that the movie they are writing -- "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower" -- plays out on-screen, with Holden and Hepburn taking the leads.
It must have looked really good on paper. And some of it plays well (as when Holden, after dictating the plot of his movie changes his mind and starts again from an earlier scene, making the movie-within-a-movie rewind). It's all good fun, the way these two people who are falling in love and refuse to admit it, preferring to play out their fantasies in the film they are writing. Holden and Hepburn are perfectly charming doing it.
Unfortunately, the movie they're writing is too silly for words. If this is the stuff Holden cranks out for a living, it's a wonder he's rich and famous (are any movie writers rich and/or famous?) There is some good stuff here. An unbilled Tony Curtis (a major star at the time) is a delight as he makes repeated and unflattering appearances in "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower." Curtis had made comedies ("Some Like it Hot") but was coming off several serious movies ("Taras Bulba," 'The Outsider," "The Great Impostor") when he was slipped into "Paris when it Sizzles." This movie seems to mark Curtis' slide into increasingly inconsequential 60s comedies.
More often, "Paris When it Sizzles" fizzles as it makes the mistake of the sillier 1960s comedies. For instance, at a "wild party" (a must in the more inane comedies of the period) Mel Ferrer, who everyone at the time knew as Audrey Hepburn's husband, as well as a big-screen actor in his own right, makes an unbilled cameo playing Dr. Jekyll. There's no rhyme or reason to his appearance, other than to give a giggle to readers of "Photoplay" at the appearance of Hepburn's hubbie. Yet someone must have thought Ferrer's mere appearance would have had the audience rolling in the aisles.
"Paris" possibly helped inspire that sort of 1960s wackiness where film-makers thought simply being silly for the sake of silliness, apropos of nothing, with a twist of pseudo-psychedelicness, would prove funny. "What's New Pussycat", "Casino Royale" and other nonsense ensued.
Hepburn didn't like the finished flick, and Holden may well have had this movie in mind when he wondered if acting was any way for a grown man to make a living; but "Paris" slips under the wire as a success on the star power of Holden, Hepburn and Curtis (and a billed appearance by Noel Coward, who was a grand old man of entertainment at that time, though he's too old here to show why). Even with all that star power the movie sometimes seems to be running on fumes, especially when it gets just a smidge too silly. But it never tries to be anything other than what it is. It has no pretensions. It simply is; and if you like silliness, and big movie stars acting like children, and don't want to watch a movie that makes you think much, you might enjoy this stuff.
One word about the romance angle. Much is made about the age difference between Holden and Hepburn. It's only eleven years. Hepburn was thirty-five or so at the time, while Holden was yet on the sunny side of fifty. But Holden is beginning to show wear (especially when he dons his glasses) while Hepburn (possibly due to ingenious makeup) looks fresh as a daisy. Obviously Hepburn isn't playing a thirty-five-year-old. But they're both adults and they seem to be enjoying themselves.
The biggest puzzle is the title. It seems like a better title would be "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower." But I suppose that might mislead some people into thinking it was a tense, Hitchcockian mystery.