Paris When It Sizzles

                         

Richard Quine's Paris When It Sizzles is a romantic comedy misfire from 1964. William Holden plays an alcoholic screenwriter who needs to crank out a script for producer Noel Coward over the Bastille Day weekend. Audrey Hepburn plays the world's chicest typist who assists Holden and ends up falling for the bloody mary swilling lug. A telling credit is Hubert de Givenchy's for Ms. Hepburn's gowns and perfume. Too bad the film wasn't released in Smell-O-Vision or Odorama.

The production was a contractual obligation for both Holden and Hepburn and it feels like it. The two had had an affair during the making of Sabrina and Holden, whose career was in decline and was struggling in the depths of alcoholic despair, wanted to rekindle his romance with Hepburn. The married Hepburn put the kibosh to that and Holden responded by going on a bender. Director Quine had sensed trouble brewing before the shoot and had rented a house next to Holden's in order to keep him in line, but it was not to be. Holden took multiple breaks from the production in an attempt to deal with his lifelong problem. The filming, which occurred during the summer of 1962, was rancorous. Hepburn thought that Claude Renoir's photography was unflattering to her and had him replaced with Charles Lang. Tony Curtis is featured in an uncredited supporting role. Marlene Dietrich and Hepburn's then husband Mel Ferrer, presumably vigilant, have cameos. Paramount soon knew they had a lemon on their hands and sat on the film for over a year. 

Hepburn fits right in with the glittering artifice of the picture. She has little to do but flit her eyelashes, wear a fluffy negligee, and look gorgeous. I only half believed William Holden as an alcoholic writer. He lacks the urbane sophistication required for the role. He was better suited for hard-boiled Yankees. Holden looks labored doing the physical schtick required for the role. Quine lacks the physical finesse displayed by his former writing partner Blake Edwards whose Euro based productions of the era have similar antics.

George Axelrod based his script on a Julian Duvivier film, Holiday for Henrietta. What pleasure I derived from Paris When It Sizzles stems from its wigged out script. Axelrod was riding high after the success of Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Manchurian Candidate and used Duvivier's script as a springboard to parody Hollywood genres. Hepburn and Holden spend most of the movie enacting an everchanging film within a film that starts in the heist genre, but morphs into a spy movie, a romcom, a Western and even a monster movie. Axelrod takes a few jabs at Godard and Resnais and leaves us a few choice bon mots. Hepburn intones knowingly at one point, "Did you realize that Frankenstein and My Fair Lady are the same story."