Paris When It Sizzles


Paris When It Sizzles is a 1964 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Quine, and produced by Quine and George Axelrod. The screenplay is by Axelrod based on the 1952 French film Holiday for Henrietta by Julien Duvivier and Henri Jeanson. The film stars William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, and features Grégoire Aslan, Raymond Bussières, Noël Coward, and Tony Curtis.
The film's title derives from the Cole Porter song "I Love Paris":
I love Paris in the springtime
I love Paris in the fall
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles

Plot

Alexander Meyerheim hires veteran playboy screenwriter, Richard Benson to write a screenplay. Overly immersed in his playboy lifestyle, Benson procrastinates writing the script until two days before the due date. Gabrielle Simpson, a temp secretary Benson hired to type the script, arrives at Richard's hotel room, only to discover that little has been written. Richard tells her that Alexander will be by Sunday morning, in two days time, and that they have that long to write a hundred and thirty-eight page script.
Richard and Gabrielle then begin to weave a script together, and Richard is awakened and inspired by the beautiful Gabrielle. They imagine various scenarios for his screenplay, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, which is based on their unfolding romance as Gabrielle goes back and forth between thinking Richard is a good man and her budding attraction to her, and her hesitance considering he referred to himself as a "liar and a thief" for taking Meyerheim's money and not delivering the script earlier. The screenplay, with small but inspired and comedic roles for Noël Coward, Tony Curtis, and other famous stars of the era, spoofs the movie industry, actors, studio heads, and itself, and is rife with allusions to the iconic earlier roles of Hepburn and Holden.

Cast

Some members of the cast have roles in The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, the film-within-the-film.
ActorRoleRole in the
film-within-the-film
Audrey HepburnGabrielle SimpsonGaby
William HoldenRichard BensonRick
Grégoire Aslan Police Inspector Gilet
Raymond Bussières François, the gangster
Tony Curtis Gaby's narcissistic boyfriend; Maurice, the second policeman
Noël CowardAlexander MeyerheimThe Producer

;Cast notes:
The film, whose working title was Together in Paris, is a remake of the 1952 French film Holiday for Henrietta, directed by Julien Duvivier. Paramount exercised an option on their contracts with both Hepburn and Holden, forcing them to make the film together. Holden, having had an affair with Hepburn during the making of Sabrina a decade earlier and been in love with her ever since, attempted without success to rekindle a romance with the now-married actress. Holden's alcoholism was also a constant challenge for Quine, who moved into a rented house next to Holden's during production to keep an eye on him. Holden later commented on both of the problems:
Curtis was brought into the production to film during a week when Holden was undergoing treatment for his alcoholism at the prompting of the director. Noel Coward worked on the film for three days, and a cameo from Marlene Dietrich meant to duplicate the many cameos of Around the World in 80 Days.
The film was shot at the Billancourt Studios and on location around Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Jean d'Eaubonne. Audrey Hepburn's choice for cinematographer was Franz Planer who had photographed her in several of her films. With Planer being ill, Hepburn agreed to the use of Claude Renoir, however Charles Lang replaced Renoir as the director of photography during production, a change demanded by Hepburn after she saw what she felt were unflattering dailies.
Hepburn shot the film in the summer of 1962, back-to-back with Charade, which she shot that fall. The films shared several locations, most notably a Punch and Judy puppet theatre in the park in front of the Théâtre Marigny.
Though finished shooting in October 1962, a screening at Paramount led to studio to deem the film unreleasable with the exception of the attraction of its two stars.

Reception

Variety called Paris When It Sizzles "marshmallow-weight hokum", and quoted a line from the film as an apt description of the film itself: "contrived, utterly preposterous, and totally unmotivated"; it complimented the two leads, saying Hepburn is a "refreshingly individual creature in an era of the exaggerated curve", and Holden "handles his assignment commendably".
Time magazine said the film was "a multimillion dollar improvisation that does everything but what the title promises" and suggested that "writer George Axelrod and director Richard Quine should have taken a hint from Holden, who writes his movie, takes a long sober look at what he has wrought, and burns it."
Turner Classic Movies notes that "critics uniformly panned" the film, but said it "has earned a reputation as a guilty pleasure for those who enjoy in-joke movie spoofs and an absurdist storyline played out against the glorious backdrop of the City of Light".

Film-within-the-film

In February 1964, Dell Publishing issued a paperback novelization by then-veteran tie-in author Saul Cooper. There may have been some editorial confusion in coordinating the copyediting and design stages of the book's production, however, because the byline on the cover is "Michael Milner", while on the title page, the byline is that of fictional screenwriter "Richard Benson", the story's male lead. The Benson attribution is amusingly fitting, as Cooper's novelistic approach was to narrate the story in the first person, using Benson's voice and perspective. But that's what makes it seem to be a publishing glitch that the cover byline should be yet another pseudonym, rather than a follow-through with the literary conceit.