Gigi (1958)
Directed by Vincente Minnelli

Film Review

Vincente Minnelli's last notable work as a director was the enormously popular film musical, Gigi.  The songs and lyrics were supplied by the screenwriter-composer team Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, who subsequently collaborated on My Fair Lady (1964).  With some unforgettable musical numbers (Thank Heaven for Little Girls, I Remember it Well and The Night They Invented Champagne, to name just three), sumptuous fin de siècle sets and costumes and pleasing acting performances, the film's commercial success was pretty well assured.  Not surprisingly, the film triumphed at the Academy Awards, winning Oscars in nine categories, including best film, best director and best screenplay (but no awards for the acting).

Despite its phenomenal box office success, Gigi has fared less well with the passing of time than other popular film musicals of its era.   The film portrays men as unfeeling Don Juan characters, driven by a social obligation to bed as many women as possible, whilst women not only submit to this game but train themselves to make a career out of it.   Not what you might call politically correct.   More worryingly, an old man with leering eyes and a crooked smile ogles young girls whilst crooning “Zank 'Eavenz for Little Girls…” - imbuing the film with just a touch of eccentric paedophilia which most households in our enlightened age would find slightly unacceptable.  What the film shows more than perhaps anything else is how tastes and sensibilities have changed in the four decades since its initial release - and not necessarily for the better.

Despite its somewhat morally suspect undertones, Gigi does have a capacity to charm and delight its audience and is in essence a very effective piece of escapist fun.  Whilst not all of its songs hit the mark (and some are frankly over-long and tedious), others are uplifting, delightful and poignant.  French actor Louis Jourdan gives a sympathetic performance as the film's male lead, by far the most significant film role in his otherwise lacklustre career.  Leslie Caron was 27 when she played the role of Gigi in this film - not that you would notice.  Although she is convincing as the rebellious adolescent, Caron does not have the screen presence to bring the film truly alive, and one regrets that the part was not given to Audrey Hepburn, who played Gigi to great acclaim on Broadway.   The film allowed the famed French actor-singer Maurice Chevalier to redeem himself in America after his dubious wartime activities in the 1940s (where he allegedly spent much of the war entertaining German troops).   Chevalier's duet with Hermione Gingold remains one of the film's highpoints.

Gigi may not have merited the accolades that came its way when it was first released, but neither does it deserve to be forgotten and dismissed as a poor relation of My Fair Lady.  The film stands on its own merits and, in particular, makes an entertaining satire of the great bourgeois art of social climbing.  For all its sins, Gigi deserves to be much better regarded than it is.

Film Synopsis

Paris, 1900.  The wealthy man of leisure, Gaston Lachaille, is bored with society women - unlike his ageing uncle Honoré, who has lost none of his enthusiasm for playing the field.  For Gaston, a happy go lucky adolescent named Gigi makes a refreshing change.  The daughter of an opera singer, she comes from a modest background, but her grandmother and aunt have high hopes that she will become a successful courtesan, with some coaching.  When Gaston reveals his true feelings for her, Gigi is shocked, convinced that she will just be the latest in his long line of ill-fated mistresses…