Throwback Movie Night: Gigi

Tonight's movie is the 1958 film version of "Gigi" starring Leslie Caron in the title role and Louis Jourdan as the main male actor (he was in "Three Coins in the Foutain", a possible future TMN feature film).

"Gigi" was directed by Vincent Minelli (Liza's dad), and one of the supporting actresses was Eva Gabor, who was Zsa Zsa's younger sister (and also the voice of Miss Bianca in Disney's "The Rescuers").The songs were written by the fantastic duo known as Lerner and Lowe (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe), who were also responsible for the songs of the film version of "My Fair Lady". They actually wanted Audrey Hepburn to be the leading lady in "Gigi" as she was in "My Fair Lady" but Hepburn turned them down, so they went for Caron instead.

The setting is Paris in 1900 and Gigi is a teenager who finds it difficult to fit in. She lives with her grandma and her mom (but you never see her mother, only hear her practicing her opera in some back room of the apartment), but takes courtesan lessons from her great-aunt Alecia. She learns things like how to tell if pearls are real and which jewels are the most precious, how to eat certain meals correctly, how to choose a cigar for a man, etc. Gigi would rather play cards with Gaston Lachaille, a very wealthy Parisian who, somehow, knows her grandma and has been a part of Gigi's extended family for years. Great-Aunt Alecia decides that Gaston is the perfect test for Gigi's courtesan training and sets out to 'glamify' the awkward teenager and turn her into a beauty. Gaston is at first completely shocked by the change, but of course, he comes around and in the end the two are married (happily).

There are songs galore in this film, and overall, I really liked this musical. It's not hard to see that it's done by the same people behind the 1950s classic "My Fair Lady". In some ways, it's "My Fair Lady"-Parisian style, but that didn't stop it from breaking records at the Oscars in 1959: It won 9 Oscars. It's reign atop the Oscar ladder didn't last long because Ben Hur came the next year and won even more, but still: It was beloved, despite being somewhat of a repeated storyline. According to Wikipedia, the day after Gigi won so many Oscars, the MGM studios switchboard operators answered their phones with "M-Gigi-M".