Paris Blues (1961)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Martin Ritt

Writers:

Walter Bernstein (writer)
Harold Flender (novel)

Release Date:

27 September 1961 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Tagline:

A Love So Spectacular, So Personally Exciting, You Feel It Happening To You!

Plot:

Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time...

Plot Keywords:

Relationship | Guitarist | Beautiful Woman | African American | Love vs Career

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Paul Newman	...	Ram Bowen
Joanne Woodward	...	Lillian Corning
Sidney Poitier	...	Eddie Cook
Louis Armstrong	...	Wild Man Moore
Diahann Carroll	...	Connie Lampson
Barbara Laage	...	Marie Seoul
André Luguet	...	Rene Bernard
Marie Versini	...	Nicole
Moustache	...	Drummer
Aaron Bridgers	...	Pianist
Guy Pederson	...	Bass Player
Serge Reggiani	...	Michel Duvigne
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Emilien Antille	...	Man with alto sax in jazz cave when Armstrong enters

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | USA:Approved (PCA #19792)

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Diane Productions

Quotes:

Lillian Corning: You know, everybody's always waiting for everybody else to take a chance because they're so afraid!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Century of Black Cinema (2003) (V)

"The Frenchmen's all prefer what they call, le jazz hot."

The American in Paris theme has been done very often in American cinema. The tradition is huge splashy technicolor with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Audrey Hepburn cavorting around the well known streets and landmarks. Those are nice films, but that ain't what you get here.

No Louvre, no Arc de Triomphe, no Eiffel Tower, a brief shot of Notre Dame from a distance; that's about it from the well known Paris. The Paris we see here in this black and white film is of the jazz clubs of the Left Bank where two expatriate musicians, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier, eke out a living doing what they love.

Newman has ambitions though, he'd like to be a serious composer not a trombonist all his life. Poitier has come to Paris for reasons of the race problems in the USA.

Into their lives two American tourists come, Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll. A couple of dual romances commence.

Carroll and Poitier have a spirited debate over civil rights. The movement is getting into high gear in America and Carroll wants him to return and be part of it. No thanks, says Poitier, he just wants to do his jazz thing where his skin color isn't anyone's problem least of all his own.

Interestingly Carroll was doing a kind of warm up for another part of a black woman in Paris on Broadway the following year in Richard Rodgers, No Strings. In that play she falls for an expatriate writer played by Richard Kiley. An interracial romance, one of the first shown on the Broadway stage, still a lot of the same issues were in that show.

Paris Blues is a different slice of Parisian life for an American film to explore. All four leads do just fine, though the film probably doesn't rank in the top work of any of them.

Lots of jazz music for the aficionado. And of course the presence of the incomparable Louis Armstrong. The highlight of the film is the jam session with those two ersatz musicians Newman and Poitier.

The way Satchmo is received by the public only proves the truth of that line he sang in High Society about the way the French love American jazz.