Paris est toujours Paris

One of that charming films about Paris. Today, seductive for the slices of innocence and songs and images and the young Lucia Bosse and Marcelo Mastroianni, for humor and for the clash between Italian and French cultures. Lovely in every sense.

I enjoyed this movie. I really did. Yesterday I watched like three different 50s movies and surprisingly I liked them all. This movie here takes place in Paris, the plot is pretty simple, with an Italian group of football enjoyers trying to get to see the match. They all split into different groups and go on their own adventures. Some try to pick up French women at the station, others fall in love with a tourist guide, others make friends with a local couple. I'm not someone that usually likes love in movies aswell but I have to admit I smiled when the two lovers said goodbye in the train station.

Being of Italian heritage and having visited both Italy and France many times, I found "Paris est Toujours Paris" ("Parigi e sempre Parigi") heartbreakingly true in themes and fictional format: without giving away the ending, we know very soon what each character wants and the first half of this movie sets up the inevitable second half. I found the first seemingly chaotic half hard to watch and I almost gave up but something about it kept me viewing. We see two old acquaintances, an Italian restaurant owner and a French baron, reconnect at the train station as a group of Italian tourists arrive for a short but busy stay in Paris, including a sold-out soccer match. Unlike most tour groups, these folks soon scatter to pursue their various diverse interests: see the sights, visit the Louvre, go on a shopping spree, drink champagne in the cabarets, chase women, indulge in girlie shows and a brothel - but, at the heart of this film, if we listen carefully to a very young Yves Montand, we learn a cautionary truth: due to the French Revolution, people are free to do as they please. This film personifies a philosophical truth: we are lost because we are free. One closing, night time image will forever remain in my mind - what transpires wordlessly in the rain on a steep staircase in Montmartre. "Paris is Always Paris" is a film not to be missed.

Paris will be Paris.

If you want to catch a glimpse of early fifties Paris ,this is the movie to choose : a bunch of Italian football supporters come to the French capital to cheer up their players ;but don't panic if you don 't like football :only three minutes are given over to the game in the whole movie.

The first part takes you to all the places you've got to see before you die ;please remember the guide!It'smuch fun to watch the cars ,the metro (subway) stations,and the clothes of yore : France seems to be years ahead of Italy as far as women's fashion is concerned :some tourists are much more interested in the way female Parisians are dressed and walk along the streets than in the famous monuments .

The second part is devoted to the de rigueur Paris by night ;this is a pretext to show music hall acts ;in the fifties ,it was a recurrent feature in the French movies ,for today's audience it's mostly filler,except for sociologists and for Yves Montand 's fans :he performs two songs live :" A Paris " (obvious) "Les Enfants Qui S'Aiment ";besides, his "Un Gamin De Paris" is heard during the river boat for sightseeing scene It also includes ,which was a bit daring for the time,a short scene in a gay nightclub ,complete with drag artist ,but the tourists mistook the place for a girls show.

As for the story , it does not rise above the anecdotal; we follow the tourists in their pregrinations through the streets of the capital: fiancés (Marcello Mastroianni and Lucia Bosé) have an argument in a metro station and go their own way ;a young clueless man is helped by the newspapers kiosk girl to find his way and falls in love with her ; a matron experiments French hairstyle which makes her look like Marie-antoinette ;two pals try to pick up girls in front of the metro stations ....and more .Anyway ,do not expect Duvivier's masterful " Sous Le Ciel De Paris" ,you would be diappointed.