Destinazione Parigi

This isn't a great movie. There's no singing, no dancing, not even any Technicolor. The story is pleasant but fairly obvious; there are no real surprises.

But it's worth watching.

Briefly, it's the story of two children in a Swiss boarding school who miss their parents and decide to head to Paris to find them. Because they don't have much money, and because the story depends on it, they set off on foot, hitching rides, etc., until they finally get to Paris.

Meanwhile, their parents try to find them and keep just missing them, all the way to Paris.

None of that is particularly interesting.

What is interesting, instead, are the vignettes of French country and small-town life that fill most of the movie. (The scenes involving the British army on maneuvers don't fit with this and are the weakest part of the movie.) I won't claim that this is a documentary; it's not meant to be. But it's a pleasantly romantic view of small-town and country life in France in the post-War years, and that is interesting.

Eventually the hard-working American businessman, father of the escaped boy, learns something from these people, and that's a little forced. *Mame* will teach the same lesson much better a year later, with much better dialogue.

But this is a pleasant way to think about what is now a lost world, and to wonder what of it might be retained today.

As I said, don't expect a masterpiece. Don't expect another *Gigot*, which is really a wonderful movie. But do expect to spend a pleasant 99 minutes.

The Happy Road was Gene Kelly's next to last film on his MGM contract and this was a personal project in which he not only starred in, but directed and produced as well. Probably something to pass the time of day while he was waiting for his final full blown musical Les Girls.

The film is best however when the kids are in front of the camera. The very simple story involves Kelly's son Bobby Clark who runs away from the Swiss boarding school his father has put him in to go to Paris and be with him. He also wants to prove how self reliant is. His good friend Brigette Fossey decides to join him on the odyssey and prove the same to her divorcée mother Barbara Laage.

Whatever else they do, the kids prove they're self reliant, they have the French police totally at their wits end, not to mention a bunch of NATO troops out on maneuvers, embarrassing their commanding officer Michael Redgrave no end.

Kelly is a concerned father, but he's also a poster child for the ugly American. He wasn't doing all that much for Franco-American relations with his exasperation about the French way of doing things. Laage kind of smooths out the rough edges in him by the time film ends.

With a title song sung over the opening credits by Maurice Chevalier and the film shot in France, The Happy Road will not rank as one of Gene Kelly's great films. But it's a pleasant diversion and very good for juvenile audiences.

What a fun film! Gene Kelly's sophisticated slapstick style permeates this movie. You can tell he was greatly influenced by Chaplin or Keaton as many of the scenes with Gene and Barbara are visual gags that are still funny today. Oh and the two young leads are great actors, refreshing for the 50s when most kids delivered their lines as if reading a book. The whole production is pure sunshine! J'adore!

It's been a long time since I saw this movie, so I don't really remember enough details to rate it fairly. I do, however, dislike the preceding review in which the reviewer is commenting more on Kelly's life choices than on the movie itself. If you don't like movies about children running away, I have a suggestion: Don't Watch Them! That's like buying tickets to the ballet knowing you don't like ballets.

If you ready Kelly's biography, you'll find out there were several reasons he chose to live and work in France for some time. One of the chief reasons being that the golden age of musicals in Hollywood was winding down and he wasn't finding much work here in the states.

Yes, I realize I'm guilty of filling this post with commentary on Kelly's life choices as I just admonished the previous poster for doing. But I felt Kelly was unfairly pigeon-holed as being a Francophile by an under-educated reviewer with an innate dislike for this type of movie.

This film is a comedy adventure story about an American boy and a French girl who escape their Swiss boarding school and set off for Paris, where their parents live. Gene Kelly plays the boy's father, Mike, and Barbara Laage plays Suzanne, the mother of the girl.

Directed and produced by Gene Kelly, "The Happy Road" is just that--a happy story about life on the road. There is never any real angst over the missing children. The film plays as a farce among the small towns and back roads of France. In some parts there is little dialogue, reminiscent of Mr. Hulot. This is another example of Mr. Kelly creatively branching out from the traditional format of musicals.

Thrust together by circumstance, the two parents, trade barbs about Americans and French, but learn to cooperate as their children thwart the efforts of gendarmes and generals trying to intercept their path.

Children might enjoy this film as much as, or more than, adults.