Baci da Parigi

FRENCH POSTCARDS is one of those movies you watch when there's nothing else on (at least that was the case for me). It's a harmless little movie with some nice shots of Paris and a story you've probably seen in dozens of other movies. It also has a couple of lovely French actresses (France-Piser and Quennessen)and a pretty American (Baker). And stay on the lookout for Debra Winger, before she was a star. It's a likeable movie overall.

This fitfully flavoursome fromage about a naïve group of over-excitable American students experiencing a modestly hedonistic year of wine, women, and deliciously bad French rock music at a school in picturesque Paris, perhaps, offers the more forgiving, farce-minded viewers some fairly stale Poisson out of water shtick. These disparate, moderately endearing student protagonists 'studying' at the somewhat less-than august-looking 'Institute of French Studies' predictably fall into distinctly pre-digested food groups, the lonely, uptight wasp busybody (Blanche Baker), the nebbish nerd that somewhat miraculously gets the lava-hot mademoiselle (Miles Chapin), the self-appointed, would-be artisan Lothario (David Marshall Grant) who frustratingly gets the bums rush, and a youthful, barely used, quick-quipping Debra Winger form the savoury base of this salty bouillabaisse! There are noisome, sardonic skits about eating snails, clunky ruminations about the myriad, meaningless miasmas of human existence, a smattering of not so amiable couplings, some bemusingly bad, frisson-less bedroom farcing about, and a scintillatingly sexy sprinkle of groovy Gallic disco, plus an abjectly awful cameo by Mandy Patinkin as a skeezoid Iranian on the make, and legendary French Thespian Jean Rochefort's justifiably acerbic disdain for his students seems wholly genuine, and Huyck's sickly saccharine conclusion is nauseatingly glib, but, for reasons that momentarily elude me, there is something weirdly edifying about the ingenuous Miles Chapin heroically hooking up with a sublimely frisky French hottie (Valérie Quennessen), so, maybe, I somewhat reluctantly enjoyed the benign, wholesomely fluffy-headed frolics in 'French Postcards' a little more than I would be prepared to admit in public! The garishly goofy 'French Postcards gets my stamp of approval! All winsome word-japery aside, I genuinely dug on Lee Holdrige's magnifique score, and the gracefully beautiful Marie-France Pisier is truly mesmerizing to behold as wet dream supreme, the triumphantly titillating teacher Madame Catherine Tessier!

This film is a must see for anyone who has ever been an American exchange student abroad. It perfectly captures the mixture of foreignness and familiar that is part and parcel of the exchange experience. The different types of approaches that one might have to an exchange year abroad are well illustrated.

It is, by no means, a great film, but it continues to endure in my memory as a good representation of what my year in Brazil, broadly speaking, was like. Lots of attractive actors, beautiful scenes and a surprising amount of humorous and witty dialog.

I have this on videotape, but the soundtrack has been changed from the original release and the subsequent showings on HBO. The most noticeable change is the opening scene on the bus. Madame Tessier is welcoming the new exchange students to France and tells them they need to immerse themselves in French culture and leave America behind. The bus driver, irritated with her prattling, pops in a tape of a band doing a French version of Do You Believe In Magic (The Lovin' Spoonful). It totally captures how American culture has infiltrated the world's cultures. In the videotape release they replace this song with some generic pop music. They must not have been willing to pay for the musical rights to the song. It's not quite as effective, but it is still a great start to a fun, romantic movie about coming of age in a foreign land.

This truly is a delightful, lite film that will give you a 95 minute taste of living abroad. Rent it if you can and hope that it shows up on DVD sometime soon.

"French Postcards" is a light-hearted romantic comedy that was probably seen by more people on cable TV than in the theater.

Two rising stars have supporting roles in this film.

Mandy Patinkin plays "Sayyid." He won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for playing Che Guevera in "Evita" on Broadway in 1979... the same year "French Postcards" was released. He went on to star opposite Barbra Streisand in the film "Yentl," and to act in many other movies including another favorite of mine, "The Princess Bride." He's appeared in numerous Broadway productions and also played for years in the TV series "Chicago Hope."

The other actor to watch for is Debra Winger who plays "Melanie." She went on to roles in "Urban Cowboy," "An Officer and a Gentleman," and "Terms of Endearment," and is a three-time Oscar nominee.

As a reporter, I got to interview Winger when "Cannery Row" was released and asked her about her memories of "French Postcards." She said she was not happy about the way the film turned out because "Melanie" apparently played a much larger role in the original script as shot. She felt too much of her work was left on the cutting room floor during editing, and that her major character had been relegated to a lesser role. Judging from what's happened since, she was probably right.

After "French Postcards," Willard Huyck went on to direct the bombs "Best Defense," and "Howard the Duck."

I would not give this film a lukewarm review at all (as some of the other reviews that I have read seem to have done). I would not try to put it in a box that it does not belong in, either. The truth of the matter is, I LOVED "French Postcards" exactly the way it was!! This was a highly entertaining and WONDERFUL story! I felt really good after watching it..........I watched it twice. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I felt that a lot of the main characters were very well drawn and believable. The acting was, by and large, superb! My favorite story within this story would have to be the one with Alex (the blond-haired American student and pianist) and Madame Tessier (the French director of the institute, where the American exchange students were enrolled). I especially like the very beautiful and adorable Mme. Tessier, played by Marie-France Pisier. It wasn't just that she was totally gorgeous as a "somewhat older woman" (Alex was a junior in college; Mme. Tessier was probably in her mid 30s). It was very admirable how passionate she was about her study abroad program. She appeared to be extremely devoted to her job.........and very professional. Toward the end of the movie she talked about her plan to open up schools all over France........and she was very excited about it.

I also liked that scene when she and Alex's girlfriend got into a cat fight over whose man Alex really was..........but even then, she still carried that off with a lot of class. She did not scream or make a scene. She seemed to hold her own, toe to toe, with Alex's old girlfriend with dignity. Among other things, she told her (in a very relaxed voice):

"You are a twenty-year-old school girl..........You don't know anything about love!"

If you have not yet seen the movie, you should know that Mme. Tessier certainly made Alex pay his dues! He worked extremely hard to earn the right to show his affections for her. She was really quite cold, in the beginning, and did try to dissuade him...........even lied to him that she did not like a piano song that he wrote for her (about Paris). Eventually she took the bait (and probably amazed Alex in the process). The story does paint Mme. Tessier as a very dedicated and serious, professional, French woman: a woman, who one day just had a weakness and caved............and allowed herself to become vulnerable in the arms, and in the heart, of a twenty-something American "stud". Though for many people it might be disturbing, that her involvement with him is adulterous (her husband is her business partner at the institute), in many ways it is a very sweet romance. There are actually quite a few things that are sweet (or delightful) about this movie (including a shot of the beautiful Seine river at sunset).

I saw this movie on HBO in December 1980------just weeks before I was slated to go off to Spain as an American college student (I spent my spring semester in Sevilla, Spain). Though this movie was about a very different country, it was still about a European country. It was extremely exciting for me to watch two hours of anecdotes, concerning experiences that I was very soon to be having (at least some of them, anyway; I did not try to steal away a program director's wife!)! Watching this film was even more delightful for me, since this was to be my first trip to Europe!

I am sure that I would have enjoyed this movie, almost as much, even if I had not studied abroad. On a personal note, I never made it to France, during my stay in Spain. It would be 17+ years later, before I trod on many of the same grounds that Alex, Joel, and Melanie trod (in "French Postcards"). I am pleased to say that my 1998 trip to France was everything that I thought it would be! The people were totally wonderful and delightful..........and I just loved them! More importantly, I loved France (just as I loved Mme. Tessier and "French Postcards", as a whole)!