Qui êtes-vous, Polly Maggoo ?

Perhaps, to be fair, I should re-watch the film, but at this point although it was a decent satire, there are so many more informative and entertaining films and books on this subject.

The film has some interesting scenes, and references to the emptiness and transitory nature of the profession as we see the documentary filmed on the streets of London. Grayson Hall ("Night of the Iguana")has an interesting cameo.

Overall, it seems the modeling industry is too complex, and variegated to be successfully depicted on film. Films such as "Unzipped" and "Seamless" touch on the subject. Television shows such as Darren Star's "Models Inc." can only graze the surface of a very moneyed and unpredictable business.

If you are truly interested in an expose on the modeling industry, you may want to read "Model" by Michael Gross, senior writer at Esquire and former fashion columnist for the New York Times. Former high fashion model Marie Helvin has also written "Catwalk", which proves very informative on this subject as well.

Too bad this European cult film of the Sixties, written and directed by an American whose photo documentary reportage on New York, Rome, and Tokyo is legendary, is all but impossible to track down here in North America. After years of fruitless searching I finally attended two screenings at the Whitney Museum of Art in 1997. The main draw in this film for me was Grayson Hall, who portrays Miss Maxwell, Editor of Vogue magazine--a character so closely based on Director William Klein's former boss Diana Vreeland, it's amazing Vreeland didn't sue for libel. Grayson Hall was flown over specially from America to do this. Try to get the original French language version--she spoke French and her accent, and delivery, are priceless. (She referred to the experience acerbically as "Hell, honey!") The film's eponymous star Dorothy MacGowan was chosen at random from a crowd shot of Beatles girls welcoming the Fab Four at a New York airport. MacGowan stands at the center of a wildly gyrating scenario that satirizes pretty much everything in mid Sixties French society that is or isn't nailed down--politics, fashion, the media, the idealization of rural life and French traditions--taking frequent detours into fantasy sequences and even including some animated segments that must have helped inspire the animated interludes in the original Monty Python series. The score by Michel Legrand has some brilliant moments, particularly during the opening sequence featuring sheet metal fabricated fashions; the rest of the film never quite lives up to the promise of this inaugural tour de force.

Still, as a time capsule of Sixties effulgence, it's well worth tracking down. Let's hope somebody "rediscovers" it and brings it out on video, pronto! With the original letterbox ratio, bien sur.

Director William Klein was clearly having a lot of fun here. Who Are You Polly Maggoo? Is one crazy ride, like a clown-car blown sideways through the Parisian fashion district. The plot is a flimsy thing onto which wacky, manic set pieces are hung...Polly is modeling, Polly is being interviewed, Polly is being courted, people say nonsensical things with great aplomb. But like Godard's films of the era, the real action is the unpredictable flow of ideas, words, unrealistic scenarios, striking images. Unlike Godard, Polly Maggoo is genuinely funny. It's a delightful example of the pre-May '68 anarchic pop-art exuberance: everything is weird and wild, and nothing matters very much. Maybe Klein's satirical surrealism most closely resembles Robert Downey Sr's "Putney Swope", another goofy, confounding comedic confection that folks find either nonsensical or hysterical. Meanwhile on the pop charts, Gainsbourg and Bardot advocated for "Shebam! Pow! Blop! Whizzz!" -- and Klein was right back at them with a hearty "beep-beep!" Taken on its own terms, a loveable little film.

French satire of the fashion industry from director William Klein stars real-life Vogue model Dorothy McGowan as Polly Maggoo, a supermodel from Brooklyn now a sensation in France, being followed everywhere by a film-crew eager to find the real woman behind the glamour. Lots of targets (mostly dry little pokes at the pretensions inherent in the world of fashionistas), romantic fantasies, and behind the scenes indecision. Stylishly presented (if awfully choppy) in black-and-white, with some droll commentary, though its sense of humor is ultimately a matter of taste. *1/2 from ****

Although certainly superior to the other two releases in the Eclipse 3 DVD set of William Klein films, 'Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?' still suffers from the same debilitating loss of steam and shapelessness which bog down the later 'Mr. Freedom' and the prescient (if turgid) 'The Model Couple'.

After a promising start with a Paris fashion show, where rake-thin models parade through a cave in Dadaesque conical aluminium outfits, we are introduced to the eponymous heroine who is being profiled for a TV show which shares the films title. Dorothy McGowan is the unconventionally pretty (and highly appealing) Polly, whose life story is that of a 1960's Cinderella; plucked from obscurity from a crowd of Beatles fans at Kennedy Airport, as she was in real life, and rocketed to become the next supermodel. We are also introduced to an ennui glazed Prince, who fantasizes about procuring Polly, while the director of the TV profile slowly comes to find himself ensnared by her bemused charm. Cross-cut with this basic story are pretty pointless secondary characters who amount to little in the grander scheme of the film. There are the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern like dolts who go off to try and fetch Polly for their Prince (their absurdist exploits become highly annoying before long) and an sadly underwritten Rasputin-like figure who seemingly works for the Prince's mother.

Although often labeled as a critique of the fashion industry (surely a very soft target for satire) there is much more going on in the heart of this film. Klein has plenty of scope to pursue the meaninglessness of celebrity and how all (even those who posses it themselves) can succumb to the fantasy ideal that it enticingly instills in us, along with notions of individual self and the ever present critique of American vs. European sensibility. However, too many scenes are fractured away from the main points (the minutiae of the Prince's daydreams get rather tedious) and the change in mediums, like the animated sequences, seem thrown in to try and grab the audiences interest from floundering rather than present any real structural intention. Fantasy sequences such as Polly's daydream about the TV directors family (reminiscent in tone to the 1965 Terry Southern scripted masterpiece 'The Loved One') show some gripping vision but, again and again, Klein drops the ball by succumbing to the same excesses which would later characterize a certain type of 1960's film-making (such as the all-star spoof 'Casino Royale' or the great Alexander Mackendrick's directorial swan song, 'Don't Make Waves' - both released 1967).

As a visionary stylist, Klein excels but as a theorist and social commentator he flounders hopelessly in circular arguments and observations. As with the director's other fictional films, 'Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?' gives plenty in the way of wacky antics and visually impressive set-pieces but delivers little in regards to a coherent, tightly structured film experience.