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One of my all time favorites.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Joshua Logan's heavy direction is the main thing holding down this pleasing French-ish romp in Marseilles (I think) with Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, and Charles Boyer. Fanny is a fishmonger's daughter on a giant wharf where Chevalier and Boyer are among the semi-decrepit café denizens who spend all their time playing cards and putting bricks under hats in the middle of the street to see people walk by and kick it. Horst Buscholtz is Marius, the son of Cesar (Boyer), tired of working the bar and ready for a life of adventure at sea but at the same time madly in love with Fanny (Caron).This is a very nice looking movie, gorgeous photography all the time but somehow lacking in contrast. Logan works in only two shades -- bright daylight and darkest night. Likewise his actors are directed to play everything either at the bottom or highest decibels. But the acting is definitely the main thing to watch in the movie, especially Boyer's studied performance of a man who's fundamentally proud and compromised at the same time. Caron gets to play some really adult scenes which is a pleasant change. Chevalier is a lot of fun, really convincing in the character as he always is when playing these sort of genial horn-dogs. But Horst Buscholtz, now he is a piece of work. I don't know if he was uncomfortable with the language or what, but he did not give a very good performance in my opinion, much too earnest so that some of his big moments became laughable. But there is a kind of grounded quality about him that I like.The story is a bunch of claptrap as far as I could tell, creaky even at the time when this movie was made. It's melodrama played for as much as melodrama's worth on its basic level, with the big sacrifice at the end and everything. Since there's no hint of irony about any of the proceedings, this film enters into the strange kind of territory occupied by other films like Charles Vidor's "The Swan" that seem to have been made for the audience of 30 years before. Maybe they were; maybe enough middle-aged or older people still went to the theater in the late 50s/early 60s to make a movie profitable. But I'm not sure if it wasn't just a sort of dying trend that people were trying to keep alive. Still, I like this movie in a lot of ways more than some of the feeble "revolutionary" movies that came out a few years later. I just think if there's a middle ground between classic and modern, this film did not try to find it. It's a pleasing relic, but that's all it's really ever been I think. Still, the charm of these performers finding good chemistry in the characters over-rides the stale treatment and makes it appealingly old-fashioned if you're in the mood for that kind of thing.

This is one of the sweetest movies I've ever seen. When I say the movie is sweet, it manages to do so without being cheesy. Leslie Caron is in the title role as a young woman who finds herself pregnant after consummating her relationship with Marius, a young man who has a lust to travel and hates being tied down. The next day he leaves for the long sea journey that he's longed for since childhood. When Fanny learns of her condition, she accepts a proposal from the elderly Panisse (Maurice Chevalier) and he gives all of his love and acceptance to both her and her child. Marius returns after the child is born, never having known until he returns that he is a father. He wants Fanny back, and he and Panisse square off in a showdown over both Fanny and her child. However, Fanny has something to say about this too. It's a great film about love, responsibility, selfishness, and the root of true happiness.It is my favorite Leslie Caron movie and a great role for Chevalier in his later years. After having just recently seen the Ernst Lubitsch musicals Chevalier starred in thirty years before, I have to say he may have grayed but he never lost that essential indescribable charm he had in his youth.

Though I would love to have heard some of Harold Rome's songs sung on screen as a straight dramatic story, Fanny does quite well. Maybe director and co-author Joshua Logan knew what he was doing when he brought Fanny to the screen that way.Fanny is set in France's second city of Marseilles which has a better reputation as being a lot like Chicago and not just in population. Most stories set in Marseilles concentrate on the city's underworld.But this one concerns their most ancient industry, fishing and some of the characters on their waterfront. Charles Boyer is a tavern owner and he's got a son Horst Buchholtz who dreams of going to sea and a life of adventure, as a lot of young men will. But a fishmonger's's daughter named Fanny played by Leslie Caron's got eyes only for him. And one night's roll in the hay leaves Fanny something to remember him by.Not to fear though, aging shop-owner Maurice Chevalier, a recent widower would like what the Americans call a trophy wife. He's ready to save her good name and marry the girl and bring the kid up as his own.Before the Broadway musical the original story was told in French cinema in a three part trilogy by Marcel Pagnol. The parts that Boyer, Caron, Buchholtz, and Chevalier play were done on Broadway by Ezio Pinza, Florence Henderson, William Tabbert and Walter Slezak. Slezak got a Tony Award. The play ran 888 performances in 1954 to 1956.The most prominent song in the musical was the title song Fanny which Eddie Fisher had a hit record from. It and the rest of the score is heard in the background.Fanny was up for several nominations for Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor for Charles Boyer and Best Director for Joshua Logan who primarily worked on stage. Still the award it should have gotten was for Jack Cardiff's color cinematography. He's one of the very best at his game and he makes the colorful city of Marseilles the biggest star in this film.Fanny holds up very well as fresh as when I saw it in the theaters in 1961. You might even consider visiting Marseilles after seeing this film.

I saw this movie in 1961 when I was 16 years old. It touched something deep inside me then and still does to this day. Jack Cardiff did a magnificent job photographing this movie. The kissing scene on the steps, under the single bulb, is so perfectly composed, it would make a great painting. Only recently did I discover it was a musical before becoming a motion picture. The musical score is so evocative, so poignant, that together with the beautiful photography they add up to a remarkable movie that will have a tremendous emotional effect on anyone with a heart. What a wonderful, wonderful movie! I understand the first DVD version of Fanny will be available this June. I can't wait.