Watch Paris When It Sizzles For Free

Please don't spend money on this.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Reunite William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, put them in the spectacular titled locale, sprinkle in a few star cameos (Marlene Dietrich, Tony Curtis, Mel Ferrer and Noel Coward) and voila ... a can't miss hit, right? Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. Someone forgot the script.In fact, that's the plot of this completely uninspired romantic comedy. Holden plays an aging, whiskey-swigging screenplay writer who's blocked, Hepburn a typist sent by movie producer Coward to help complete the long overdue story during a weekend. The movie plays out as these two Academy Award winning actors improvise scenarios of every conceivable genre, all of which are colorfully realized by cinematographer Charles Lang (no less) and Hepburn costumed by Givenchy (of course).But it just doesn't work. As a comedy, it's not funny, even with Tony Curtis appearing throughout; as for its romantic angle, the magic of Sabrina is long gone. When the opening scene - a masterful establishing shot from a helicopter of the French Riviera's Hotel du Cap (which doesn't even feature one of its headlining stars) - is the best thing about a movie, it's probably best to avoid it.

Director Richard Quine's "Paris When It Sizzles" proves that Audrey Hepburn could and did make some disastrous movies before her career when into decline in the 1970s. Presumably, Paramount Pictures must have thought that pairing superstars William Holden with Audrey Hepburn again after they had appeared in "Sabrina" with Humphrey Bogart constituted a surefire sensation. Despite all the considerable talent and production values that went into this romantic comedy with its scenic setting, "Paris When It Sizzles" never sizzles. Indeed, Holden and Hepburn ignite the screen with undeniable chemistry as a film scriptwriter suffering from writer's block who falls in love with his stenographer. One of the elements of a memorable movie is the ability of the filmmakers to spring one surprise after another so that we the audience don't tire of the screenplay shenanigans. In this regard, "Paris When It Sizzles" does sizzle. Unfortunately, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" scenarist George Axelrod wears out the idea about a scribe who keeps changing a screenplay that he has been contracted to write so that every quarter-hour or so, the plot changes until the fun fizzles. During all these bright, fun-loving antics, Tony Curtis, Mel Ferrer, and Marlene Dietrich make cameo appearances. Reportedly, Curtis stepped into the film as a favor. If you blink, you may miss Dietrich.Movie producer Alexander Meyerheim (famous playwright Noel Coward) is luxuriating in the South of France while his contract writer, Richard Benson (William Holden), sits in Paris trying to write a script. The problem is that Benson isn't having any luck with his literary endeavors until beautiful Gabrielle Simpson (Audrey Hepburn) enters his life as his stenographer. Benson makes just enough progress with his screenplay to realize how awful that it is before he sets about constantly revising it and conjuring up every cliché in the book. Meanwhile, Meyerheim has deluded himself into believing that Benson has created another cinematic gem. In fact, after all his elaborate but contrived ideas, Benson concocts a script that is so egregious that he tosses it at fadeout so he can kiss Gabby and they can dissolve into Paris after dark. If you know little about the process of writing a screenplay, this frivolous comedy should prove enlightening.Nothing about "Paris When It Sizzles" is remotely memorable. At various points, it looks like both Quine and Axelrod realized that they were roasting a turkey. Some of the crisp, crackling dialogue serves as a commentary about the futility of what they were trying to achieve. This carefree farce struggles throughout its overlong 110 minutes to conjure up laughs as well as insights. The chief insight is that when things go awry not even first-class talent that compensate for it. Nothing works, and the narrative about a fictional movie entitled "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower" looks like a combination of "Casablanca" crossed with "Algiers." Happily, Hepburn relies on her charm and survives this travesty. Holden, on the contrary, doesn't fare as well as Hepburn. William Holden delivers the hammiest performance of his distinguished career. Mind you, "Paris When It Sizzles" is almost worth watching so you can see Holden decked out in one scene as a vampire! He resembles a Lon Chaney, Jr., with a hangover in that brief scene that must have been embarrassing for the Oscar-winning actor. "Paris When It Sizzles" has more drizzle than sizzle. Skip it unless you are a die-hard fan of either William Holden or Audrey Hepburn. The scene when they compare "My Fair Lady" (a film that Hepburn is remembered for) with "Frankenstein" merely shows that sophistication and wit cannot save the day.

Seems I'm in the minority for liking this little gem. I have a feeling that since Hepburn said it was one of her least favorite films, people fail to look beyond that at what a clever little piece this is. Or it may take an appreciation of cinema itself. To me, this was way before its time. It makes fun of the system, writers, and actors. Some of the film is very stupid or silly, but that's the point. They are writing a BAD film, and as such, we see this bad film come to life. It's also a great spoof. Tony Curtis, in a very extended cameo plays himself. But himself as an actor in a supporting role. It's hard to describe the brilliance of this performance. From his initial entrance with the exaggerated mannerisms of a method actor, to his delivery of lines usually reserved for insignificant extras. It does become tedious in spots, and Holden and Hepburn's romance is just as forced and sudden as the one in their poorly written movie. See this if you are a Curtis fan, or love seeing actors lampoon themselves. I'm surprised to see so much post-modernism so early on in cinema.

This is an interesting study case:As a film, it's hardly any good. Simple direction, ordinary editing, nothing relevant, it's a product of old times, but worse than others that created and followed its model.As entertainment, it lost the value that it might have had in its day. And that's not specially bad about this specific film. Romantic comedy has to be the genre that gets outdated more easily, because it deals with very dated needs and demands of the audiences. So, this film is as outdated today, as any of our days' romantic comedies will be in 50 years.The acting by the main actors is tolerable even though we saw Hepburn, Holden and Curtis do better in many of their other films. And although this is not so well suited to Audrey's character, we still have her class, the most remarkable in filmdom.But something makes this film a remarkable and unique piece that you will eventually have to see if you care about cinema and shift the french printed on it at the beginning of the 60'. So here we have a film literally about film writing. From the very beginning we are allowed to know that we will be watching a film which is making itself, inventing as it goes along. Naturally the main characters had to be a writer, and a typist, who unwillingly becomes a writer as well. We have two levels: that of the reality of the hotel room in Paris, which already is ostensibly artificial (that's why Holden says he had the Eiffel tower placed so he'd know he was in Paris) and the level of the film within, a provisional reality, constantly changing, and affected by what goes on in the room. This constant changes in the film within would provide the entertainment part here (Tony Curtis acts to be funny, and he is).But where things really become interesting is in the french connection: there are a lot of explicit references to the new wave that was hitting Paris and french cinema those days. Those references were always mockery, things about how in those new films "nothing happens". And we get this film as the opposite of that, a feast to the eye, where the narrative is filled with events, regardless how silly they sound, even in the context of the film, and even in the context of the film within! What we have is the old fashioned way, and that's assumed. And the battle field is Paris, at once the stage of the new wave, where deep changes take place, and one of the most cherished locations of the "old days", one the most used places in the history of film, with all its iconic places, charged with symbolism in the post-war American cinema. That's what's at stake here: the rise of new paradigms, that threatened what "american cinema" for the masses meant back than. That's why the provisional title for the film within was "The woman who stole the Eiffel tower". The decadence of Holden's character (that mirrors what Holden himself was going through at this time) can be accounted with a symbolic weight. The 60' were a decade of European bright cinema, that Hollywood would follow, leaded by the so called Vietnam generation.The popcorn selling kiss, that is the more lasting scene of this film in how it fulfills its own assumed cliché is a twilight to a certain type of film. Oh, and we had Audrey...My opinion: 3/5 a bad film that you really have to see.http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com