The Last Time I Saw Paris

Although from its title you'd expect a musical, The Last Time I Saw Paris is a typical 50s melodrama that looks and sounds like innumerable examples of the genre that have gone before. Van Johnson, ill-suited for the role, plays Charles, a Hemingway-esque writer married to Elizabeth Taylor's Helen. They live an improbably glamorous life on very limited means in post-war Paris. When they become seriously rich after some Texas leases given to her as a wedding present by her father (Walter Pidgeon) prove to be oil-rich. Little changes except that Johnson develops a drinking problem and the hyper-delicate Taylor dies after being locked out in the rain by him whilst in drunken stupor.  

Based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, Babylon Revisited, the film withers under the weight of the pedestrian script by Julius and Philip Epstein and the hackneyed direction by Brooks. Walter Pidgeon has a nice turn as the high-living Dad and the 22 year-old Taylor is quite remarkable in the lead, overshadowing the 30 year-old Donna Reed as her frustrated sister.

FYI: Brooks did a much better job with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) which also starred Taylor but  opposite the much more suitable Paul Newman. 

 

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