Gigi

🎶“Thank heaven for little girls, for little girls get bigger every day.” 

“I don’t understand the Parisians. Making love every time they get the chance. Wasting every lovely night on romance.”🎶

One thing that always impresses me with the 1958 musical picture Gigi is the sheer comedy gold that can be mined out of the very music of the picture. Gigi is marketed as a romantic comedy musical, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner. Gigi is not based on a stage musical, but it is written like one that is. Instead, it is based on the novelette of the same name by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, published in 1944. This novelette was made into a play in 1951, though it was not a musical, and the film was not an adaptation of it so much as a re-adaptation of the novelette. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who wrote the music, later adapted it back to the stage in its musical form, where it ran for more than 100 shows before going on hiatus until a revival in 2015.

The film stars Leslie Caron, who had her breakout role earlier that decade with the ballet-heavy An American in Paris, a film that featured her classical ballet training well but also showcased her lack of formal acting training at the time. In the seven years between these two films, she has learned a lot, especially her comedic timing and how to carry a film almost entirely on herself. She is no longer playing the love interest, second fiddle to the leading man, but is the focal point, and the love interest is secondary. 

That’s not to say that Louis Jourdan, playing the leading man Gaston Lachaille, is not holding his own. Though he is not the title character, he is introduced to us first with a song that is designed to tell us all we need to know about him. We are introduced to him in a carriage riding along with his uncle Honoré Lachaille (Maurice Chevalier) and proclaiming everything in the world to be a bore. Honoré remarks about the trees, the city, even the Eiffel Tower, and Gaston points out that none of these things change from day to day and thus they bore him. This is a man who has no lust for life, nothing that excites him; the exact opposite of Honoré. One thing that Gaston does find pleasure in though is spending time with Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold) and her granddaughter, the carefree Gilberte, affectionately known as Gigi. Gigi is being basically raised by her grandmother while her mother is mostly absent, spending her time performing on stage as a singer. 

As is “family tradition”, Madame Alvarez regularly sends Gigi to her sister, Gigi’s great-aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans), for grooming to be a proper courtesan, i.e. a kept mistress for a wealthy man. While Gigi learns proper etiquette and charm, she dislikes the concept of trivial love. She prefers to be carefree and fun, like the times she spends with Gaston, whom she sees more as an older brother or a young uncle. She is aware of his reputation as a wealthy womanizer in the Parisian high society, and it doesn’t bother her because she doesn’t see their relationship as other than familial. This begins to change for Gaston, though, after breaking up with his latest mistress over her infidelities and spending a weekend with Gigi and her grandmother in the seaside town of Trouville. 

Once Aunt Alicia learns that there might be romance in the air coming from Gaston, she takes advantage of his absence for a short while to Monte Carlo and doubles down on Gigi’s teachings, effectively transforming the young girl into a proper courtesan, exactly the kind of girl that Gaston finds boring. This, of course, has the opposite effect that Alicia and Alvarez had in mind and greatly displeases Gaston upon his return. 

Leslie Caron is a girl that was raised in dance, capable of great grace and mobility. It took great effort from her to come across as carefree and a bit clumsy at times. Take, for instance, an early scene where she is playing tennis against Gaston. It was very difficult for her not to appear graceful and instead come across as childlike and erratic. The final result is convincing, but it was not easy to achieve. She’s also playing up her character in such a way as to come across younger than she actually is. It’s not until the later scenes that she appears like a woman and not a teen. 

She carries herself like she is younger than her character in An American in Paris, though that film was seven years prior. She has such a youthful appearance to her and her mannerisms that she was capable of pulling that off for many years still. Just look at her in Fanny from 1961. She doesn’t come across as a woman of thirty in that film any more than she does in her late twenties in Gigi. She was gifted with the appearance of youth and played that up well here. But when she is groomed to appear proper and courtly, suddenly she appears more adult and could even pass for Audrey Hepburn from around the same era. Leslie had been the star of the play in 1951 and was only interested in the film when she heard it had been significantly rewritten and was not an adaptation of that unsuccessful show. I cannot imagine anyone else in that role, she is so iconic in it. 

Leslie Caron makes this film. Like An American in Paris, it is impossible to look away from her. She is beautiful, of course, but she is also magnetic, drawing the eye to her whenever she is on screen. It is easy to see why Gaston is attracted to her finally and why he finds enjoyment being around her when so much of the world no longer holds his interest. She represents to him spontaneity and surprise, not the same old boring things he is so used to. Leslie plays the other side of the coin well, too. You can tell that when she is playing up her training from Aunt Alicia, that it is technically correct, but it is also stiff and forced. This is not her being herself, and this façade would only last for so long before her true self manifested again. But Gaston doesn’t know that and assumes that she has been ruined by Alicia’s meddling. 

This is not a story that is particularly deep. But it doesn’t need to be. We are not drawn to this film to break down its themes or look for deep insights into character motivations. We are here to be charmed by Gigi, just as Gaston is. We are here to see Gigi go from the girl who doesn’t understand the French preoccupation with romance to the woman who is devastated when Gaston rejects the woman she has become. It’s not deep, but it is meaningful, and there is an emotional investment in their story. 

When Gigi came to the Academy Awards in 1959, it did something few films had ever done. It was nominated for a lot of awards and it swept up all of them. This wouldn’t happen again until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King beat its record and won all 11 nominations to Gigi’s 9. It was a runaway hit and has become a bonafide classic in the years since. The characters are charming, especially Gigi herself, and the music elevates the whole affair. Gigi is the total package, a great film that is still enjoyable today. This film will turn seventy years old soon, and it hasn’t aged a day. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Motion Picture: Arthur Freed (won)

Best Director: Vincente Minnelli (won)

Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium (won)

Best Art Direction: William A. Horning, E. Preston Ames, Henry Grace, and F. Keogh Gleason (won)

Best Cinematography - Color: Joseph Ruttenberg (won)

Best Costume Design: Cecil Beaton (won)

Best Film Editing: Adrienne Fazan (won)

Best Scoring of a Musical Picture: André Previn (won)

Best Song: “Gigi” Music by Frederick Loewe; Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner (won)

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Release Date: May 15, 1958

Running Time: 115 Minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, Jacques Bergerac, and Isabel Jeans

Directed by: Vincente Minnelli