Innocents in Paris

Half a dozen British subjects board a plane for a weekend flight to France and find themselves innocents in Paris. It's one of those movies in which several individual stories take place at a common venue, here with a mostly humorous theme. With a couple of comedy pros like Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford headlining the cast, Claire Bloom (fresh from her role in Chaplin's LIMELIGHT and James Copeland in more romantic plots and lesser stars to fill in the gaps, there's something for everyone.

It's a thoroughly pleasant effort with a script by Anatole de Grunewald and enough actual French talent to lend the necessary Gallic charm to the proceedings. Sim and Rutherford are, as always, delights, and the rest are amusing in their standard stories, although I can understand why the 100-minute movie is usually cut; although the subplot with Laurence Harvey as a French valet de chambre is good, the movie, as a whole, seemed to drag a bit.

A fun little adventure with Alastair Sim on form as usual (always watch Sim closely to get the best from his performances). Margaret Rutherford is her usual dippy, wonderful self and a host of other fifties household British names pop up (including Christopher Lee), in this easy to watch little adventure.

Fifty plus years on, it doesn't really matter what the political motivations of the film were, it's an entertaining little story with a beginning, middle and an end.

There's a lot of dross been made since 1953 and this film by no means takes a back seat. Sit back and enjoy.

Don't look for something deep, shocking or dramatic. This is a quiet, very charming little movie, with a number of humorous, lovely scenes. It contains several slices of life from the weekends of six characters visiting Paris, each with their own goals, problems and hopes.

The visiting characters are played by outstanding British actors and actresses. There is an absolutely priceless performance by Alistair Sim as a stuffy British diplomat. Margaret Rutherford plays to perfection the ever-lovable character we know from her other stellar performances. The only problem is finding a good copy of this movie. Hopefully some studio will realize its appeal and a good DVD will appear.

Ignore the agenda-driven propaganda from other reviewers.

Unconvincing portmanteau comedy. Sim & Rutherford once again spin gold out of garbage, while the rest of the cast, notably Jimmy Edwards & Ronald Shiner, are defeated by a badly written screenplay. The Scotsman section, with James Copeland, is a good example of a poor performance meeting an inadequate script to produce unmistakable rubbish. Watching these innocents is not bliss!

After the war, France was a mess — an agricultural economy with a bad reputation world- wide because of near universal collaboration with the Nazis. America resolved to rebuild Europe and part of the plan was to cast Paris as a romantic place, in spite of its history. Hard to believe today, but Paris is wholly a cinematic invention.

The instruction went out to US and UK studios. The US studios went along to protect valuable monopolies, already eroding. UK studios required a subsidy. Many famous and important films followed.

This is one of the subsidized UK films. (Included in the story is a joke about the safety of air travel. The first British airliner was a disaster, with many crashes.)

Several Londoners visit Paris for the weekend and have their lives changed by the romanticism of the place and people. As with most subsidized films, including many French films to this day, it stinks.

The story is broken into five threads: a statesman, Scotsman, young pretty woman, old bat, and marine in a marching band.

The young woman is Claire Bloom when she was pretty. But the only thread that has any charm at all is the one that follows Margaret Rutherford and her always present husband, Stringer Davis. She's unique, inventing a character that has become a stereotype.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.