Gigi

The winner of the Best Picture Oscar of 1958 was Gigi, which is today considered the last great musical from MGM, which had specialized in that genre for generations. Based on the novel by Colette, directed by Vincente Minelli, and scored by Lerner and Loewe, Gigi was a prestige picture, playing in New York in a Broadway theater. Today, though, at least from this vantage point, it's nothing special.

To be sure, it looks damn good. The star of this production is Cecil Beaton, who designed the sets and costumes. Set in 1900 Paris, every detail looks sumptuous. The story, though, is pretty hollow. Early on, the character of Gaston, played by Louis Jourdan, sings "It's a bore," and frankly that's what I found the whole thing. It's also quite unseemly.

The film opens with Maurice Chevalier, a gentleman of some years, singing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," and sadly that song just doesn't have any innocence anymore. Gigi is a spirited girl (still in school) who comes from a family of kept women. She is watched closely by her grandmother, Hermione Gingold, and a great-aunt, Isabel Jeans, who try to teach her how to be a first-class mistress. Jourdan is a friend of the family and finds, much to his astonishment, that he is attracted to Gigi, who he had only thought of as a girl. He asks her to be his mistress, which excites the old women, but she resists, knowing that she will be one day discarded like yesterday's newspaper. Jourdan then does the unthinkable and asks for her hand in marriage.

So we have here a film that radiates impropriety, whether it would be underage sexual relations or misogyny. It may be gilded, but it is still an unpleasant subject. Furthermore, it's hard to care about what happens. Jourdan is a bit of a stiff, and Chevalier, legend though he may have been, has the aura of a molester. There's really only one scene that engaged me, a droll musical number that has Chevalier and Gingold recalling their affair, singing "I Remember It Well."