Fanny

It's time for my fifth annual look at films from fifty years ago, by focusing on those that were nominated for Oscars. A few years ago I wrote on The Hustler, which was one of the five nominated films for Best Picture in 1961.

Another was Fanny, directed by Joshua Logan. You often hear, especially from older film fans like me, that "they don't make them like that anymore." Well, this is not always a wistful comment. They don't make movies like Fanny anymore, and thank god. This is one of those bloated, overly-colored saturated spectacles that you can imagine your grandmother dressing up to go see.

Set in Marseilles, the film concerns the love story between a young daughter of a fishmonger (Leslie Caron) and a bartender (Horst Buchholz). He longs to go to sea, but after spending one eventful night with Caron, knocks her up. He doesn't know that, though, and heads out on a scientific exploration. Caron, left pregnant and unmarried, decides to marry the rich merchant who has always been an admirer of hers (Maurice Chevalier), who is decades older. He knows of her situation, but accepts the child as his own.

Eventually Buchholz comes back on leave, and due to some basic knowledge of math deduces the boy is really his. There's some tension, but not much, as Chevalier worries that Caron will leave him for her true love. I had stopped caring long before this point.

Though tough and gritty films like The Hustler could crack the nominations in those days, movies like Fanny still somehow enthralled the voters. The film is very lush and has vibrant costumes and sets, but lordy is it a chore to sit through. Like Gigi from three years earlier, which actually won the Best Picture Oscar, it has an overload of Gallic whimsy. I can only be grateful that this film, which was based on a Broadway musical, removed all of the songs, which would have made it longer.

Charles Boyer, who plays Buchholz's father, was nominated for Best Actor. He does do some nice work.