THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS: Blu-ray (MGM, 1954) Warner Archive

Lost opportunities and the supposedly haunted remembrances they conjure to mind are the focus of Richard Brooks' The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) an incalculably dull and depressing homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited, albeit, with none of Fitzgerald’s lithe skills to elevate it beyond the dying embers of its MGM’s dream factory gloss. Renaming the picture after Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II’s melancholy ditty from 1940 – memorably warbled by Ann Sothern in 1941’s Lady Be Good, is a shay premature. For although The Last Time I Saw Paris features a cavalcade of Metro’s formidable talent – soon to be on the outside looking in, as the heady days of Mayer’s top-heavy ‘star system’ were fast approaching their end – what follows is a studio-bound dump of bittersweet treacle, tragically light on the motivation of its long-suffering characters. This turgid melodrama charts an absurdly luscious and plushily padded wartime affair du coeur that turns toxic after the big guns stop firing. The script by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Brooks lacks the tender luster and exuberant punch necessary to sustain its characters beyond a few well-placed scenes. Worse, the last act interminably drags the entire ensemble succumbs to an insipid wallowing in their own self-pity and regret. At age 22, Elizabeth Taylor, as Helen Ellswirth, is at the zenith of her sex appeal. And yet, she has a difficult time generating the necessary smolder to get the home fires cooking. Alas, Van Johnson, as Charles Wills, is the wrong squire to fire her heart.

By 1954, Johnson and Taylor had risen through MGM’s caste system to be considered bona fide stars in the top-tier of its ranking.  For Taylor, the ascend had been predicated on her startling good looks. Even as a child, she possessed enviable features, in line with L.B. Mayer’s edict - that all leading men should be handsome and all leading women, attractive.  Ironically, the trajectory of Johnson’s career was assured only after a near-fatal auto accident left him with a metal plate in his head and visible scars, concealed for the cameras by heavy makeup. No military duty for our Van. So, while many of Metro’s movieland studs went off to fight in WWII, Johnson became their de facto stand-in, in war movies made on the backlot. But by 1954, a certain cynicism had begun to creep into Johnson’s Teflon-coated/studio sanctioned ‘boy-next-door’ wholesomeness. We will chalk this up to Johnson’s own sexual weariness, having to remain in the closet with a wife in name only, secretly to desire the company of chorus boys. This closeted rage bodes well for the increasing frustration and ambivalence steadily to emerge in Johnson’s alter-ego in The Last Time I Saw Paris. Because there is no spark of sexual chemistry between him and Taylor’s heartless sexpot.    

Our story opens in the present with Charles Wills (Van Johnson) revisiting the old haunts he once knew so well in Paris. Charles panged expression tells us we are in for a bittersweet reminiscence. (Aside: although the film's credits suggest the entire movie was shot on location in France, only these opening scenes and a few inserts peppered throughout, actually derive from the city of light. The rest was photographed on MGM's back lot in Culver City, partly for logistical reasons, but mostly because the studio really did not see the point of shooting on location - a lost opportunity to make at least a really 'good looking' travelogue from this tawdry tale.) After reuniting with old friend and barkeep, Maurice (Kurt Kasznar) inside the Cafe Dhingo, Charles attentions are drawn to a rather gaudy caricature of Helen Ellswirth (Elizabeth Taylor) painted on the wall. We regress in flashback to the Armistice. Charles is a returning solider caught in a heady street celebration that has devoured the whole of Paris. He is impulsively kissed by Helen, who wastes no time disappearing into the crowd.

Charles makes his way to the Cafe Dhingo where he is reunited with French soldier, Claude Matine (George Dolenz) who is having a drink with girlfriend, Marion Ellswirth (Donna Reed). Marion takes an immediate shine to Charles, inviting him back to her father's home for a liberation party. Charles happily complies and is amazed to discover Helen at the party too. Much to Marion's chagrin, Charles and Helen quickly become lovers. Helen's father, James (Walter Pigeon) is an irreprehensible/penniless scamp, loveably sponging off Charles to place a bet on a long shot at the horse race. He warns Charles that the qualities of solidity and permanence other women would value in a husband will not be enough to sustain Helen's affections. She is her father's daughter, used to the good life and parties and dabbling in art and music with artists and musicians who would rather spend their days drinking at the Cafe Dhingo than work. Undaunted Charles marries Helen.

James bequeaths them some 'useless' deeds to land in Texas James is convinced will yield oil someday. In the meantime, Charles begins to work for the Europa News Outlet. Quietly, he begins to write his first novel in his spare time. Charles and Helen have a daughter, Vicki (Sandra Descher). But even the prospect of motherhood is not enough to quell Helen's desire for wild nightlife. She frequently leaves Charles to tend to Vicki while she stays out and parties all night. Meanwhile, Charles succumbs to a growing depression because of his lack of initial success in the publishing world. His mental darkness is compounded when Helen catches cold and must be hospitalized to treat her pneumonia. Gradually, Charles turns to drink. A chance meeting with notorious socialite, Lorraine Quarl (Ava Gabor) leads to a superficial romance at approximately the same time Helen decides to take up with tennis playboy, Paul (Roger Moore in his MGM debut). News arrives. The ‘worthless’ oil wells have proven to be a gusher. The family is flush with prosperity. Yet, this only compounds their troubles. Charles takes up racing and even more drink, while Helen plunges into her affair with Paul. Although Charles continues to see Lorraine, he desperately wants Helen back. But it is of no consequence.

Chuck and Helen are at cross purposes and never this twain shall meet. After a particularly embarrassing scene at a social gathering, Charles stumbles home in a drunken stupor. He angrily bolts the door from the inside, then collapses on the stairs. Helen returns home, contrite and hoping to reconcile once and for all. But, unable to open the door she retreats to her sister's home in a rainstorm where she too collapses from another bout of pneumonia and, shortly thereafter, dies. Marion, who has married Claude, petitions the courts for custody of Vicki and wins. Charles retreats to America where he finally gets a handle on his alcoholism. Returning to France, presumably some years later, he finds James paralyzed and in a wheel chair after suffering a stroke. Charles begs Marion for custody of Vicki, but she bitterly refuses him. Only after Claude confides in his wife that he has known all along how much she still loves Charles does Marion's heart soften. Marion brings Vicki to the Cafe Dhingo where Charles is waiting. Father and daughter are reunited with the promise of starting their lives anew.

Under the guise of being an epic ‘family’ saga, The Last Time I Saw Paris is more hideously maudlin than heartbreakingly memorable. It might have helped if the pic had been photographed in France. But MGM was never a progressive studio in this regard. After all, why shoot abroad at considerable cost if studio artisans could recreate a look and a period at home? Well, the short answer here is, because there is only so much authenticity to be mustered on a budget and backlot. And MGM, by 1954, at precisely a mid-fifties’ epoch when its competition was gearing up for bigger entertainments, was instead in its cost-cutting phase of in-house production values. The glaring discrepancies between the stock location photography and the rest of this movie results in some jarring artifice-meets-truth, ill-served by Metro’s emphasis on studio-bound gloss to mask the grit and ugliness in Fitzgerald’s scathing tale. The difficulty here is Fitzgerald’s angst-filled prose do not translate well to MGM’s verve for overwrought melodrama. The literary edge gets blunted. The assemblage of Metro star power is undeniably impressive but utterly subservient to a bad screenplay and an even more awful 'American in Paris' clichéd claptrap of sets and costumes, looking decorous but fake in all their finery culled from Metro’s property department. MGM had a formula for making movies. In its heyday, it endured. Alas, that heyday was fast coming to an end by 1954, though no one at MGM was willing to concede as much.

Elizabeth Taylor is supremely gorgeous. Yet, her performance is of the mannequin ilk – just an elegant clothes horse, parading in fashion finery a la costumier, Helen Rose. Van Johnson is appropriately bitter. Even so, the bite in his contempt for Helen is so brutal, one sincerely wonders how a creature as fickle as she could ever cling to the hope that one day they would reconcile. Walter Pigeon's smarmy patriarch is refreshing. But Ava Gabor and Roger Moore make no impression whatsoever. Moore gets limited mileage from his Cheshire grin and dashing youthfulness.  There is no flash of his spy-master bon vivant, Simon Templar from TV’s The Saint or sinful sassiness as James Bond. So, Helen’s attraction to Paul is a real head-scratcher, as much as her waning/then rekindled desire to be loved by Charles – even on his terms. Not sure, but the last time I saw Paris, her streets were, indeed, dressed for spring, and lovers walked beneath them proudly, while birds found songs to sing. This enfeebled attempt to graft the far-away war-time forlornity of that delicate Kern/Hammerstein ballad onto Fitzgerald’s more darkly purposed and scornful style is a washout – period!  

There is far, far better news for The Last Time I Saw Paris on Blu-ray. For decades, an oversight in elapsed rights has allowed for the proliferation of countless bootlegs on VHS, DVD and Blu-ray. All have been atrocious…until now. The Warner Archive (WAC) has seemingly reacquired distribution for this deep catalog MGM misfire. The remastering effort on display easily bests anything the picture has ever looked like on home video, and may, in fact, rival its opening night theatrical splendor. For the very first time, we are given a robust palette of colors with fidelity and density to astound. Flesh tones are natural in appearance. Reds, yellows and greens pop with exotic intensity, really to show off Joseph Ruttenberg’s cinematography to its best advantage. The print is by Technicolor, and looks it. Contrast is excellently rendered and a light smattering of grain looks very indigenous to its source. Better still, I believe WAC’s release represents the first attempt to remaster the original Perspecta 4-channel into a 5.1 DTS stereo blend. It sounds solid enough with special consideration given to Conrad Salinger’s plush orchestrations. Extras are limited to a vintage Tom & Jerry short, and the original theatrical trailer – to have seen better days. Bottom line: The Last Time I Saw Paris would not have been a catalog release I would have put ahead of so much great work committed to by this stellar cast elsewhere during their respective tenures at MGM.  If WAC wanted a great vintage Elizabeth Taylor flick, Lassie Come Home (1943) or A Date With Judy (1948) would have been preferred. If a Van Johnson classic, then how about Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) or Easy to Wed (1946). If Walter Pigeon, there was always Mrs. Parkington (1944) or Week-end at the Waldorf (1945). Bottom line: this new-to-Blu comes highly recommended for its technical proficiency. As a movie, it is still a dud!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1