Paris When It Sizzles (1964)

Paris When It Sizzles (1964), directed by Richard Quine.

One more and I'll take a break from the Audrey Hepburn film festival...

Hard drinking screenwriter William Holden has two days to write his movie, a terrible romance thriller called The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower. Audrey Hepburn is his hired typist, living in for the Bastille Day weekend. Imagine the zany madcap escapades as they put themselves in various funny and stupid movie scenarios, all the while falling in love.

Well, keep imagining. They try and we have the germ of a good movie here but it never takes off, feeling strained and overwrought the whole time. It's too bad because it has some witty repartee and sly, self-referential digs at actors and writers. He explains to her that My Fair Lady (1964) has the same plot as Frankenstein (1931); one has a happy ending and the other doesn't.

Frank Sinatra sings a few bars of the title song to the imaginary film. Marlene Dietrich has a cameo and Tony Curtis and Noel Coward have small parts.

Nelson Riddle score.

The gossip background to this one is that the stars had an affair during Sabrina (1954). Holden was still in love but this was ten years later and Hepburn was married and a mother. He still worked on her, without success. He was drinking heavily, a serious problem for him. It killed him in the end (and another man years earlier in a drunk driving accident).

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