Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
Not for those in search of deeply searching dramatic moments, Paris When It Sizzles pits the inimitable Audrey Hepburn over against William Holden, who proves his mettle more convincingly than, say, George Peppard in the better of the two films, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Something drew Hepburn to Paris (both the real city and the simulated LA sound stages). There is in fact a bit of Paris about the young actress, who makes of even comic farce an attractive evening’s viewing.
Her characters—this film’s secretary Miss Gabrielle Simpson—veer between naiveté and shrewdness, never quite declaring allegiance to either of the available extremes. She has, after all, arrived in Paris and executed ‘a comprehensive study of depravity’, combining in her off-hand style the innocence of such a project and the mastery of perversity with which it can be expected to have familiarized her.
Obviously smitten from the beginning by Holden’s hack screenwriter, Hepburn’s Miss Simpson fashions Holden’s character into a better man than he could have imagined himself being: ‘not international wit funny but really funny’.
When confronted with the ‘L’ word on Holden’s 43-year-old lips—he looks a fit sixty, but this was before health food and smoke-free restaurants—Hepburn shimmers in soft focus. She doesn’t sulk, she doesn’t come off the screen and grab you by the throat, but she does shimmer as Paris simmers.
This belongs in your Hepburn collection, even if it doesn’t quite make it onto the shelf labeled ‘Great Films’.
Canter Bridge 
Leave a comment