To Paris, With Love

With Alec Guinness in Paris, and during the spring at that, almost anything could happen. Unfortunately, the wrong thing does Guinness is tripped up by a script which keeps him in the background and gives him too little to do. Not that the English comedian's flight to France and sophisticated comedy is entirely dull. The mere presence of the old master on the screen would be enough to keep any film from sinking into the grey depths of tedium. The main trouble with this one is that the audience gets an uncomfortable feeling that just out of camera range is a writer who worries more about working out his plot than giving the actors something funny to do.

The ever-present screenplay does have some merits. It is the story of that disappearing rarity, a widowed British millionaire, who wants to teach his 20-year-old son the facts of life. Logically enough, the pair go to Paris, where the father himself learns something about modern technique from a salesgirl in her teeens while an experienced woman of the world takes charge of the son's education. The mechanics of this upside-down situation run smoothly enough until near the end, when they clank to a stop with a rather sudden resolution.

As the British owner of millions and a title, Guinness has an easy assignment. He is seldom called on to do more than say a few lines or leer a bit at his young escort. He does the latter admirably, but without suggesting the talents as a comedian which he has shown in most of his earlier pictures. However, Odile Versois, the salesgirl, is an engaging contrast to Guinness' somber tweeds. As a sort of personification of the infinite possibilities offered by Paris in April, she burbles and bubbles over with joie de vivre. Next to her, even the sleek and well-tailored older woman of Elina Labourdette seems a bit lifeless, while Vernon Gray, the not-so-inexperienced son, almost appears to be wrapped in an English fog.

For two or three scenes, nevertheless, the film abandons plot and sophistication, descends to low comedy, and becomes hilarious. Alec Guinness shines at these times, particularly where he tries youthfully to retrieve a lost badminton bird and ends up with the net tangled about his legs and feathers in his teeth. Though not exceptional for a Guinness picture, in such spots To Paris, With Love, rises above routine comedy.