Gigi (1958)

Oscar winning musical is not to be confused with Gigli (2003), the Afflick/Lopez film of much reputed awfulness. This is a pleasant film, its got a bouncy and energy to it the raises it (if only slightly) above the typical musical fair of its time. I found it made an enjoyable source of background noise while I read from The Nation and composed a letter. That is to say there is little to the plot so I was free to multi-task. From what I picked up from the film Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a young women being raised to be some kind of high class call girl, though this is never made overly explicate it seems to be implied. A young diplomat (Louis Jourdan) falls in love with her and surprise, at the end they get engaged. The songs are pretty good though (The Night They Invented Champaign, Thank Heaven for Little Girls) , plus Maurice Chevalier is here as a kind of narrator, and he’s freaking awesome (the cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew was based on him you know). Three out Five. Delbert Mann’s Separate Tables would have been a better choice for best picture that year.