Paris When It Sizzles Is Still a Tad Underdone

Movie comedies don't always age well. For every such comedy that manages to provoke just as many laughs out of today's audiences as it did from yesterday's, there are many which are lucky if they elicit as much as a smile.

Movie parodies especially tend to not age well because the material they parody changes so rapidly. Yes, there are rare exceptions but such exceptions tend to work because they aim at universal foibles: the greed of the rich, the stupidity of authority figures, the hypocrisy of religious people and so forth. Thus Life of Brian still elicits yuks by both focusing on human shortcomings and parodying Biblical epics while Wholly Moses! has managed to disappear into comic oblivion by focusing on just the parody part.

It would be nice to say that the 1964 Audrey Hepburn film Paris When It Sizzles was an exception to this rule because Ms. Hepburn has such a way with a comic line, but unfortunately, even the best actress can only spin gold out of dross for so long. And though her co-star William Holden is no stranger to good movies, it is difficult to think of anything worth watching in this movie which does not ultimately involve Ms. Hepburn.

Oh, well. The idea of Ms. Hepburn playing a typist who ultimately plays both muse and assistant to middle-aged screenwriter William Holden sounds like a good idea on paper. But the execution left much to be desired and a lot of scenes that had the potential to be very funny more often than not came across as just being very silly without being especially funny.

I will admit that Paris When It Sizzles is hardly the worst movie I have ever seen. But Ms. Hepburn has done better and deserves better. And quite frankly, it says something about the script that the inevitable parody of Hammer vampire films seems more realistic than the film's happy ending. Though I must admit that it has been a long time since I have seen a movie in which actor Tony Curtis was famous for being anything apart from Jamie Lee's father.