Paris When It Sizzles (1964)

This hilarious and romantic movie is full of inside jokes. See if you can find the several places where Audrey Hepburn recites lines from her previous films. Also check for cameos by Mel Ferrer (Hepburn's husband at the time) and Marlene Dietrich. Besides all of the cool cameos and inside jokes, this movie is utterly funny in the way that it makes fun of itself. A must see

Fmovies: One of Audrey Hepburn's most acclaimed films from the Fifties, Sabrina, showed her at her best if not her two co-stars, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. Bogey had left us already, but given what he thought of the film I doubt you could ever have gotten him to co-star again with this Hepburn. Still Holden and she got along and I guess Paramount thought they would team them again.

It didn't work out because two things were happening in William Holden's life. He broke up with Capucine before this film started and this was to be his final film under his Paramount contract. Reportedly Holden was drinking heavily and production was suspended while he dried out.

According to Tony Curtis's memoirs his unbilled bit in the film was to help pad it out as they got it ready for release. I'll bet that this was the case also for Marlene Dietrich's brief appearance and Noel Coward's small role as Holden's producer.

Paris - When It Sizzles was supposed to be a light hearted farcical look at the art of movie script writing. Audrey Hepburn plays a stenographer typist who is hired by Holden to help him out with dictation. As Holden spitballs his ideas out, we see a whole bunch of fantasy sequences with the two of them and Tony Curtis in various proposed scenes from his film The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower.

Paris - When It Sizzles was held up in release by Paramount for two years, a sure sign this was going to be a lemon. The critics roasted it and the public stayed away in droves. Fortunately both the stars had better work ahead of them and Holden did end his Paramount contract.

It would have been nice had he gone out on something a lot better.

In Paris, the successful alcoholic forty-two years old screenplay writer Richard Benson (William Holden) has three days to write a script to his producer that has paid in advance. The typist Gabrielle Simpson (Audrey Hepburn) arrives to his hotel to type the screenplay. Along the three days, she helps him to develop the story and they fall in love for each other.

"Paris – When It Sizzles" is absolutely silly and naive, but also charming and delightful and only works because of the chemistry between the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn and the ironic William Holden. There are many jokes with the cinema, with many stories within the lead story, and the most hilarious scenes have the uncredited participation of Tony Curtis. Marlene Dietrich and Mel Ferrer have also uncredited participation. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Quando Paris Alucina" ("When Paris Gets Crazy")

Paris When It Sizzles fmovies. Paris When It Sizzles is acharming and delightful little comedy showcasing the absurdist talents of Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. The plot concerns a hardened screenwriter and his young protogee as they rush to meet a deadline on a film script. The plot is indeed thin,but what hangs from it is a scenery chewing delight!The film covers various scenarios of the script each involving the electric Hepburn and Holden in the leads. The humor seems to be a precourser to such fims as Airplane,History Of The World and Naked Gun. In addition to Hepburn and Holden,Noel Coward turns in a very funny cameo as the head of the studio. Witty and elegant as ever,I would have liked to have seen more of him in the film.

Over all this film is an underrated delight!

This film seems to want to cash in on the genre that was so popular in the 1960s. Before the James Bond movies, anything to do with contemporary Europe in American films was either a musical or a noirish spy film. This movie reflects the big-screen, brightly colored and chock full of designer clothing look that was typical of the 60s. This was a time when movies were struggling to compete with color television, and the films got bigger, splashier, and took us to more and more exotic locations.

Paris When It Sizzles is very typical of the movies I remember from that time. It looks very much like the Pink Panther franchise, but it strives to be more sophisticated. I frankly think the direction and editing of the movie drag it down. There are is some very witty dialog ("how funny that we both kept giraffes!"), lots of in-jokes about the movie-making process, two very attractive stars (three if you count Tony Curtis in a supporting role), but it still drags more than it should. Except for Curtis, who is really funny and gets the tongue-in-cheek slant of the film just right, the rest seem to be laboring much too hard. The physical jokes (chase scenes, etc.) are overblown and generally go on too long. The whole look of the film seems heavy-handed when it should have been light and breezy. I have the impression this film was intended as farce, but it's more like that proverbial lead balloon. It's too bad, really. This could have been a lot funnier than it is. Nevertheless, Hepburn looks beautiful and soldiers on gamely, as she always did. Even if she did not enjoy making this movie, as has been reported, you wouldn't suspect it from her performance. She was the right choice for this role, but an actor never knows until she sees the final cut of a movie what it's going to look like. And yeah, I agree, that Dracula thing was pretty awful. Curtis' "Method" actor performance almost makes up for it. And what just what was Noel Coward doing in this picture, anyway? He's about as much of a Hollywood producer as Audrey Hepburn is Xena the Warrior Princess.

To really see how surreal farce was done right in the 1960s, I recommend the Beatles' "Help."

This is a film that only screenwriters and budding screenwriters will get. You have to have more than a passing interest in the process of writing a screenplay to enjoy the witty satire, wry comedy and not have a lot of the in jokes fly over your head. In that regard the film is brilliant and contains one of William Holden's best performances. Audrey Hepburn too is perfectly cast in the role of his secretary/ultimate partner and is a performance that stands right up there alongside her more celebrated roles in "Charade" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's". One of those films that seems too smart for a general audience. I have watched it over the years too with family and friends only to have them get left behind by the plot and start saying how stupid they thought the picture was. Maybe the best movie about the madness of screen writing ever made. Period.