Lerner & Loewe’s Gigi–The 1958 Movie That Became a Musical
One of the last MGM musicals to be produced by the Arthur Freed unit (including Conrad Salinger) is 1958’s Gigi. It was later adapted into a Broadway musical; however, the Broadway show never became a hit on the stage. Part of the reason for this adaptive failure is the problem of casting. If one views the proper training of a courtesan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Paris as a tawdry business, then the 1944 novella by Colette loses its luster. If one views the process by which little girls turn into captivating women, it is a joy. The key to the novella and the movie is the art of making love. Colette contrasts the artificial art with the inspirational but unplanned occurrence.
Colette starts by painting a picture of Paris when clothes and horse-drawn carriages were a spectacle worth watching. The promenade was intended to watch and be watched. The courtesan was trained to provide her escort with discriminating taste in everything from jewels to cigars. Paris society demanded that its eligible bachelors be seen in public; but in order to be seen, the bachelors must be accompanied by fascinating women. Thus, we understand the box created by society; the bachelor is not wooing, he is preening in public. Part of his allure is his ability to attract and discard mistresses.
Yet, Colette found her inspiration in throwing sand in the gears and stopping the choreographed dance. Her novella posed the ultimate challenge to an orderly but antiseptic society–true love. For this reason, any adaptation had to preserve the reverence for societal norms as a baseline, while at the same time introducing a newness and freshness that only innocence and true love could inspire.
In many ways, the movie is entirely dependent on the performance of Leslie Caron. Caron had the facile ability to play a child in a woman’s body. Her performances in Lili (1953) and Daddy Long-Legs (1955) are testament to this ability. Once cast as Gigi, we, the audience, are as susceptible to the child-like charms of the young Gigi as Gaston, who finds that his only truly happy hours are the ones spent with Gigi and her grandmother. Louis Jordan is a perfect Gaston, bored to death with society but happy in the company of Gigi. Hermione Gingold is wonderfully cast as Madame Alvarez, Gigi’s grandmother, a mix of stern discipline and motherly indulgence.
We are introduced to Paris through the the wisdom and charm of Honore, Gaston’s uncle, played with such grace by Maurice Chevalier that we overlook his many faults. He sings the song that keeps all men young, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” It is an anthem to the blossoming of the human roses of spring and summer, the transformation from youth to womanly beauty. He is also a master at the game of musical mistresses.
Gaston is a creature of the Parisian culture and societal norms, which demand that he have mistresses who he does not love and who do not love him in return. It is a sophisticated public dance that Honore enjoys and Gaston dislikes. He finds the entire charade distasteful (“It’s a Bore”).
It’s not just Gaston who is tied to the customs of Paris society; Gigi is being raised to become a sophisticated courtesan by her great-aunt, Alicia, played to the hilt by Isabel Jeans, so that some day she can be mistress to a man like Gaston. The problem is that Gigi finds all of the training to be a stylish waste of time (“The Parisians”) and would rather act like a slightly disreputable imp or a Parisian “gamin.”
We see the attention lavished on bachelors by society in the chorus (“The Gossips”), balanced against Gaston’s disgust (“She’s Not Thinking of Me”).
The movie quickly shifts our attention to Madame Alvarez’ small apartment, where Gigi cheats at cards in order to win a bet–a trip for Gigi and her grandmother to Trouville. Gigi’s character is real and is irresistible to both Gaston and the audience (“The Night They Invented Champagne”).
In Trouville, Gaston permits himself to be a child again with Gigi, while Madame Alvarez recalls an earlier liaison with Honore (“I Remember It Well”).
But time is passing, and Gigi is growing older. Her innocence of love, correlated to her age, starts to change into a reverence for love and marriage, as she blossoms into womanhood. Gaston realizes that his friendship with a child has also blossomed into the love of a woman, as he thinks through all of the changes Gigi is going through (in a spoken/sung number, called simply enough “Gigi”).
Unfortunately, Gaston is also a creature of habit and offers to make Gigi his mistress. Gigi immediately sees the folly associated with this offer and turns him down. She loves him and knows that all mistresses are showered with gifts so that they can be flung aside when men tire of them. If she could play the game with a man she did not love, it would be one thing; but how could she become the mistress of a man she did love. Gaston doesn’t fully understand the end game of the charade and still insists on the proffered arrangement. Gigi eventually gives in because she cannot bear to be separated from Gaston (“I would rather be miserable with you than without you.”).
Honore watches from a distance, as his nephew struggles with his situation and admits, “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore.”
The night of Gigi’s introduction to Paris society has come, and they dine at Maxim’s. Gigi plays her part perfectly, perhaps too perfectly; or perhaps she plays her role so perfectly that Gaston finally sees the hypocrisy of his offer.
He has exchanged the real Gigi for a superficial replica. Angry at himself, he humiliates her by dragging her forcibly from the restaurant back to her grandmother’s apartment.
Gaston storms off to walk the streets of Paris in anger and despair, mixed together in wild array. Finally, there is a moment of clarity, and he returns to the apartment to propose marriage to Gigi. We know the ending long before Gaston does, but it is the only logical way for him to end a life of endless superficiality and boredom and find true happiness.
In the next posts, we will highlight the music that accompanies the story, including clips of Caron singing her own songs.