The Academy’s infatuation with Cinemascope continued as a film using that technology won for the third straight year, even though in this particular year there were at least two and possibly three films that were more deserving. More on that later, but Gigi with all of its color and spectacle and music came away with the statue in 1958 due in large part, I’m sure, to its use of this new widescreen format that made movies even bigger than they were before and were now so much larger than life. What I will say about Gigi is that it’s one of those winners that kind of ticks me off. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it. It’s entertaining enough. It produced two iconic songs in Thank Heaven for Little Girls and I Remember it Well. But even with the fine songs, the grandiosity and the beautiful cinematography, I was left wanting more. That’s because the story is a disorganized mess. In fact, as the movie was meandering towards its climax, the word that kept coming into my mind in regards to how this story was being told was clumsy. This film has a clumsy story.

I will get to the story in further detail in a moment, but the first thing I need to talk about it my main beef with this film and that is with its misuse of Leslie Caron. This was her second starring role in a Best Picture winner and she was the headlining talent for the film, but she was not the film’s main character. That role instead was handled by Gaston, played with debonair sophistication by Louis Jourdan, who you might remember from such classics as Octopussy and Swamp Thing. Gaston is an upper class playboy who has a different woman in his life seemingly every week. Leslie Caron played the title role, who is much younger than Gaston, but their families have been friendly for years and the two of them have been friends forever and often play cards, with Gigi always winning. With Gigi being more of a love interest than a main character, she does little to drive the action and is, in fact, often reacting to what’s going on around her and ultimately has to be rescued at the end. She does nothing to end up with Gaston. In fact, he is the one who makes it happen.

But that isn’t even why I feel that Leslie Caron was under-utilized in Gigi. In her first Best Picture winner, An American in Paris, we saw Caron as the amazing dancer that she was. You can read that blog post to see that I wasn’t particularly impressed with that film either, but one thing that no one can deny is Leslie Caron’s ability as a dancer. She was an amazing ballerina, but also could dance incredibly well in other more modern styles as well. It was Leslie Caron’s dancing, along with the dancing of Gene Kelly that made An American in Paris even worth watching. But she didn’t dance at all in Gigi. She sang a little bit, although Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier sang a lot more. I wasn’t really looking forward too much to seeing this film, but I figured I’d at least see some good dancing from Leslie Caron, and I saw no dancing from her at all, which made Gigi even more disappointing.

The music was actually used as a vehicle for Chevalier’s singing, and there’s no denying that there are some memorable songs in this film, a couple of which have already been mentioned.  Much like in an action movie where the story is only intended to be filler between action sequences, Gigi followed in the footsteps of An American in Paris with a story that largely is just filler to take up the space between songs. There are a lot of times in musicals where that’s not a problem, and the very best musicals often use songs to help propel the story or develop the characters. Gigi does that in certain places, but there are so many songs in it that the story often gets muddled, and as I mentioned before, comes off as clumsy.

I’d rather not get into a full synopsis of the plot, as it is essentially a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-gets-girl-in-the-end story. It’s fairly predictable, but due to the number of songs, it takes forever for the story to get moving. We’re literally halfway through the movie before Gaston even gets an inkling that he’d like to pursue a romantic relationship with Gigi. They’ve clearly known each other a long time and consider each other to be friends. We as the audience know right away that they’re destined for a more romantic relationship, but it takes forever for it to get started and that’s frustrating. It’s also not very good storytelling. If you’re a screenwriter looking for good examples of how not to structure your story, then Gigi is the film for you.

In fact, one of the causes of the story being so clumsy is that it takes so long to get going. The first act of the film doesn’t end until we’re half way through it, and that detail wreaks havoc on the rest of the story, but especially with the third act. As in any romantic/comedy/musical, the second act ends with the two lovers hopelessly broken apart from each other with no apparent path towards reconciliation. Gigi is no different, but because they took so much time with singing and exposition in the first act, there’s no time to build the drama in the second act, and even less time to pay it off in the third act. What we are left with, again, is clumsy storytelling.

Let me finally say what I mean when I say that the storytelling is clumsy. That word really came to me in full force as the film was reaching its climax, which involved a lot of Gaston going to Gigi’s apartment, then leaving without her, thinking that she’s not the one for him, and then inexplicably going back to try again. Then he gets her to go out with him, and they seem to be having a good time, but he again inexplicably feels the need to drag her out of the club they’re in and take her home. Then, and only then, does Gaston realize what he truly wants, and he goes back to Gigi’s apartment again, only this time he asks her to marry him. The whole thing just feels rushed and clumsy. Again, with too many songs in the first and second acts, and not enough storytelling, the last act really suffered to the point where it was hard to care whether these two ended up together or not.

The other problem, and the other reason we don’t particularly care if they get together in the end, is that Gaston is not a particularly likable character. He’s charming and sophisticated, but he’s bored by everything and comes off as being pretentious. He takes advice from Honore Lachaille (Chevalier) and it’s clearly not the type of advice he should be taking. In one scene that is in particularly poor taste, Lachaille boasts to Gaston about the number of girls who have committed suicide over him, and congratulates Gaston on his first girl to attempt suicide. I suppose it could have been funny in the fifties, but for a modern viewer, that whole bit just feels like, as mentioned, something that is in very poor taste. In fact, one must wonder why the carefree, modern thinking Gigi would even give Gaston a second look.

Was it all bad? No, it was not all bad. The musical numbers, while excessive, were still charming and entertaining. In fact I think my favorite scene in the film is when Chavelier sings I Remember it Well, as it’s perhaps the most emotional and melancholy moment of the film as this lifelong gigilo tries to remember the details of what should have been the best night of his life, but he can’t. Shot in Cinemascope, this is a beautiful film to look at, although they didn’t really take as much advantage of the Cinemascope as they could have due to the aforementioned lack of dancing. Widescreen formats are ideal for shooting big dance numbers, and with all of the singing that went on in this film, there should have been more dancing, if for no other reason than to take advantage of the widescreen format. Even without more dancing, however, this is a beautiful film to look at, and similarly to The Bridge on the River Kwai, the filmmakers didn’t reduce themselves to gratuitous widescreen shots that did nothing other than show off the new technology. Now some of you might be thinking that I’m contradicting myself by applauding the film for its lack of gratuity while also criticizing the film for not taking advantage of the technology by shooting lots of dance numbers. But that is exactly the point. Where Around the World in 80 Days wasted lots of time and lots of film by showing a ton of what was basically B-roll that was nonetheless beautiful to look at, those shots did little to advance the story and mainly served as self-serving shots that told the audience, “Look at me! I’m widescreen!” However using the widescreen format to your advantage, like showing a huge dancing number or an intricate action scene is what that format is made for.

Did the Academy get it right?

You’ve probably guessed that the answer is no. For the third year in a row, the Academy chose a film that was shot in Cinemascope. For the second time in those three years, it was clearly not the best film of the year. There were two black and white films that were nominated against it that were clearly better films in that they had more dynamic storylines and more engaging characters. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starred Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor, both in their prime sexiness and the sexual tension in that film is palpable. They were also both extraordinary actors and they were each at the tops of their respective games in that film. The other thing going against Cat on a Hot Tin roof was that it all takes place in the same house on the same day, so it clearly lacked the grandiosity of Gigi, but it was a far superior film, as it dealt with heavy themes about family, honesty and what’s to be expected of the next generation. The Defiant Ones is another black and white film that was far superior to Gigi. This one starred Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as members of a chain gang who are chained together and hate each other. When the truck carrying them crashes, giving them a chance to escape, they have to work together and form a bond of mutual respect and understanding. That film also dealt with very serious thematic issues, like race relations and proper methods for the penal system. I would have voted for either of these films over Gigi had I had a vote in 1958. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that I would have voted for Auntie Mame over Gigi as well, as that movie was much funnier, more entertaining and had characters who were way more engaging. So all in all, I feel that Gigi is one of the weaker winners of Best Picture, and the Academy likely favored the politics of the new technology over the quality of what the Best Picture winner should have been.