{"id":36076,"date":"2016-07-05T23:24:21","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T06:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36076"},"modified":"2016-07-06T07:53:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T14:53:48","slug":"challenge-week-26-april-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/07\/challenge-week-26-april-in-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Week 26: April in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naomi and I share a lot of the same taste, particularly when it comes to classic Hollywood – and musicals! I figured she’d try to give me something in that area, and I was right, but she had to dig through my seen and unseen lists for a while to do it!<\/p>\n

This is one I don’t know how I missed growing up – I watched a ton of musicals, and nearly every Doris Day musical there was. I’d certainly heard of this one, but I think the idea of Ray Bolger as a leading man put me off a bit, because…I mean…the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz<\/em> as a lead? And you know what, he did fine. He may not be traditionally handsome, but he’s confident and holds the screen anyway.<\/p>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-wrongethel\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bolger is Sam Putnam, a secretary to a secretary to a secretary in Washington D.C., neck-deep in planning a major expo in Paris. Imagine his consternation when he realizes he accidentally invited Ethel Jackson, a chorus girl, to represent the American stage at the expo rather than Ethel Barrymore! He goes to break the news to Ethel “Dynamite” Jackson (Doris Day, of course), which breaks her heart, as she was ecstatic about the trip. But word of the invitation has gotten around and Sam is being hailed for his progressive thinking at inviting an unknown chorus girl rather than a more obvious star, and he’s got to reinvite her. Lots more hijinks occur, largely involving Sam and Ethel getting married aboard the ship to Paris, only not, because a busboy was impersonating the captain.<\/p>\n

This is all a slight bit of colorful fluff, but here’s the thing. This exact kind of fluff is my comfort food. It’s what I grew up watching as a kid, and I’ve never lost my love for it, no matter how much I try to tell myself I’m too sophisticated for it, or my film tastes have matured, or whatever bunk of the week I’m trying to pawn off to bolster my film credentials. I am not, and they have not – I love this stuff, and because I watched so much of it as a kid, it’s increasingly rare that I’m able to watch something like this that I haven’t seen before.<\/p>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-paree\"<\/p>\n

I don’t know that this one will stick with me more than most of the other musicals that studios churned out in the 1940s-1950s (the songs didn’t make a huge impression on me, except for the duet between Ethel and Philippe “That’s What Makes Paris Paris”, which isn’t a great sign for the film’s longevity), but it did have some things that I thought were very interesting for the time period. For one thing, the French guy Phillipe (Claude Dauphin) breaks the fourth wall to talk to us about what’s going on in the story. This is very unusual in the 1950s, and previously I’d thought it was mostly done in Looney Tunes!<\/p>\n

Plus, as you can imagine with the married\/not married plot, there’s a lot of innuendo, some of which I have no idea how got past the Production Code – like “shall we allow this young lady to return to America unconjugated?” They also spend quite a decent chunk of the movie after the wedding trying to find a place to sleep together. Things like this point very clearly to Doris Day’s shift in the late 1950s to sex comedies rather than musicals, but I wasn’t expecting to find it in this phase of her career.<\/p>\n

Like I said, I don’t know if this will hold its ranking or not, especially as my Flickchart rerank project gets down to other similar films that I currently have underranked, but I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to sit down with something that I found so comfortable, enjoyable, and delightful. I’ve been quite busy and overscheduled the past few weeks, and I needed this. Thanks, Naomi!<\/p>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-cabins\"<\/p>\n

Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n

1952, USA<\/em>
\ndirected by David Butler, written by Jack Rose and Melville Shavelson<\/em>
\nstarring Doris Day, Ray Bolger, Claude Dauphin<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how April in Paris<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n

April in Paris<\/b> > Sharps and Flats
\nApril in Paris<\/b> > The Graduate
\nApril in Paris < Clueless<\/b>
\nApril in Paris < Drop Dead Gorgeous<\/b>
\nApril in Paris < Rope<\/b>
\nApril in Paris < Mon oncle Antoine<\/b>
\nApril in Paris < My Winnipeg<\/b>
\nApril in Paris < Monsters<\/b>
\nApril in Paris<\/b> > Se7en
\nApril in Paris<\/b> > Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
\nApril in Paris < Serenity<\/b><\/p>\n

Final #907 out of 3671 films on my chart (75%)<\/p>\n

It is now my #2 David Butler film, my #2 Doris Day film (that will not last my rerank project), my #3 Ray Bolger film, my #36 Musical Comedy, my #27 Musical Romance, and my #9 film of 1952.<\/p>\n

April in Paris<\/em> was recommended by Naomi Laeuchli, a friend from the Flickcharters group on Facebook.<\/p>\n

A few more screenshots…<\/h3>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-pariscake\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-shipphilippe\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-knock\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-aprilinparis-eiffel\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naomi and I share a lot of the same taste, particularly when it comes to classic Hollywood – and musicals! I figured she’d try to give me something in that area, and I was right, but she had to dig through my seen and unseen lists for a while to do it! This is one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[3167,3170,3168,3169],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/tf-feat2-aprilinparis.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36388,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-40-crime-wave\/","url_meta":{"origin":36076,"position":0},"title":"Challenge Week 40: Crime Wave","author":"Jandy","date":"November 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm pretty much always going to like film noir, so my fellow film blogger Kristina was wise in choosing a couple of lesser-known noirs for me to watch. Crime Wave is a fairly straight-forward crime drama, with a gang of crooks holding up a gas station - when one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-crime-wave-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36006,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/challenge-week-23-the-hole\/","url_meta":{"origin":36076,"position":1},"title":"Challenge Week 23: The Hole","author":"Jandy","date":"June 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I figured I'd be coming up against some of the odder films of the challenge when I got to Chad's week - he's got some of the more eccentric tastes in my main movie group on Facebook, and he didn't disappoint. Tsai Ming-liang's 1998 take on the turn of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/tf-feat-hole.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36289,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/challenge-week-36-paris-texas\/","url_meta":{"origin":36076,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 36: Paris, Texas","author":"Jandy","date":"October 5, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"As a huge fan of Wings of Desire, I've been really eager to see more Wim Wenders films, especially this one. I didn't know much about what it was about, though. It's kind of a road movie, with Walt (Dean Stockwell) finding his brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) wandering through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tf-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36658,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-50-footloose\/","url_meta":{"origin":36076,"position":3},"title":"Challenge Week 50: Footloose","author":"Jandy","date":"December 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love musicals and movies about dance, but I have to admit I put off watching this one for a couple of reasons: first, I dislike '80's movies in general, and second, the story as I understood it was about a town that has outlawed dancing and the city kid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-feat-fooloose.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":28843,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/50dmc-38-movie-world-youd-like-to-live-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":36076,"position":4},"title":"50DMC #38: Movie World You’d Like to Live In","author":"Jandy","date":"October 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions. Today's prompt: What movie world would you most like to live in? This answer is certainly Paris, because I am\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/paris.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":20407,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/fifteen-favorite-musical-numbers-in-non-musicals\/","url_meta":{"origin":36076,"position":5},"title":"Fifteen Favorite Musical Numbers…in Non-Musicals","author":"Jandy","date":"April 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Cross-posting alert! I just posted a list of some of my favorite musical numbers from non-musical films over on Row Three, and wanted to make sure anyone over here knew about it too. Here's just a couple from the post to tease you, but come over and see the full\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/Breakfast-at-Tiffanys-featured.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36076"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}