Innocents in Paris
Innocents in Paris | |
---|---|
| |
Directed by | Gordon Parry |
Produced by |
Anatole de Grunwald John Woolf |
Screenplay by | Anatole de Grunwald |
Starring |
Alastair Sim Ronald Shiner Claire Bloom Margaret Rutherford Claude Dauphin Jimmy Edwards |
Music by | Joseph Kosma |
Cinematography | Gordon Lang |
Edited by | Geoffrey Foot |
Production company | |
Release date | 1953 |
Running time | 102 min |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Innocents in Paris is a 1953 British-French international co-production comedy film produced by Romulus Films, directed by Gordon Parry and starring Alastair Sim, Ronald Shiner, Claire Bloom, Margaret Rutherford, Claude Dauphin, and Jimmy Edwards, and also featuring James Copeland.[1] Popular French comedy actor Louis de Funès appears as a taxi driver, and there are uncredited appearances by Christopher Lee, Laurence Harvey and Kenneth Williams. The writer and producer was Anatole de Grunwald, born in Russia in 1910, who fled to Britain with his parents in 1917. He had a long career there as a writer and producer, including the films The Way to the Stars, The Winslow Boy, Doctor's Dilemma, Libel, and The Yellow Rolls Royce.[2]
Plot
The film is a romantic comedy about a group of Britons flying out from "The London Airport" for a weekend in Paris in 1953 in a British European Airways Airspeed Ambassador. An English diplomat (Sim) is on a working trip to obtain an agreement with his Russian counterpart (Illing); a Royal Marine bandsman (Shiner) has a night out on the tiles after winning a pool of the French currency held by all the Marines in his band; a young woman (Bloom) finds romance with an older Frenchman (Dauphin) who gives her a tour of Paris; an amateur artist (Rutherford) searches out fellow painters on the Left Bank and in the Louvre; a hearty Englishman (Edwards) spends the entire weekend in an English-style pub; and a Battle of Normandy veteran (Copeland) is an archetypal Scotsman in kilt and Tam o' Shanter who finds love with a young French woman (Gérard).
The film displays the mores and manners of the British, and, to a lesser extent, the French, in the early nineteen-fifties. At this time, Britons were allowed to take only £25 out of the country,[3] as £5 British cash and travellers cheques, and there are several scenes showing how the travellers dealt with this. The film also features a Russian nightclub (of which there were several in Paris at the time), with Ludmila Lopato, a Russian tzigane chanteuse, singing the original Russian version of the song that became "Those were the Days", which became a hit record for Mary Hopkin.
Cast
- Alastair Sim: Sir Norman Baker
- Ronald Shiner: Dicky Bird
- Claire Bloom: Susan Robbins
- Margaret Rutherford: Gwladys Inglott
- Claude Dauphin: Max de Lonne
- Jimmy Edwards: Captain George Stilton
- James Copeland: Andy MacGrégor "L'Écossais"
- Gaby Bruyère: Josette, la mère de famille
- Monique Gérard: Raymonde
- Peter Illing: Panitov
- Colin Gordon: A customs officer
- Kenneth Kove: Bickerstaff
- Frank Muir: Stilton's friend
- Philip Stainton: Nobby Clarke
- Peter Jones: Langton
- Stringer Davis: Arbuthnot
- Richard Wattis: Wilkinson, Sir Norman Baker's secretary
- Albert Dinan: the museum warden
- Jean Richard: A painter
- Maurice Baquet:
- Georgette Anys: Célestin'wife
- Grégoire Aslan: the carpet seller
- Jean-Marie Amato
- Reginald Beckwith: the photographer
- Max Dalban: the butcher
- Albert Goddard: sergeant major
- Laurence Harvey: François
- Miles Joyce: Steve Wheeler
- Mara Lane: Gloria Delaney
- Christopher Lee: Lieutenant Withlock (uncredited)
- Jean Sylvain: Lucien
- Kenneth Williams: Window dresser at London Airport (uncredited)
- Paul Demange: the waiter
- Emile Genevois
- Louis de Funès
- Albert Michel
- Joan Winmill-Brown
- Toke Townley: Airport Porter (uncredited)
- Hamilton Keene
- Georges Kobakhidze
- Walter Horsbrugh
- Douglas Ives: Customs officer
- Véra Gretch
- Dita Hands
- Charles Deschamps
- Guy de Monceau
- Evanghelou
- Marcelle Fery
- Joan Benham
- Joseph Bimstone
- Alain Bouvette
- John Brooking
- Jacques Ciron
- Nicole Regnault
- Lynn Craig
- Solange Bary
- Polycarpe Pavloff
- Irène de Strozzi
- Ludmilla Lopato
- Andreas Malandrinos: French Customs Officer (uncredited)
- Sophie Mallet
- Yannick Malloire
- Joyce Marlowe
- Jack May
- Moreau
- André Numès Fils
- André Philip
- Vladimir Poliakov
- Roger Rafal
- Peter Rendall ou Rendalen
- Ivan Samson
- Frederick Schrecker: Porter (uncredited)
- John Serret
- Bill Shine (actor): A customs officer
- Vladimir Slastcheff
- Robert Rollis
- The Band of Plymouth Group Royal Marines
- The Can-Can dancers from The Moulin Rouge, Paris
Crew
- Direction: Gordon Parry
- Screenwriter: Anatole de Grunwald
- Adaptation:
- Dialogues:
- Artistic director: Thomas Goswell
- Assistants directors: Jack Causey, Pierre Rouve
- Music: Joseph Kosma
- Cinematography: Gordon Lang
- Opérators: Robert Walker, Pierre Petit, for the second unit
- Montage: Geoffrey Foot, with Ann Chegwidden
- Décors: Georges Wakhévitch, with Kenneth McCallum-Tait
- Make-up: Ernest Gasser
- Coiffures: Ida Muts
- Sound: John W. Mitchell
- Script-girl: Rita Davison
- Location manager: Claude Ganz
- Conductor: Muir Mathieson
- Dress supervisor: Ann Wemyss
- Pellicule 35 mm, black § black
- Production : Romulus, Anatole de Grunwald Production (Great-Britain)
- Directeur de production: William Kirby
- Secrétaire de production: James H. Ware
- Duration: 103 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, adventures
- release date: Template:U.K: 22 July 1953
References
- ↑ Innocents in Paris (1953) - IMDb
- ↑ Innocents in Paris - BFI
- ↑ "The U.K. exchange control: a short history" (PDF). Bank of England. Retrieved 26 November 2017.