Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-05-19
THE PASSING SHOW
THE PASSING SHOW
Paris q Gay Setting
For Dupont's Comedy
By JAY CARMODY

For those Americans who
cannot get to Paris this summer,
and these still constitute a ma
jority. there remains "Innocents
in Paris" which opened yester-
day at the Dupont.
This is not the same thing as
making a personal appearance
in the Champs Ulysses or the
Place Pigalle, but it is some
thing. What it is is an urbanely
cheerful little English film COM
edy with just enough blemishes
to accent its charms.
The screenscript is one of
those loose-weave affairs which
calls for a number of players
that must have wiped out I'M
employment in both the English
and French film colonies. A
dozen stars and what seems like
hundreds of bit players get their
chance to romp the alternately
witty. high-spirited. touching,
and occasionally downright dull,
episodes of the picture.
Alastair Sim, Claire Bloom,
Margaret Rutherford, and Claude
Dauphin are mere few of the
major jewellers. They are all
dealing here in fragments, but
delicious ones. At the other ex-
IRENE is Mara Lane, England's
Marilyn Monroe, who does a
running caricature of the latter
that is a tasteless bore.
It is a not-at-all original idea
that Anatole de Grunwald en-
ploys for "Innocents in Paris"
What he has done is take
planeload of English holidayerS
to Paris for a week end. These
are q varied lot, from a top gov
eminent official to a trampish
blond, and their ideas of a Paris
spree are recklessly inviting to
a movie camera. More than that.
they are dramatically Illustrative
of the variety of play settings TO
be found in the City of Light.
Naturally its structure being
what it is, there is more of chaos
than continuity in the Dupont
fllm. In spite of this, most of the
holidayers manage to be humans
worth following.
Most hilarious of the group are
the economics wizard played by
MIR. Sim and the scattery-brained
museum addict represented by
Miss Rutherford. The former, a
wry and dyspeptic figure, finds
himself involved in a vodka
drinking duel with his opposite
number from Russia. Since there
is nothing an Englishman can
not do better than anyone else,
the result of this conflict is the
Russians commitment to world
conference that would be abhor-
rent to any Muscovite in a nom
alcoholic condition.
AS for Miss Rutherford's gen.
tie old feather brain. she pro-
vides a merry time for everyone |
with her purchase of the 3,338th |
copy of the Mona Lisa turned
out by a mild little artist who
has spent a lifetime copying the
Louvre's masterpiece.
* X X
While these adventures in
politics and art are the funniest
bits in the film, don't think M
De Grunwald is such a fool as to
ignore the romantic invitations
Paris extends to visitors.
This is where Miss Bloom
comes in, and ever so welcome
she is. Hers is the touching task
of illustrating that girlish in
nocence is safe in the presence
of wolfish Paris until she her
self decides there might be some
thing also in adventure. Her
partner in this romantic episode
is M. Dauphin, a man who dis
covers that there is more of per-
suasicn in Lord Byron's verse
than a Frenchman might realize.
OF the other engaging trippers