From the 1960s: Paris Blues

1961 Drama

From United Artists

Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring

Paul Newman

Joanne Woodward

Sidney Poitier

Diahann Carroll

Louis Armstrong

Barbara Laage

Serge Reggiani

Martin Ritt came across Harold Flender's novel about a black American musician living in Paris who romances a black American schoolteacher who's there on holiday.  Ritt always had a soft spot for black folks and stories about them.  There was already Edge of the City and coming were The Great White Hope, Sounder, Cross Creek and others.  He got UA to buy the rights to the novel.

The director was apparently not especially pleased when the studio decided it would keep the black angle but wanted to add a white couple to the proceedings.  It would now be two expatriates romancing two schoolteachers.  Ritt was insistent that it would be two interracial romances but producers again overruled him because they  assessed that America wasn't ready for such a daring storyline.  

Ritt reluctantly gave in but insisted that his buddies Newman, Woodward and Poitier be signed for three of the four leads.  Ritt's first movie, Edge of the City (1957), starred Poitier in his first role.  Ritt's second film, No Down Payment (1958) starred Woodward and his third film, The Long, Hot Summer (1958) starred Newman (and Woodward).  All four were sympatico on the political scene and knew they would have a good time together in Paris.

In 1960s Paris at a popular little dive called Marie's Cave featuring jazz, Newman plays the trombone and Poitier plays sax as part of a combo.  They've been at Marie's for five years or so and love what they do.  Neither misses America in the slightest, especially, perhaps, Poitier, who runs from American racism and loves Parisians' open acceptance of blacks.  Both devote their energies to music.

Someone says that every time Newman's character puts a horn to his mouth, he is composing.  He adores music and wants nothing more than being a serious composer.  Poitier seems content to be a part of the combo.  In Newman's off time he canoodles with Marie (Laage) who wants more than the occasional romp in the hay.

A guitar player in the group (Reggiani) is addicted to drugs and Newman's character is quite touching trying to get his friend straight.  The French must have had a good chuckle that Reggiani was given an introducing credit when he'd been making French films for 20 years.

One day Newman goes off to the train station to meet the arrival of his hero, Wild Man Moore (Armstrong), who's come to town for a gig.  Newman meets Carroll, of whom he seems to be quickly enamored, but she moves aside when her traveling companion, Woodward, has the body language that says he is mine.

The women are American schoolteachers arriving in Paris for a two-week stay.  They had planned to shop and tour but after Carroll and Poitier meet all that changes.

Filmed on location we tour as the two couples tour and it is a complete joy.  A couple of small street scenes that look as though they were filmed inside a studio soundstage.

The biggest fans of the film may well indeed be jazz enthusiasts and they would surely claim the best scene is an 11-minute jam session at a crowded Marie's when Armstrong and his bandmates blow the roof off the joint playing with Newman, Poitier and their group.

However, the true thrust of the film is romance and we get plenty of time with both couples.  Obviously the guys have been involved with tourists before but it was new for the women who fell hard and fast.  Both Carroll and Woodward want the men to return with them to America.  

How interesting it is that there was never a mention of the women staying in Paris, especially since they liked it so much.  But Woodward has children back home and Carroll seems to be in the thick of the Civil Rights movement.  She is adamant that Poitier should jump into the fray, saying the only way race relations can improve in America is if people stay and work together to change things.

It appears, however, that the guys will not be returning to America and the romances will be little more than holiday ones, rapturous though they can be.  Carroll ups and decides to rebook her flight home, leaving two days earlier than originally planned.  Woodward is surprised but decides to leave early with her friend since she and Newman just called it quits.  He could not see giving up his music and Paris for life in smalltown America married to the local school teacher with a couple of kids.  And he's known her just short of two weeks.

Poitier feels much the same as Newman but the former's connectedness with Carroll is a bit stronger than Newman's for Woodward.  And then something happens, something unexpected.

Newman has a meeting with a music producer he respects, fully expected to get some back slaps and attaboys.  The producer likes some of Newman's composition but overall feels Newman needs to work harder to become a serious composer.   Oh-oh.

Newman tells Woodward he'll come to America with her.  He's had it with music.  He'll find some work.  She is a mighty happy woman.  He'll meet her at the train station.  Oh-oh.

Poitier is there as well, saying goodbye to Cannon.  However, he has also decided to go to America with her but will delay it by two weeks as he wraps up living in Paris.  I very much liked that it was left this way.  It seems like he's going but will he?

Woodward is nervously waiting inside the gates.  The clock is ticking and heard are departure announcements over loudspeakers and no Newman.  Finally there he is, running toward her.  No suitcase.  He's decided he's not coming.  She knows why.  I know why.  You know why.  He cannot give up music and Paris.

The film comes to an end as we watch the two expatriate musicians walking along the street on the way back to Marie's Cave.  

The film was helping to establish what would one day be known as the type of films Ritt wanted to make.  His characters were always so real.  He imbued them with myriad traits that rendered them life-like.  We understood their problems, shortcomings, desires, strengths, weaknesses.  Ritt made us care.

The film has something to say about holiday romances and I think it tackles the subject admirably.  I understand about wanting to live someplace so much and then continuing to live there and willing to give up everything to do it.  While I lived on Maui, I saw my fair share (of others) falling in love in two-three weeks.  Frankly, I get that it may happen for some but lust is so mixed in there that I just don't trust the whole thing.  I'd be like Poitier... I'll catch up with you in two weeks.  I'd prefer a month or two.  Anyway, the film and the writing were on target on this one.

I can't say that Paris Blues is a great film, not even Newman and Woodward's best, but it's a good one.  It was their fourth time acting together on the big screen and there would be six more times to come.  I loved watching them act together, knowing their professional history, their prowess and their intimate knowledge of one another.  (My favorite of all their films together is coming up later this month.)

Newman looks like he's playing the trombone but of course he wasn't.  It is another in a long series of roles of him playing a character out-of-touch with himself but let's acknowledge he did that very, very well.  Woodward, a wonderful actress, is fine here but there wasn't a lot of emoting for her to do.  I think this character went home a very sad lady and the actress more than displayed that.

Poitier, great as he was, had not yet hit his stride in a Call Me Mister Poitier way despite excellent performances, especially in The Defiant Ones (1958).  His Oscar two years away would change everything and his big films were to come.  He and Newman did, however, form a lifetime friendship and even went into the producing business for a time with Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen.

Carroll was the one who fascinated me the most and I found myself wishing that she and Newman's characters were a couple.  This was her third movie after two musicals, Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959), the latter with Poitier.  She was mainly a singer (with a beautiful voice) who made a some movies but mainly acted on television.  I thought one TV movie, Sister, Sister (1982) was the best thing she ever did. 

And she is good in this film.  I think her part is better written than Woodward's.  Carroll was beautiful, elegant and rigid.  (She makes Woodward look so clunky.)  I think that was on screen and off.  Her beauty attracted men, her elegance scared some of them and her rigidity saw them packing.  She was a tough customer.  In the film, if their characters got back together, I think it would have been short-term.

The pair had a difficult time with a real-life relationship which had essentially ended by the time they were hired for Paris Blues.  It was hot and heavy but it was never calm.  Too much cold went with that hot.  There was a lot of guilt on both parts because they were married.  She was hired for this film after he was so she could certainly have said no, but she wanted the film because it would give her her best part so far and she thought she was over him.

Perhaps there was no real romance on the Paris Blues shoot but that old lust came-a-calling and it made them both edgy and they apparently moved on.  When each would later write an autobiography, they didn't miss a beat and one another's names were liberally mentioned.

Newman having fun with Armstrong & Ellington

Armstrong was, of course, a pleasant addition.  He loved playing himself in films and playing the trumpet.  It is essentially a cameo role but ol' Satchmo always brought a smile to my face.

Most of the music is written by Duke Ellington who did not make an appearance.  

UA didn't push the film as much as they should have.  The reviews were not especially unkind but the public didn't flock to it either, despite being a Newman movie.  Over the years it has found a voice, however.

Here's a trailer:

Next posting:

There's always time for

another western.  Saddle up.