Saturday, April 6, 2013

332. Gigi

Gigi
1958
Directed by Vincente Minnelli










What a disappointment.  I usually love musicals but this movie was a complete miss for me.

We begin with a song that an old man sings called "Thank Heaven For Little Girls".  All right, now I know that 1958 was a different time and I am probably jaded but I just found the entire number really creepy.

Then we meet Gaston, who is bored being rich and handsome.  However, he does enjoy spending time with Madame Alvarez and her granddaughter Gigi.  Gigi is training to be a prostitute.  I don't take prostitution lightly, especially when we are talking about a girl as young as Gigi.  Anyway, Gaston falls in love with Gigi and she reluctantly agrees to be his mistress (??????).

Am I the only one is creeped out by Minnelli films?  Honestly, Meet Me in St Louis and this film scared me more than the last 20 horror movies I have seen.

I know you probably think that I should not be taking this movie as seriously as I am.  But honestly, I just found it highly disturbing and there are not even any great musical numbers.  Just…yikes.

RATING: *----

Interesting Facts:

Won 9 Oscars.

Considered to be the last great MGM musical.

Gross:


8 comments:

  1. Oh, go on, after doing a reply to 7 stereotypes for 7 misogynists, I thought why not make it a double and find the other highly doddgy musical.

    I watched this with a friend of similar age, and we were both gob smacked that even in the 50's this wasn't considered creepy. I hired this from Lovefilm (dvds by post), and am now worried that I may come under suspicion from child protection agencies for watching it.
    And people wonder why i don't like musicals...

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  2. Haha your comments are always so funny and I totally agree.

    So are there any musicals you like? My personal favorites are West Side Story and Moulin Rouge. I also saw Les Mis at the West End when I was in London and loved it.

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  3. Ahh.. West Side Story. Every several years i find myself remembering only the really good bits - and there are several great bits (The opening helicopter shot, the finger clicking, 'America'), and watch it again and realise i'd blanked out the syrupy bits ('Maria'.. and most of the rest..) and that my pretty much blanket dislike of musicals stands.
    'Cabaret' I love.. great story, great characters, good story, fantastic songs.. and especially the interweaving of songs to story/history. But I tend to claim that is not a musical. Because.. well, I think I may leave more to a reply to Cabaret.
    I enjoy 'Rocky Horror picture show'

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    1. Uh oh, there is a disagreement in our future since I absolutely hated Cabaret.

      Yeah, West Side Story was a bit sappy in some parts but there is not a single song I disliked in the movie and I loved watching Russ Tamblyn and Rita Moreno.

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  4. This one totally weirded me out as well. This is seriously insane stuff dressed up to be oh so romantic and charming. Endorsement of pedophilia, the happy prostitute, the glorious bored idle rich. It is a walk down depravity road in a 1950'ies family musical. weeeeeeird.

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  5. Thanks TS.. Appreciate the agreement!

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  6. I just saw this documentary about the evolution of the musical and they kept grouping Gigi and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I was like "how dare you????"

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  7. It's easy to critcise this but, to be fair, if you were going to make 'Roman Polanski: The Musical' then this is about as good a result as you're going to get

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