Paris Blues

I'm sure there are people who will like watching Paris Blues. Paul Newman fans, or Sidney Poitier fans, or those who like Paris or jazz music, but even though I'm 2 for 4, I found too many problems with the movie to enjoy it. First of all, even though Paul Newman made a career out of playing "the bad boy", he didn't really pull it off this time around. He and Sidney are nightlife jazz musicians. They are supposed to be seedy, bad quality, different-dame-a-night swingers. Then why did both of them look incredibly clean cut, with never a hair out of place? I just didn't buy it when they'd say, "Can you dig it?" It felt like they were in a movie parodying the 1960s and they didn't know what they were talking about. Second, Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll play girlfriends on a two-week Paris vacation. They're not even off the train when Paul hits on Diahann, completely ignoring Joanne, who incidentally looks prettier than she usually does. Joanne is taken with him, so they go the low-life dive nightclub where he works and listen to him play. Once again, Paul hits on Diahann and is incredibly rude to Joanne. He pushes her away repeatedly and tells her to find someone else for what she wants. But Joanne wants to be an incredibly stupid woman. Seriously, what's her problem? She just arrived in Paris! There are nightclubs and seedy musicians everywhere—what's so special about Paul Newman? He's downright mean to her constantly. She knows where he stands. But he's the one for her? Both romances are quite stupid. Diahann and Sidney are awkward at best; it's as if they used one take to say their lines in the worst, most comical way possible, and that's the take the director kept. Joanne and Paul are mismatched; sometimes star-crossed lovers are a good plot point, but in Paris Blues it's just badly written. Throughout the entire movie, she's incredibly stupid, but she comes up with spur-the-moment zingers that don't fit her character. "I told you from the beginning, I'm not on the market," Paul says. With a look that's supposed to be smoldering, but just comes across as confused, Joanne says, "I wasn't shopping," before leaving the room. I wasn't amused.

Imagine. You're schoolteachers on vacation in Paris and meet and fall in love with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier, and night after night, you sit in a Parisian club listening to them play jazz. Have you died and gone to heaven? Well, if you're Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll, you are in heaven, at least until you get a slap of reality. But man, that's the vacation of a lifetime. Woodward and Carroll are Lillian and Connie from the U.S., on vacation in Paris. The first day, Lillian recognizes jazz musician Ram Bowen (Newman), who is trying to pick up Connie. He invites them to see him play at the club some time. Of course they don't waste any time getting over there. There Connie meets Eddie (Poitier), part of the group. They pair up - Ram/Lillian and Eddie/Connie. For Ram, it's an affair; for the straightforward, honest Lillian, she's hoping for more. For Eddie and Connie, it seems to be the real thing. Connie, as a young black woman, is also an activist, and she feels that Eddie has run away to Paris instead facing the conditions for blacks at home and working to make them better. In Paris, of course, he's freer and accepted. He loves the city, but he also loves Connie. Her home is the U.S. Ram is ambitious for his music -- he has written a serious piece and wants to see how far he can go with his talent. This is a wonderful film, far more than a romance, accompanied by some amazing music played by Louis Armstrong and and other musicians and composed by Duke Ellington. The movie beautifully captures the Paris of the early '60s in black and white, its smoky clubs, the people who live in the night, and the love Parisians had for American jazz, which would be fading soon. Poitier and Newman have great chemistry together, as do both male/female couples. Newman is hot, sexy, and egocentric, Carroll is drop-dead gorgeous and intelligent, Poitier is thoughtful and handsome, Woodward forthright and aggressive. They are all wonderful. See this film. It might actually convince you that for a while, like Lillian and Connie, you were in heaven.

Paris of the Beat-era is the city of blues and jazz, the city of romance and love. This is cool, and "Paris Blues" is real cool (great jazz, deep feeling, sparkling romance) but it is more than cool--it hurts. In the end, an ending tougher than Thelma and Louise (and maybe more feminist) and more genuinely surprising than the revelation in "The Crying Game," all the movie's stellar music and romance is thrown into question by Joanne Woodward's (Lilian's) "small present" to rising jazz star, Ram Bowen (Paul Newman). Music or Love? Why should one have to choose between them? But in this hidden gem of a film Ram Bowen seems to have to choose and the result is scary, sad, and tragic in a kind of secret way (men are usually shown to just throw this kind of loss off). But unlike the unsatisfactory tragic end of say "West Side Story," this ending is both strong and very adult.

This film is very good for the music and for Paris before '68. The racial and sexual themes are, by now, dated, and even then were treated in a rather mild manner. But, it's time to stop crediting this film's music to Duke Ellington. Most, or all of it, was really penned by Billy Strayhorn, whom Duke was in the habit of exploiting by taking credit for much of his work and by not paying him a dime in royalties. Despite wide recognition of his brilliance, Strayhorn, except for a couple of stillborn attempts, lacked the confidence to really strike out on his own. When he tried it, Duke sabotaged him. There was always present the implied threat that all anyone had to do was denounce Strayhorn's homosexuality to destroy his career. Duke was brilliant, but, like many brilliant people, he was a bit of a huge dirt-bag as well.

Filmed in b&w - 1961's "Paris Blues" was shot on location in the city of Paris, France which gave the viewer a really good perspective on how that European urban center looked nearly 60 years ago. This film also featured some really excellent, mid-20th century jazz music which certainly helped to bolster-up its decidedly shallow story about the petty personal dramas, and the frivolous romantic pursuits of 2 American musicians who were living in Paris at the time. Without this film's foreign setting and its jazzy music, I'd say that "Paris Blues" would've been, otherwise, a pretty forgettable picture.

The title is "Paris Blues", but it's actually jazz that Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) and Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier) play. They're so into it that even American tourists Lillian Corning (Joanne Woodward) and Connie Lampson (Diahann Carroll) can't drag them back to the States. Louis Armstrong also co-stars. The plot seems like something that we've seen before, but the music is the movie's strength. Director Martin Ritt of course later directed Newman in what was probably his greatest role: "Hud" (Ritt had already directed Newman and Woodward in "The Long Hot Summer"). "Paris Blues" may be routine, but it's got some great music.

Martin Ritt has always been a generous ,liberal director whose best works are strong manifestos against racism("edge of the city" "hombre"),humanist pleas("Conrack"), fight against illiteracy ("Stanley and Iris").In the late fifties and in the sixties,his favorite actor was Paul Newman(who starred in five of these works) and sometimes wife Joanne Woodward ("the long hot summer").Both actors share Ritt's ideas. "Paris blues" is a disappointment though.At a pinch you could say the Newman couple's parts are pointless and bring nothing to the plot,Sidney Poitier and his partner being Ritt's main concern.Poitier's squeeze blames him for living in France -which is one more time thought as the country where racism does not exist:how naive a script writer can be!-and not sharing his brothers' fight in his native America.All this is unconvincing and gets bogged down in the musical interest(only for those who love jazz,for that matter).French actor Serge Reggiani plays Gypsy ,a French guitarist sniffing coke ,which infuriates Newman .How come that the French even speak English between them! (Gypsy and the old human wreck he meets on the street) There are other Ritt movies to see before this one.A whole lot!

The story is about two young jazzmen Newman and Poitier who live in Paris…Newman is after a serious musical career… Poitier enjoys the tolerant atmosphere and the freedom from U.S. racial tensions… They work at a Left Bank cub owned by Barbara Laage who is having a casual affair with Newman… Serge Raggiani a gypsy guitarist who is a narcotics addict, and Louis Armstrong a trumpeter, are among their friends… Newman and Poitier meet a couple of American tourists, Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll who are visiting Paris on a two-weeks vacations A romance develops between Poitier and Carroll… Woodward and Newman also find that a feeling is growing between them… Woodward wants him to return with her to the U. S., but Newman believes that marriage would interfere with his career, and decides to remain As in "The Hustler," Newman plays a man whose devotion to making his talent better than second-rate prevents love… But he was natural as the pool player, and convinced us—through his movements, dialog and expressions—of his feelings for the music Woodward is more aggressive than Newman… Moved by his music, she displays genuine emotion, but Newman is so defensive, egocentric and selfish that he becomes hostile, stubborn, unpleasant and offensive… Woodward is determined to make something more of it, but he remains uninfluenced—willing to show slight affection but incapable of being sincerely tender… In their final bedroom scene, the two superb1y perform a progression from spontaneous domestic affection, to growing alienation, to his indifferent rejection of her love Legend Louis Armstrong shines in one flamboyant jazz interlude

This is not merely a movie about race, jazz, drug use, love affairs, Parisian scenery, etc. It's a movie about all the aforementioned and then some. Ritt & Co. go deeper than just superficially touching on so-called hip, trendy issues. Each character portrayed has his/her own set of "blues" to contend with and no individual set of "blues" is merely confined to one sole issue, but rather a complex mixture of many factors that comprise each of our character's makeup. It is in the intertwining of each character's individual persona with the other characters' own traits and idiosyncrasies that lets the story unfold and take cohesive shape. Successes and failures are inextricably linked, as in Ram's (Newman) fame as a jazz soloist counterpointed with his rejection as a serious composer/arranger. Eddie (Poitier) also has his own set of personal conflicts that are duly explored here. Joanne Wodward, Diahann Carrol and Barbara Laage (in a more minor role, albeit soulful and penetrating) all hit their mark with humor, depth and candor. Serge Reggiani's role as the junkie guitar player adds his own set of "blues" to an already spicy mixture of music, love, rejection and pathos. "Satchmo" and company provide a most welcome musical interlude at just the right time to lighten up the plot just a bit! A timelessly entertaining film.

If you're looking for a film on the level of Godard's "Breathless" , which was made in the same year (1961), forget it. Belmondo and Seberg coolly ride the crest of the New Wave in some other Paris. But there's never a good reason not to see Louis Armstrong, who is wonderful, so if nothing, see it for him. And where else are you going to get Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier hanging out in a jazz cave with hipsters looking like they just flew in from planet square, but in the process looking a lot cooler than the people trying to look cool. The love scenes are as melodramatic and corny as they can be, bordering on camp, with a lot of hand wringing and flinging about and running, but c'mon! Newman and Woodward and Poitier and gorgeous Diahann Carroll? Rent this with Diva or Charade or both and it can be a Paris street scene night., although Diva and Charade are far superior. You can definitely do a lot worse.