Gigi
Short description
Set in Paris around the turn of the twentieth century, Gigi follows a young woman raised by her grandmother and a great-aunt who are preparing her for life as a courtesan. Their hopes center on Gaston Lachaille, a wealthy, charming and thoroughly bored bachelor who is a familiar visitor to the household. Gigi's freshness and high spirits unsettle their plans, and the relationship between the two takes a course none of the older women intended.
Vincente Minnelli directed the film, the twelfth of the fourteen features he made in chronological order, arriving between Designing Woman and Home from the Hill. Alan Jay Lerner wrote the screenplay, and Arthur Freed produced for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Leslie Caron plays Gigi, with Maurice Chevalier as Honoré Lachaille, Louis Jourdan as Gaston, Hermione Gingold as Madame Alvarez, Eva Gabor as Liane D'Exelmans and Jacques Bergerac as Sandomir. Thirty-four performers are credited.
Made for about three million dollars, the film returned roughly thirteen million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from some twenty-six thousand votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.2 out of 10 from a much smaller base of 358 votes. A critics' rating of 7.9 out of 10 from seventy-seven reviews places professional assessment clearly above the audience scores recorded on both sites.
What's left behind the scenes
- For the scene in the “Le Bois” restaurant, costume designer Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) had to create over 150 costumes from the corresponding historical period, and for the scene in the “Maxim’s” restaurant – 20 chic evening dresses for the ladies. Costumes were tight in Paris, but when the film crew moved to Hollywood, everything necessary was found in the film company's warehouses, both in terms of clothing and furniture.
- The day after the film won nine Oscars, the telephone operators at MGM were instructed to answer calls with “Hello, Em-Gee-Em.”
- Initially, after completing work on the film, screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) and composer Frederick Loewe (1901-1988) were disappointed. Lerner found the film's pace too slow and believed it could and should be cut by twenty minutes. He proposed making the corresponding changes to the film, but this would have meant additional expenses totaling $300,000, and producer Arthur Freed (1894-1973) flatly refused. The composing team offered to buy 10% of the film for $300,000, and then offered another $3 million – to prevent the film from being released at all. This impressed the management of "MGM," and they agreed to the proposed changes, which required eleven days of reshoots and exceeded the project's budget by $400,000. Nevertheless, test screenings showed a change in perception of the film from indifferent-positive (before all these changes) to much warmer (after the changes), and Lerner decided that the work on the film was finally finished.
- Filming in Paris had to be rushed while the weather was good, so the actors were forced to simply open their mouths to the accompaniment of the piano, as the songs hadn't been recorded yet.
- In all scenes with Leslie Caron, the cat reacted with a kind of nervous aggression, but director Vincente Minnelli insisted on filming with that particular animal, so the cat had to be sedated.
- When Alan Jay Lerner met Leslie Caron in Paris to discuss working on a future film, he noticed that Caron, of French origin, had adapted so much to English culture that she even spoke completely without an accent.
- During location shooting, the filmmakers often noticed how harsh the local authorities were with them and how they demanded that everything be returned to its original condition after filming. Arthur Freed was so tired of this that one day, when a mirror fell from the ceiling of the "Maxim’s" restaurant dining room during filming and, of course, shattered, he panicked, assuming that the restaurant administration would now present the filmmakers with an exorbitant bill for thousands of dollars. The administrator, however, reassured him, stating that mirrors fell from the ceiling regularly because champagne lovers constantly hit them with corks, and adding that the restaurant kept a stock of mirrors specifically for such occasions.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
