To Paris with Love (1955)

Alec Guinness is usually regarded as a serious actor due to his roles in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Tunes of Glory and Star Wars, but he was primarily a star of light comedies throughout the 1940s and 1950s and he made a number of entertaining films... one of which was To Paris with Love, released in 1955. 

In this film, Guinness plays Sir Edgar, a middle-aged Scotsman who is on holiday in Paris with his grown son John (Vernon Gray). He is secretly hoping that his son would find romance in Paris with a young pretty Parisian, while John is hoping his father would find romance with a rich middle-aged woman. They meet Lizette (Odile Versois), a salesgirl at a fashionable boutique, the first day they arrive and Sir Edgar thinks she is ideal for John so he arranges a meeting with her for lunch the next day. Meanwhile, John meets Sylvia (Elina Labourdette), the owner of the same boutique, and thinks that she is ideal for his father so he, too, arranges a meeting with her for lunch the next day. Before they know it, John is dating Sylvia who is twenty years his senior and Sir Edgar is dating Lizette, who is twenty years younger than he! Both found romance in Paris in an unexpected way and how the twosome work out their mixed-up affairs makes up the remainder of this short and delightful Parisian holiday. 

To Paris with Love is another one of those classic British comedies that in recent decades has somehow been overlooked stateside, yet at the time of its release it was quite popular in the U.S. The film was shot in Eastmancolor on location in Paris and the city looked lovely. The characters kept referring to "springtime in Paris" although it was clearly shot in the autumn with the color changes of the trees evident. 

Alec Guinness didn't show much display of emotion in this film yet his feelings for young Lizette seemed genuine and one can easily see how she can find him attractive. He was especially good in his little bits of humor, such as when he got his badminton birdie up in a tree and thought he was agile enough to climb up and get it. That he did...but getting down was a different story! Vernon Gray was the likeable young chap in Now and Forever and he played a similar character here, although this time he found an older woman more attractive than Janette Scott. 

Odile Versois made several good comedies in the early 1950s and this wasn't her first British production. The following year she starred in the entertaining crime drama Checkpoint (1956) with Stanley Baker. In To Paris with Love there is a secondary romance between her and a young postman who is enamored with her and a nice side comedy about her father being a taxi-driver. Also in the cast is Austin Trevor, Jacques Francois, and Claude Romain. 

To Paris with Love is currently available on DVD and it is worth checking out. It is one of those amusing light-hearted comedies that has such a relaxing pace and beautiful Paris setting that you'll end up rewatching it every few years. 

Now and Forever ( 1956 )

"You can't separate us! We love each other!"

Lonely upper-class English schoolgirl Janette Grant (Janette Scott) falls in love with handsome Mike Pritchard (Vernon Gray), a poor mechanic from the local village. Janette's mother believes the courtship to be unsuitable and puts a stop to it by threatening to send her daughter to Canada. "Canada??!" the poor girl declares. And so, the two young lovers decide to defy their parents and attempt to elope to Scotland. 

Playwright R.F Delderfield clearly took inspiration from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" when he wrote "The Orchard Walls", the play which Now and Forever was based on. In place of the feuding families he focused the conflict on social class differences and an unfeeling mother (excellently played by Pamela Brown). It's an engaging story and you cannot help being sympathetic to the youngsters in their plight, especially that of poor Janette. 

Janette's parents were divorced when she was younger and so she lives at home with her mother, who coldly informs her one day that her father passed away in Ireland. This news, coupled with a lack of friends and her impending separation from Mike, leads her to attempt suicide by jumping from the bell tower at her school. Mike and Janette were willing to wait until they were older to marry but the threat of being separated now forces them to consider eloping as their only alternative. 

Michael Pertwee helped to write the screenplay which, although engaging, is rather incredulous at moments. Back in 1950s England, gossip yielded a powerful hand, especially in small villages, but would two eloping teenagers warrant front page news across England? By the end of the film, it seems as though the entire country's police force and its citizens have the dragnet set for their entrapment. 

Director Michael Zampi, who was best known for making comedies (Too Many Crooks, Tonight's the Night, Laughter in Paradise) shows that he was equally adept at handling drama. The Technicolor filming of Now and Forever is beautiful, as are the lovely scenes of the English countryside as Janette and Mike go scouring about in his hand-built roadster. The cast is top-notch, too. Janette Scott, a popular British child actress, was given the chance to display how well she could handle a more mature role and show her audience how much she was growing up. Vernon Gray, who resembles a young Tyrone Power, makes an admirable lover. Kay Walsh is also featured as Miss Muir, the headmistress at Janette's school. This role could have been expanded on because Kay's talent is wasted otherwise. Jack Warner plays Mike's father, and then there are small parts going to a number of great character actors such as Ronald Squire, Guy Middleton, Bryan Forbes, and Hattie Jacques. 

Now and Forever was clearly aimed towards a teenage audience with its heroes being two young defiant lovers. They set off on a romantic escapade to Scotland to elope and live happily ever after with only true love and nary a coin in their pockets to support them, but will a marriage such as theirs last? There is a disturbing air hovering over Janette's affection for Mike. It is as though the loss of her father made her realize that she had no one in the world to love and there was no one left in the world to love her. Miss Muir didn't have the courage to give her the maternal love she needed and after she meets Mike she pours all of the love that she stored up onto him. But this makes her seem possessive and all the more pitiable. Mike loves her but how much of that love was corrupted by fear after her suicide attempt? Even marriage would not clear the doubts and insecurities Janette has. 

So, while the film is thoroughly entertaining, its ending seems to leave the audience suspended. The title reads Now and Forever but perhaps Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? would have been more appropriate. 

Now and Forever is currently available on DVD from Network Distributing.

This post is our contribution to the 5th Annual Rule, Britannia Film Blogathon being hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts. Ready to read some more Brit film reviews? Then simply click here for a fine selection of posts.