TO PARIS WITH LOVE

UK, 1955, 78 minutes, Colour.
Alec Guinness, Odile Versois, Vernon Gray.
Directed by Robert Hamer.

To Paris With Love is a very slight romantic comedy. Alec Guinness at forty plays a father who takes his twenty-year-old son for a trip to Paris to fall in love. However, complications arise as the two men fall in love with the same woman.

The romance is perhaps stretching credibility. However, the Paris locations look beautiful. The film was directed by Robert Hamer who directed a number of classic British films and directed Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Father Brown and The Scapegoat.

1. The quality of the film as a romantic comedy, the style of the fifties: colour, an music and song, nightclub entertainment e.g. John and Marsha? A British film, a British view of Paris and the French? An Alec Guinness vehicle?

2. The structure of the film in the form of a journey into Paris and out again? The audience goes in with Sir Edgar and John and comes out again. We participate in their change?

3. The introduction to Sir Edgar and John in the car, the father and son relationship, the view of each of the other, especially as regards women? The irony of their decisions as regards the journey, their plans, and the cross-purposes in the unfolding? The basis for romantic comedy?

4. Lisette: the reaction of Edgar and John to her, the comedy of her fall, the beginning of a chain of events, her work in the shop, her home life, the outings with Edgar?

5. The character of Edgar himself: Scots background, horses and wealth, plans for his son, fascination by Lisette, the enjoyment of her company, his decisions and whether it was right not to pursue his love for her?

6. The contrast with John: his plans, Sylvia for his father, his fascination with her, his confusion, his love for his cousin?

7. How did Lisette change during this course of events: happiness, her charm, reaction to her father, her return to George?

8. The character of Sylvia, her role at the shop, rich widow, worldly-wise?

9. The themes of men and women and their relationships, love and needs, companionship, age?

10. The quality of the film and its charm, its human wisdom and comedy?