On G List of Movie Reviews

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Gigi (1958)

Rate: 2
Viewed: 8/25

Gigi
8/25: There should be no argument that Gigi is among five worst Best Picture winners of the 20th century.

The plot is about a special 14-year-old girl, and she is being groomed as a whore for a significantly older man who's euphemistically labeled as a "bon vivant"? And the Academy found the whole thing so moving that it bestowed on the film stupefying nine Oscars? The voters must have been made up of either idiots or old lecherous white men back then. It's hard to believe that Vertigo was completely overlooked for Best Picture.

The music is bland; Leslie Carron was 100% dubbed by Betty Wand. Every time the scene takes place in the obscenely red room which is quite often, my eyes want to vomit. However, I have a difficult time giving Gigi a '1' due to the costumes (the only Oscar win that I agree with), Louis Jourdan's fine performance, and the occasionally strong cinematography that resembles the paintings of the Impressionist Period, but make no mistake: it's one of the most disconnected movies I've seen in my life.

The 26-year-old Leslie Carron is a teenager in this? Yeah...okay. There's nothing unique or likeable about her character. Why does Maurice Chevalier keep popping in and out? At any rate, that's a dirty old man with heavy pedophile vibe as evidenced by his song: "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." Oddly (or maybe not), Maurice Chevalier was given a special honorary award in 1959.

All in all, Louis Jourdan beat me to the punch when it comes to describing Gigi in so many words: "It's a bore!"