Widower Col. Sir Edgar Fraser (Alec Guinness) and his twenty-something son travel to Paris where each tries to match the other with a beautiful woman. But they fall for their own choices, setting up two May to December romances that are doomed to fail. Complicating matters, the younger girl already has a fervent admirer.
Well, this is a Post-War British Comedy. It was released in 1955 (within the normally accepted post-war period), produced by The Rank Organization (which also made The Card, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Genevieve), and stars Alec Guinness. That’s pretty good credentials for being part of the movement. But it doesn’t feel like it belongs. There is no charm or wit, and it is lacking that very British outlook. The plot is more fitting for a Hollywood-made romantic comedy, except there are no sparks in the romances, and it has none of the broad humor typical for that genre.
If it sounds to you like To Paris with Love isn’t much of anything, then you have the right impression. It has some nice shots of Paris, but nothing that you couldn’t find in a documentary on the city. Most of the film consists of one pair or another meeting and having conversations that aren’t meaningful or entertaining. They just take up space. The few attempts at comedy miss the mark and are out of place: Edgar gets his elastic suspenders caught on a door and bounces back several times when he tries to walk away, and Edgar gets caught in a tree while attempting to retrieve a badminton birdie. Slapstick was not the way to go, but if there’s nothing funny about the characters or in their dialog, I guess you grab for whatever you can.
If there is any point at all, it is a sad one. Apparently the young are all foolish and anyone over forty has past the point of being able to have fun. Brief fantasies are allowed, but in the end, people have to match up with others their own age, or with no one at all.
Once upon a time, To Paris with Love might have appeared to be interesting for multiple reasons (“might have” doesn’t mean that it was, only that someone, somewhere, could have been curious about the movie), but now, a half century later, Alec Guinness is the only draw. Unfortunately, he brings nothing to the table. Sure, he’s given nothing to work with, but I’ve come to expect him to rise above the material. He doesn’t here.
Guinness also appeared in the Post-War British Comedies Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Last Holiday (1950), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951), The Card (1952), The Captain’s Paradise (1953), The Ladykillers (1955), Barnacle Bill (1957), The Horse’s Mouth (1958), Our Man in Havana (1959).