Paris WHEN IT SIZZLES is an attempt to cash-in on the popularity of Audrey Hepburn, the heart-winning starlet who rose to fame in a series of light romantic comedies in the 1950s and 1960s. This one's a steamy, silly tale of love and fantasy in Paris, with Hepburn assisting a past his prime screenwriter (William Holden) with his latest masterpiece.

Unfortunately this is one of the worst Hepburn films I've sat through, as it really is a chore to watch in places. The whole story is slight and silly, with lots of unbelievable and twee scenes. The structure of the thing is scattershot and the regular fantasy set-pieces are hardly successful. One of the worst things about it is the acting, with Holden failing to fulfil the criteria of a romantic lead and Hepburn coming across as nothing more than a bad actress.

Perhaps fearing they had a dud on their hands, producers throw a number of extra stars into the mix - Tony Curtis, Noel Coward, etc. - but they fail to make much of an impact, leaving Paris WHEN IT SIZZLES one of the flimsiest and most unsatisfying of all Hepburn movies.

I remember seeing the trailer for this 1964 film and thinking, like millions of other people, that this would be the natural follow-up to "Charade": same Audrey Hepburn coupled with an older eatablished male star, same Paris setting, same romantic music... It turned out that the audience watching this on the suburban main street cinema in St-Lambert, Quebec, were for the most part dumbfounded. Here was a film about a scriptwriter writing a script and altering the story as he went along in order to fulfill a mercenary obligation to create the most fulfilling, popcorn-selling entertainment possible, spoofing every movie convention in the process, out-Stanley-Donen-ing Donen's "Charade", which was itself an attempt to out-Hitchcock Hitchcock's films. It was brainy, satirical, cynical and the first obvious deconstruction of what makes movies tick. Being a remake of a French 1952 film by Julien Duvivier (scripted by cinema pioneer Henri Jeanson) called "La Fête à Henriette" made it even more derivative. Being scripted by George Axelrod (of "Manchurian Candidate" fame) made it challenging. Unfortunately, trying to salvage the film itself with the oldest movie cliché of them all - the redemptive power of love - made the happy ending definitely tongue-in-cheek and a tad less than sincere. But then there was so much to fill the viewer's time between the outrageous premise and the outrageous ending, it can be said that the thoughtful film-fan did get more than his money's worth. One of my favourite scenes is near the end, when the hero punches the heroine's boyfriend in public, which triggers a series of imitative violent acts in the impressionable public - including two Parisian kids starting a fight. What better illustration of the power of (American) movie violence to modify its audience's behaviour? So, which is it, silly entertainment or thoughtful thesis about the power of the narrative and of its many accepted conventions? Whatever you think of this film, it is at least partly responsible for the creation of the sixties pull-all-the stops, over-the top satirical-and-socially-conscious school of absurdist comedy which ran the gamut from "Laugh-In" and "The Monkees" on TV to manic but oh-so-hip-for-the-times movies like "Don't Make Waves", "Lord Love A Duck", "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad", "Candy" and "The Magic Christian".

P.S.: It would be very nice if "La Fête à Henriette" was made available on DVD for comparison purposes. But, like many great French films, it is only available for pillaging, referencing or as the basis for an American remake, but definitely not for viewing.

This movie isn't everyone's cup of tea. Hepburn called it her least favorite film. Audiences shunned it. At the time of writing, IMDb gives it a measly 6.0 rating. Nevertheless, it is one of my all-time favorite movies.

The problem with this film is that it isn't what everyone seems to be expecting it to be: a mindless romantic comedy. Quite on the contrary: this is a work that I can only compare with "Adaptation". It is a story about how stories actually get written: non-linearly, spasmodically, through much self-doubt and simultaneously excessive (narcissistic, really) introspection. (Although, to be fair, in Hollywood the practice has mostly been to call in a whole bunch of writers to fix up the messes left by writers of earlier drafts, so this is least true of how Hollywood movie scripts get written, but it is true just about everywhere else.) Like "Adaptation", this is a movie that takes the plunge into the mind of the writer as he creates a miniature, constantly shifting and bubbling world for us to visit, only to find a second world inside that first, and probably more where that came from. I don't think that you can appreciate it without having written something yourself, but if you have, then you know the feeling: life mimicking art, mimicking life, mimicking art. Personally, for me, the greatest cameo in this movie isn't the appearance of Tony Curtis or Frank Sinatra, but the fact that in mid-shooting William Holden had to be checked into a rehab clinic. How's that for life and art? Again, like in "Adaptation", the story makes no sense, and, in fact, cannot make any sense. Its what the movie is about. To let us watch and keep our sanity, humor is used abundantly. It is well written wit and quite funny, but it isn't what this movie is about, and taking it to be what the movie is about is perhaps what led to its being so underrated.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" says the Wizard of Oz, and as far as box office success goes, he's right. Audiences don't like it when the magician shows how the trick is performed. This movie is a prime example. Another is Schwarzenegger's "Last Action Hero". If you like romantic comedies, you should probably avoid this movie. If you want to see a smart film about the madness of writing, this is a soft introduction to the topic.