Paris in July 2023 - The Reading Life Review July 2023 - Part One

 

Paris-in-july-2023- Hosted by Emma of Words and Peace 

https://wordsandpeace.com/2023/06/30/paris-in-july-2023/

I wish to offer my thanks to Emma of Words and Peace for hosting Paris in July 2023.

I am also grateful to the very diverse knowledgeable contributors who shared their experiences with us.

This year I discovered lots of wonderful set in Paris movies. (All the movies I featured are on YouTube)

French Films Featured on The Reading Life for Paris in July 2023

1. The Red Shoes (1948) – by far my favourite - William Powell and Emeric Pressburger- cinema as High Art -directed and written by William Powell and Emeric Pressburger 

2. The Elusive Pimpernel (1950) –

3. Madame Pimpernel/Paris Undercover (1945) - fun to see the Pimpernel story reset in Nazi occupied Paris

4. Dinner at the Ritz (1937) 

5, Cafe Metropole (1937) 

6.The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) –

7. The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937) 

8. Charlie Chan Goes to Paris (1935) – 

9. The Merry Widow  (1934) – directed by Ernst Lubitsch - my introduction to Ernst Lubitsch 

10. Design for Living  (1933) – directed by Ernst Lubitsch 

11. Funny Face (1957) – starring Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire- a musical comedy -great fun - I loved this movie

12. Charade  (1963) - starring Audrey Hepburn 

13. If I Were a King  (1938) – historical drama set circa 1830

14. The French, They Are a Funny Race  (1956) – directed by Preston Sturges- my first of his films-  

15. The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) - Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Eva Gabor

16. Monsieur Beaucaire (1946) - a Bob Hope Comedy 

17. The Three Musketeers (1948) – nonstop action starring Gene Kelly

18. Seventh Heaven - 1937- set among the very poor in 1914 to 1918. Very moving, one of my favourites

19. So This is Paris (1926) - silent film from Ernst Lubitsch 

20.Assignment Paris (1952) – an exciting film set in the Paris office of an American news paper in 1938.

 

21. Arch of Triumph (1948) - A cold War intrigue in 1953- Noir

22. Paris Blues (1961) – Parisian jazz clubs and big stars with great music 

23. An American in Paris - A 1951 Film Directed by Vincente Minnelli - Starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron - top five at least

24. The Hunchback of Notre Dame- 1923- A Silent classic 

25. Scandal in Paris - A 1946 Film Directed by Douglas Sirk - based on the Life of Eugène François Vidocq - director of France's first criminal investigative agency, the Sûreté nationale,

26, Pimpernel Smith - 1941- A Film produced by and starring Leslie Howard set In England and Nazi Germany just before the start of World War Two- running time 132 minutes

Books I read for Paris in July 2023

1. DOCTORS AT WAR:THE CLANDESTINE BATTLE AGAINST THE NAZI OCCUPATION OF FRANCE:by Ellen Hampton-2023 - From Louisiana State University Press

 2, Perestroika in Paris : A Novel by Jane Smiley - 2020 - 267 Pages- A Fable of a Horse, a Dog, a Raven and a Rat in Paris in 2004

3. Paper Bullets - Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis - 2021 - 326 Pages by Jeffrey H. Jackson - Paper Bullets is the first book to tell the history of an audacious anti-Nazi campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute “paper bullets”—wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive fictional dialogues designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home on the British Channel Island of Jersey. Devising their own PSYOPS campaign, they slipped their notes into soldier’s pockets or tucked them inside newsstand magazines

I very much hope we can all return for Paris in July 2024. With Paris in the News only for the summer Olympics, people and otters safely swimming in the Seine and with Norte Dame Cathedral reopened.

Mel Ulm