The Three Musketeers- A 1948 Film -directed by George Sidney and stars Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, Van Heflin, and Vincent Price.

 This is part of my Participation in Paris in July 2023 - Hosted by Words and Peace

https://wordsandpeace.com/

Available on YouTube 

Based on the 1844 novel by Alexander Dunas, the movie is set in France circa 1640.  Louis

The XIii was king, Cardinal Richelieu was his prime minister.  As played to perfection by Vincent Price, the Cardinal is plotting to take the place of the young king.

The movie is nonstop action with some of the greatest sword fights ever filmed.

The film tells the story of D'Artagnan, played by Gene Kelly,a Gascon youth who travels to Paris to join the elite King's Musketeers. On his way, he encounters a mysterious lady at a roadside inn. When he picks a fight with one of her escorts, she becomes suspicious and has him knocked unconscious. His letter of introduction from his father to de Treville, the commander of the Musketeers, is burned. When he awakens, he continues on to the city.

In Paris, D'Artagnan meets the three Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. The four men become friends and allies, and they soon find themselves caught up in a web of intrigue and danger. The villainous Cardinal Richelieu is plotting to overthrow the King, and he has hired the beautiful Lady de Winter to help him. D'Artagnan and the Musketeers must use all of their skills and courage to thwart Richelieu's plans and save the King.

There is romance, lots of sword fights, beautiful women. The Technicolor is vivid, stunning. Just a really fun movie.

The Three Musketeers was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography. 

I will next post on Seventh Heaven, set in the slums of Paris during World War One.

I am very grateful for Emma of Words and Peace for hosting Paris in July 2023

Mel Ulm

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

 This is part of my Participation in Paris in July 2023 - Hosted by Words and Peace

https://wordsandpeace.com/

The German military administration in France ended with the Liberation of France after the Normandy and Provence landings. It formally existed from May 1940 to December 1944, though most of its territory had been liberated by the Allies by the end of summer 1944.

When anti-Jewish measures intensified under the Nazi Occupation of France, a group of doctors formed a clandestine group to treat and shelter resistants, to deter deportation and to protect victims of terror. Led by the grandson of the great Louis Pasteur, the Resistance Health Service included the son of a rabbi, the son of a Protestant pastor, and the first woman to direct a French hospital department. They joined forces in Paris to outwit the Nazis, despite terrible danger. The physician founders of another resistance group, Vengeance, were among hundreds of French doctors deported to concentration camps. They went to work in camp clinics, treating and healing ill and starving prisoners with little more than their hands and their knowledge. In the final phase of the war, doctors joined the hidden forest camps of maquisards in combat, operating under parachute tents with car headlights, patching up injuries incurred in guerrilla attacks on German troops. Throughout the dark night of Nazi domination, doctors risked their lives to save others and ease the suffering of their nation. Sworn to aid and assist, most of them felt they could not have acted otherwise.           

"  History tells us where we’re going and literature tells us where we’ve been. In between lies the journey, the transitory space between experience and hope, the stories I love most. I am a PhD historian, author, editor, former professor and occasional journalist. After two non-fiction books on World War II, both born of absolute awe for those who found their way through that dark night, I am reaching back in time to the drama and romance of a historical fiction series based in medieval France, Castle and the Cross." From the author's website 

The book provides lots of data on the individual Doctors, many lost their lives.  

This is a valuable addition to the history of WW Two in France.

I was given a review copy of this book

Mel Ulm 

The French They Are a Funny Race - 1956 • A Set in Paris Movie Wtitten and Directed by Preston Sturges - Released in England as The Diary of Major Thompson

 The French They Are a Funny Race - 1956 • A Set in Paris Movie Wtitten and Directed by Preston Sturges - 

This is part of my Participation in Paris in July hosted by Words and Peace

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

The film is based on the 1954 novel Les Carnets du Major Thompson by Pierre Daninos, The stars ars Martine Carol and Jack Buchanan.

The film follows the misadventures of an English major, Marmaduke Thompson (Buchanan), who is stationed in Paris with his wife, Sybil (Carol). Thompson is constantly baffled by the French way of life, from their love of food and wine to their casual attitude towards work. He also finds himself at odds with his wife, who is more accepting of French culture. It is a gentle satire of French culture. 

I hope to watch lots more films  from Preston Sturges- a bigger than life super star of the American Film world.  I highly reccomend the documentary below to all 

 Interested in the history of cinema.

Mel Ulm

Funny Face- A 1957 Film - Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in Paris - A Beautiful Movie directed by Stanley Dolen

 

This is part of my Participation in Paris in July 2023- Hosted by Words and Peace 

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

The music is by George Gerswin, the customes by Edith Head

The movie is on YouTube 

The film tells the story of Jo Stockton (Hepburn), a shy bookstore employee who is discovered by fashion photographer Dick Avery (Astaire). Avery believes that Jo has the potential to be a successful model, and he convinces her to go to Paris with him to shoot a fashion campaign. In Paris, Jo blossoms into a confident and stylish woman, and she falls in love with Avery. However, their relationship is tested when Jo's intellectual side clashes with Avery's commercialism.

The opening in the office of a famous fashion magazine, it brought to my mind The Devil Wears Prada,  it begins with a delightful musical number when the magazine editor, who sees her job as telling the women of America what to wear decides the next issue will feature all pink outfits. The movie explodes in color, dance, marvelous clothing.

For the next issue she decides to feature women into arts and books, intellectuals. Of course no professional model can fit that role.  Being in New York City, the whole crew, including Fred Astaire as the photographer winds up in a Greenwich City bookstore being managed by Jo Stockton.  Chaos results and Jo is horrified by what she sees as the shallow values embodied by viewing women only for their looks. Jo is a follower of a French philosopher who expounds "Emphaticalism", a satire of the pretensions of French Existentialism.

A don't want to reveal to much of the plot other than to say Jo ends up as a lead model for the magazine's big fashion show issue in Paris. There are lots of iconic Paris scenes. Audrey even does an Apace dance and cracks an expensive vase over the head of the famous philosopher.  

This was Hepburn's first musical. She and Astaire make great dance partners.

I have loved Audrey Hepburn since I saw her way back when My Fair Lady premiered

I have found two other Audrey Hepburn movies with Parisian connections, Charade and Sabrina and hope to watch them both this month

Mel Ulm

Madame Pimpernel- also titled as Paris Undercover is a 1945 Film Set in Paris during the German Occupation

Production

company

Constance Bennett Productions

Distributed byUnited Artists

Release date

• October 19, 1945

The film stars Constance Bennett and Gracie Fields as an American and an Englishwoman trapped in Paris when Nazi Germany invades in 1940, who rescue British airmen shot down in France and help them escape across the English Channel. This was also Bennett's only producing credit.

American Kitty de Mornay quarrels with her French husband Andre over her lack of concern over the imminent fall of Paris to the Germans. She is so ignorant of the danger she is in, she flees with her English friend Emmeline "Emmy" Quayle too late. They end up at the country inn of Pappa Renard. After serving them a meal, he reveals that a shot-down English flyer, Flight Lieutenant William Gray, is hiding out there. Since Renard is unwilling to continue sheltering Gray, the women decide to take him back to Paris with them. When their car has a flat, German Captain Kurt von Weber happens by and has one of his men change the tire. Since he is going to Paris too, von Weber personally drives them back, past all the German patrols and checkpoints. When he leaves, he gives Kitty his card, revealing that he is assigned to the military department of the Gestapo. They sneak Gray past Madame Martin, Emmy's concierge, and into her apartment.

A week later, Gray decides he has to leave, as anyone caught sheltering an enemy soldier will be executed. Before he can, the Germans surround and search the building. The timely arrival of von Weber, with a bouquet of flowers, ensures that the search is cut short. Kitty suggests going out to a nightclub to get the German out of the apartment. At the club, they encounter Andre. While dancing, Kitty apprises Andre of her situation and asks for his help in getting Gray out.

Following Andre's instructions, they contact Tissier, a baker. By bad luck, a German patrol happens by, and Emmy is taken in for questioning. After seeing Gray off, Kitty goes back to see what she can do for her friend. To her surprise, she find Emmy at Tessier's place.

Kitty is persuaded to help others escape with them. Emmy reluctantly decides to get involved too, just to keep Kitty out of trouble. They contact Father Dominique. Expecting to sneak one man into unoccupied France, they are surprised to find the priest hiding about a dozen in his crypt. The women take two with them, but when they reach Tissier's bakery, they learn that he has been shot. When they discover that the local cemetery is across the border, Kitty decides to use a funeral to get the men. The undertaker, however, informs them that the Germans are on guard against such attempts. However, he expects the aged Marquise de Montigny to pass away soon; when she does, the undertaker is glad to be able to give the worthy, yet poverty-stricken woman a lavish funeral procession, with the soldiers disguised as mourners. At the last moment, Kitty and Emmy decide to go back to continue smuggling.

By 1942, the occupying Germans are frustrated that so many Allied soldiers are eluding them. Von Weber comes up with a plan to destroy the smuggling network. He arranges for a fake Allied pilot to be "shot down". The man is brought to Emmy's antique shop hidden inside a chest. She is warned, but he becomes suspicious and pulls a gun and calls the Gestapo. She is able to strike him on the head (fatally) with a candlestick when he is distracted. However, too much is overheard over the phone, and the Germans, led by von Weber, come for them; Andre is there as well, back from England on a mission for the Free French. Emmy is captured, but the others evade the first sweep, hiding in the basement. When they overhear that von Weber will not stop searching, utterly convinced Kitty is still in the building, she knocks Andre out and gives herself up to save him.

They survive to be liberated by the Allies, though Emmy is so unhinged by her ordeal that she at first does not even recognize her friend.

The ending is very exciting and gratifying. The Germans are all cruel, bullies, glorious over taking Paris 

Madame Pimpernel is an excellent retake on the Pimpernel saga,

I will take post on Pimpernel Smith, staring Leslie Howard.

Mel Ulm