Whatever makes her daughter happy, apparently. And she lets her daughter work in opera, even though she cannot sing. Life didn’t really give her all that she wanted, it seems. Was she, perhaps, not as hard-core as her sister? Alicia is the one who really preaches to Gigi about pleasing men and making sure you get the right kinds of jewels from one’s lovers and so on.īut Mamita, after all these years, seems to harbor a soft spot for Honore Lachaille, though he was untrue to her while they were together, and carries a touch of sadness and wistfulness. She was, after all, a professional courtesan, though she doesn’t seem to have made out as successfully as her very wealthy sister Alicia. She’s savvy, has a sense of humor, knows how to ingratiate herself with men, even Gaston. Hermione Gingold as Madame Alvarez – “Mamita”- provides an unexpected center and heart for the film, suggesting all sorts of depths of character. Louis Jourdan, Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Hermione Gingold What makes her so different? Was it her grandmother’s doing? We never find out why she’s like she is – unaffected, innocent despite being trained up as a courtesan, dissatisfied with the prospect of being a courtesan and playing the games of love. When I watched Gigi this second time, it struck me that though the musical is called Gigi, it’s not really about her as much as it is Gaston (though I suspect that is not the case in the novella). The only people Gaston feels like he can relax with is Gigi and Mamita…until he realizes that Gigi’s no longer a child and he offers to make her his mistress. Meanwhile, Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan) is wealthy and bored, while his uncle, Honore Lachaille (Maurice Chevalier), seems to love every minute of his life as a roue. Gigi (Leslie Caron) is being raised to be a courtesan by her grandmother, Mamita (Hermione Gingold), and Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans). The story occurs during the turn of the century in Paris. Vincente Minnelli directed, some filming was done in Paris and on the whole it feels far more fluid and attractive than the more stage-bound and slightly stiff My Fair Lady (which I still watch frequently because it’s the closest I’ll ever get to the opening night in 1956 and I really shouldn’t complain). However, on viewing it a second time, I have to admit that as a movie, Gigi might be more successful than the later 1964 film adaptation of My Fair Lady. The music just never seemed to take off and soar like it does in My Fair Lady. Critic Bosley Crowther even joked that Gigi “bears such a basic resemblance to My Fair Lady that the authors may want to sue themselves.” The first time I saw it, my reaction was tepid. The stories are so similar, it’s almost impossible not to compare the two. However, while My Fair Lady was enjoying its sensational run on Broadway, the composer Frederick Loewe and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner came to Hollywood and helped turned Colette’s novella Gigi into a musical. My Fair Lady has what is for me one of the most glorious, exhilarating, beautiful, even magical, scores of any musicals. If I had a time machine and could go anywhere at all, I would go back to the opening night of My Fair Lady in 1956.
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