Is Paris Burning? **½ (1966, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron, Gert Fröbe, Yves Montand, Orson Welles, Alain Delon) – Classic Movie Review 4738

Director René Clément assembles a huge, excellent Sixties international all-star cast for his earnest, well-meaning but lumbering and convoluted European epic 1966 historical war drama set around the liberation of Paris in 1944 as the French resistance tries to regain control of it and the Germans try to torch it.

It stars Jean-Paul Belmondo, Leslie Caron, Gert Fröbe, Charles Boyer, Yves Montand, Orson Welles, Alain Delon, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, Claude Dauphin, Anthony Perkins, Daniel Gélin, Simone Signoret, Robert Stack, George Chakiris, E G Marshall, Claude Rich and Jean-Louis Trintignant.

Gert Fröbe plays General Dietrich von Cholitz, who is ordered by Hitler to burn the city if the Germans lose control of it or if the Allies get near to it. The general and the Swedish Consul Raoul Nordling (Orson Welles) debate what to do.

Unfortunately, accommodating all the star cameos works to the detriment of the story’s flow and credibility, while the overall thrust and clarity of the movie get blunted in the barrage of tepid episodes. There are good scenes, characters and dialogues, and some good performances, but, overall, the movie just doesn’t catch fire.

Francis Coppola and Gore Vidal are among the seven credited writers who adapt Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre’s book Paris Brûle-t-il?  The others are Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost, Claude Brule, Marcel Moussy and Beate von Molo.

But, with all this talent involved, it should simply be a better and more exciting movie.

Also in the cast are Pierre Vaneck, Marie Versini, Skip Ward, Bruno Cremer, Suzy Delair, Billy Frick (as Hitler), Hannes Messemer, Michel Piccoli, Sacha Pitoeff, Wolfgang Preiss and Michel Lonsdale.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4738

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