I was raised on MGM musicals. I’ve seen a smattering of the offerings from Warner  Brothers, RKO, and 20th Century Fox, but it’s the ones from MGM that are the best. Of those, there is one which, to my mind, is set apart from the rest in style, look, and theme, and it happens to be the one closest to my heart. For today’s meme, “Best Musical,” it could only be Gigi.

The music is by Lerner and Loewe. It’s set in Paris at the turn of the century. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli. It’s lush and gorgeous and funny and touchingly romantic. What it isn’t, however, is full of the sort you regularly find in musicals; Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, and Leslie Caron are, none of them, singers. It’s probably strange to single-out Gigi as the epitome of a genre when it doesn’t really conform to its standards, but for some reason, it’s the fact that its principals don’t sing that makes it work so well.

It is sometimes less jarring, when a character is breaking into song, that the song itself is either mostly spoken or one with a simple melody. Don’t get me wrong, the moments are as heightened as a musical calls for, but they are as natural here as the genre can provide. It doesn’t distract from the story or its setting… and what a setting! It was filmed on location in Paris, as Minelli had hoped to do with the earlier An American in Paris (also starring Caron), but was unable to get approval for from the studio. Thank heaven they went for it in Gigi, because the city itself and Minnelli’s view of it is one of the stars of the film.

It’s a surprisingly racy story, taken from the novel by Colette, about a young girl who is being groomed to be a courtesan. The task of one in that role is to artfully play the game of love, but for them, there is no room for romance. Her aunt, a great and renowned lady, says when asked of marriage: “Marriage is not forbidden to us, but instead of getting married at once, it sometimes happens we get married at last.”

But Gigi comes from a line of women who have bucked that tradition; her grandmother married, and her mother has eschewed the family business for a career in the opera (a running joke is her off-key voice rehearsing off-screen, amusing when considering the lack of strong voices in the film). Our leading man, Gaston, is cynical and blase, and no emotion takes ahold of him so fiercely as boredom. It is only Gigi and her grandmother who interest him, and though his job is to keep up appearances as a playboy, he can rely only on them for entertainment. He cannot be blamed for this; the attraction to these particular women also runs in the family…

 

There is something so charming about the innocent and true love that comes from such inauspicious and sordid beginnings, and the epiphany that we’re in the middle of a grand romance comes at about the same time as Gaston’s. Gigi goes against the grain, though. While remarking on youth and all its joy, it takes a moment to reflect on love lost and how its memory lingers into one’s sunset years. It’s shockingly blunt in its description of the role of the courtesan as the vessel for a man’s hopes and dreams, useful for his ego, valued for her beauty and manners. But Gigi is her own woman, and she is loved just for her pluck and singularity. It’s when Gaston realizes that his exciting girl is in danger of being dumbed-down to be just like all of those bores that his epiphany is complete. It’s a beautiful story, as bubbly as champagne, with all the satisfaction of seeing two great friends fall in love.

And thank heaven.