Main Cast: Ann-Margret, Louis Jourdan, Richard Crenna, Edie Adams, Chad Everett
Release Year: 1966
Country: US
Run Time: 103 minutes
Plot
An American girl finds love and laughter in the City of Lights in this romantic comedy. Maggie Scott (Ann-Margret) works as an assistant to Irene Chase (Edie Adams), a fashion purchaser for a large clothing store. Irene sends Maggie to Paris as her representative for the annual fashion shows of the major European designers; Irene has an ulterior motive, as her son Ted Barclay (Chad Everett) is infatuated with Maggie and she wants to keep him away from her. While in Paris, Maggie strikes up a romance with Marc Fontaine (Louis Jourdan), a handsome Frenchman who was once Irene's boyfriend. However, Maggie is also being pursued by American reporter Herb Stone (Richard Crenna). To add to the confusion, Ted decides to fly to Paris in an effort to win Maggie's heart once and for all. Jazz fans will want to keep an ear open for performances by Count Basie and Mongo Santamaria. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Made in Paris is a horribly dated comedy that will appeal mostly to fans of Ann-Margret, incredible hairstyles and haute couture fashions filtered through a Hollywood lens. And to be fair, if one takes Paris simply on those terms and is ready to just laugh at it, the film can make for a very entertaining evening. However, one must be enormously willing to suspend one's desire for anything resembling freshness or believability in the screenplay and must be naturally inclined to laugh rather than wince at treacherously bad dialogue. The writer is the villain here, although it must be said that Boris Sagal's ho-hum direction certainly doesn't help make it any easier going. Fortunately, Paris does have Ann-Margret at the height of her stunning, alluring, sex-kittenish beauty. She can't really do anything with the part, which one minute is all hands-off virginity and then the next is giving loud and clear "come on" signals. (Had the writers actually done something with the idea of a confused good girl/bad girl, the actress might have then had something interesting to play.) Still, Ann-Margret tosses her mile-high hair with great abandon, wiggles and struts through a couple of dances that are simply too period to be believed, and uses her star power to keep one's attention. She gets no help whatsoever from a dull Chad Everett, and Louis Jourdan and Richard Crenna are not much better, but Edie Adams picks up the slack whenever she appears. There's also Helen Rose's wonderful-yet-awful faux-Parisian designs. None of the assets make Made in Paris anywhere near a good movie -- but, for the right audience, they make it a great deal of fun. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
