Hello everyone!! Welcome to week three of our Paris film journey! Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I wanted fun and whimsy and beauty this spring, and although an actual trip to Paris in the spring would be better, a film journey will have to do. We are having great fun, and hope you will journey along with us!

However, this week’s movie is not exactly the most lighthearted of our picks, but it was a wonderful movie all the same. I really enjoyed the vibe, ya dig?

This movie stars some big names! Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll, Louis Armstrong! That last one was shocking to me! Louis Armstrong! How cool is that?

The Rotten Tomatoes synopsis of this movie states “Despite being far from home, American jazz musicians Ram Bowen (Paul Newman) and Eddie Cook (Sidney Poitier) are content living and working in Paris. Ram knows it’s the best place for him to develop his musical reputation, and Eddie is far away from the racism that once greeted him on a regular basis. But after meeting and falling in love with American tourists Lillian (Joanne Woodward) and Connie (Diahann Carroll), the pair must decide whether their artistic integrity is worth abandoning.”

The bohemian vibe in this movie was awesome. I think it perfectly encapsulates the jazz scene, the clubs full of people smoking and drinking, the casual relationships, the cocaine use (what!), the commitment to art, and of course, the discussion of racism. It felt very different from so many old movies I have watched, but I loved it.

Paul Newman (Ram) is a trombone player in a jazz band, and he is one of those married to the music this is my life kinda guys. We all knew those guys right? In my day they all played bass guitar, but hey, this was another time. He is living his bliss, playing music nightly with his band, picking up chicks, and definitely not getting wrapped up in long term serious relationships. Sidney Poitier (Eddie) is also living his dream, performing as a musician, and not one that is qualified as a Black Musician. In Paris, he is just a musician. Paris did not have the racism that was/is found in the United States, and this stretches as far back at least as far as the Civil War era, when Black people from the States could even move to Paris and receive an education, become doctors, provided they had the financial means or support to do so. And I am going off on a tangent here so I am going to rein this back in.

So these two hepcats were out here living their dream, and then in waltzes two American women who turn their heads and make them question what it is they really want. Diahann Carroll (Connie) and Joanne Woodward (Lillian) are in Paris for some good times on their two week trip.

At first, Ram hits on Connie, although later, Eddie and Connie fall in love while Lillian and Ram pair up and fall in love as well. I did read that this movie was intended to have Newman and Carroll in a relationship but that the director chickened out.

Ram and Lillian waste no time of her two week trip getting to know each other, with Ram and Lillian sharing a bed the next morning after meeting. Eddie and Connie seem to be always outside, soaking up the walks of Paris, and Eddie even mentions how they like to walk and Paris is a city to be walked. Or something like that.

I did have a giggle at one point, when Eddie and Connie are out. He buys her a huge bouquet of flowers that after what seems like fifty feet she says she can’t carry. Eddie takes them from her and gently lays them on a hill next to the sidewalk, and says they will leave them there with a note saying that lovers can take a flower. But then he and Connie just immediately leave, without writing that note! I chatted Lisa, what the heck! They didn’t leave that note! Eddie and Connie’s relationship seems deeper yet more innocent, with them outside all the time, in gardens and on the streets. I loved when Eddie told Connie that he loved her, it seemed so happy and joyful and yet also held I think a bit of surprise, but I mean Poitier was an amazing actor. I was much more interested in him and his story actually, than Ram and Lillian’s. Despite their love for another though, Eddie did not want to return to America with Connie. Why should he, when in Paris he can be himself, and America is segregated and violent at the time? I didn’t necessarily blame him, although Connie makes some compelling arguments.

While Eddie and Connie are having their affair on the streets of Paris, Ram and Lillian are doing their thing as well. And same, Lillian wants Ram to return to America as well. But he is too freewheeling to consider it, and he his has music to think of. Paris offers so much in building his musical education – can he give that up? And he would be a stepdad too, or at least Lillian has two children so there would be children involved if he went back, even for a trial year. So much to consider and weigh. Where does his heart really lie?

The jazz scenes in this movie were amazing. When I was a teen, this was totally the vibe I wanted to serve, all bohemian and ultra cool. My friends and I would go to this coffeehouse called the Mad Hatter and think we were cool and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and listen to jazz, which at the time I actually really didn’t like. I didn’t start to like actual jazz until much later in my life. I would totally have been all up in that jazz club (cave? was it a cavern?) had I been in Paris at that time. So I really enjoyed those scenes, especially the scene where Ram and Louis Armstrong have this amazing jam session. Can you imagine jamming with Armstrong?

Ok, so I am going to talk about the end of the movie here so skip this if you don’t want spoilers.

After receiving some bad news about his compostions, Ram decides to leave Paris with Lillian. Eddie is going to go back to America with Connie, although he is not leaving immediately. He and Connie and Lillian are all at the station, waiting for Ram. When Ram arrives though, he has bad news. He is not going. He can’t go. He needs to stay, his music is too important. And Lillian leaves him with a few words, a going away present she says, even though it sounded more like a curse, delivered in the most beautiful broken hearted way. She says that he will never forget her, that no matter where he walks he will see her, and he will always know that no one will be as right for him as she was. Then she turns around and disappears into the train station, that looks so much like a Monet painting that I had to look it up, and Ram is standing there alone, and the soundtrack starts playing jazz music and that is that as he walks away. It was an intense emotional scene, in my opinion, and I thought it was so well done.

If you haven’t seen this, I highly recommend it. You don’t need to be a jazz fan or enthusiast to enjoy it – just a person who loves a good romance, set in one of the most romantic places on earth.

You can find Lisa’s review here!

Did you watch? What do you think of this movie? Feel free to comment and link up with us!

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Next up is Hugo!