Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW) Going out on whim is what makes life grand. I can relate to the girl in the movie. Lauren King(Diane Lane),an American girl living in Paris, France has a high IQ, spends most of her time reading a book, while her mother (Sally Kellerman) is an actress who is married and has a boyfriend who is a movie director. Speaking of movies, there's a young man named Daniel(Thelonious Benard) loves American cinema. Both Lauren and Daniel meets during a set on the film her mother was filming. The mother forbids the relationship. Only the stepfather seems to like him after he decks the mother's boyfriend. The two get away and meet a man named Julius(Sir Laurence Olivier) who claims to have traveled all over. He bores Daniel, but intrigued Lauren with the love of poetry. The young couple take advantage of the advice of going to Venice and kiss in a gondola at sunset. Daniel is good at the horse races, and he gets the money to go to Venice. But he and Lauren aren't old enough to go there. So they get Julius to help them out. And he does. However, Julius isn't the man he claims to be. He did some time for pick pocketing. So when they found out the truth after Julius left the winnings on the train. When the parents decided to go back to the states, the young couple decided to make it be the love of the lifetime despite the obstacles they faced. This is one love story no one wants to miss. I enjoyed this very much. A big keeper in the video library. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

GusF Based on the 1977 novel "E=mc² Mon Amour" by Patrick Cauvin, this is a delightful story of first love. The film is essentially an adolescent fantasy but a very endearing one. It is extremely sweet without being sappy, at least until the very end but that is to be expected under the circumstances. While the similarities are very superficial, the storyline was probably partially inspired by "Romeo and Juliet", which it mentions several times. Given the numerous references to Hollywood films throughout, I am certain that the lack of anything approaching gritty realism was a deliberate choice. It has a very strong script by Allan Burns and the direction of George Roy Hill makes excellent use of the fantastic locations offered by Paris, Verona and Venice. It also has a beautiful score by Georges Delerue, which deservedly won an Oscar.The film stars Diane Lane in a very impressive on-screen debut as Lauren King, a shy, lonely 13-year-old American girl who is living in Paris with her emotionally distant and often neglectful mother Kay and her stepfather Richard who loves her as if she were his own daughter. With an IQ of 167, Lauren is considerably more intelligent than most, which makes it difficult for her to relate to her peers, and spends her leisure time reading the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the incredibly heavy philosophy of Martin Heidegger. She finds a kindred spirit in a streetwise French boy her own age named Daniel Michon, played very well by Thelonious Bernard. As with Lane, this was Bernard's first film but, unlike her, he did not pursue acting as a career, only appearing in one more film. Assuming that the information on the Internet is accurate, he is now a dentist in Nantes. It is a shame that this was his only major role as he is a very natural actor. While Lauren belongs to a wealthy family, Daniel lives in a very small flat with his father, a dishonest cabbie who scams American tourists and loses most of this money at the racetrack. While his IQ has never been tested, Daniel is likewise extremely intelligent and has developed a sophisticated system for betting on the horses, albeit in theory and not in practice. He is obsessed with Hollywood films, particularly those of his idol Robert Redford. Incidentally, two of the Redford films that he watches in the cinema are dubbed versions of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting", both of which just so happened to have been directed by George Roy Hill. Lauren and Daniel meet in the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte where a political thriller is being filmed by the pretentious hack George de Marco (whose first name was almost certainly as an in-joke!) As would happen in one of Daniel's beloved Hollywood films, the two of them fall in love instantly. The self-absorbed Kay, brilliantly played by the underrated Sally Kellerman, does not approve of Lauren's romance with Daniel on the basis that he is "a filthy French boy."In one of his final major roles, Laurence Olivier is absolutely wonderful as Jules Edmund Santorin, an eccentric but very kind elderly Frenchman who entrances Lauren with his romantic stories and tales of his colourful life. He tells them of a legend that says that lovers who kiss in a gondola under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice at sunset as the bells of St. Mark's Campanile toll will love each other for all eternity. On the basis of this legend, Lauren and Daniel decide to take a trip to Venice and recruit Jules as their mandatory adult companion, telling him that they are visiting Lauren's sick mother. However, things get a little complicated when Lauren's parents learn of the trip and the police assume that Jules has kidnapped the young couple. It turned out that Jules had not been entirely honest either. He had claimed to be France's former ambassador to Liechtenstein who rubbed elbows with the great and good throughout his diplomatic career when he was actually a pickpocket who had served numerous prison sentences over the years. Even his frequent references to his beloved late wife Emmaline were fabrications. Emmaline was based on an old girlfriend who would not wait for him while he was in prison and represents his ideal woman. As the lovable old rogue Jules, Olivier seems to be channeling Maurice Chevalier, who probably would have played the role if the film had been made 20 years earlier. Olivier had a flair for accents and tended to go slightly over the top with them at times. He certainly does so on occasion in this film but I thought that it fit in perfectly with both its tone and the mischievous, eccentric character that he was playing. He is never less than a delight in the film.The film has a strong supporting cast overall. Arthur Hill (no relation to the director) is great as Lauren's stepfather Richard, who is very supportive of her in a way that her mother has seemingly never been. In her only film appearance, Ashby Semple is a laugh riot as Lauren's "terminally dense" but sweet best friend Natalie Woodstein, who spends most of her time saying, "God!" in a shocked tone of voice. David Dukes is suitably sleazy as George de Marco, whom Kay intends to make her fourth husband. The flirting that goes on between them is so obvious that they might as well have taken out an ad in Le Figaro. In one of his final roles, Broderick Crawford has a very funny cameo as himself in which he sends up his well- known propensity for heavy drinking and cannot remember half of his films.Overall, this is an extremely sweet, enchanting, feel good film that left me with a massive grin on my face.

wapotter I was embarrassed for Sir Laurence Olivier who must have been in dire need of money to allow himself to be involved in this picture. The only two actors that actually seemed to know what they were doing in this film were Mr. Olivier who played Julius and Arthur Hill who played the father. Sally Kellerman was way over the top as the neurotic, hypocritical and overbearing mother (reminding of Hot Lips Houlihan in "M*A*S*H"). It appeared to me that the director was only interested in placing the children in adult situations and seeing how filthy he could get their language to be. The film might have been better if it had been completely subtitled or in English (with poor or unintelligible French and Italian accents). The only reason to actually view this film is because of Olivier. His character was believable. The story line was predictable and contrived. The direction looked like it may have been done by a film student who was unsure of how to direct...which is surprising, since George Roy Hill directed such watchable and enjoyable films as "The Sting," (which had a prominent placement in the film) "Thouroughly Modern Millie," and "The World According to Garp." If you have 2 hours to spend, it might be better to find something else to watch...maybe "Bridge to Terebithia," or "My Girl."

kenjha In Paris, teenagers (an American girl and a French boy) fall in love and befriend a shady old man. Lane is fine in her film debut as the sensitive child of a floozy of a mother (Kellerman) and an understanding stepfather (Hill). The characters and situations are rather clichéd but it is entertaining enough. While Lane parlayed this role into a long film career, Bernard (who plays the boy) retired after just two films. Olivier does little more than act pooped. The film doesn't really get going until the kids and Olivier embark on a journey to Venice. Director Hill vainly manages to insert clips of two of his films ("Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting").