HotToastyRag I'm sure there are people who will like watching Paris Blues. Paul Newman fans, or Sidney Poitier fans, or those who like Paris or jazz music, but even though I'm 2 for 4, I found too many problems with the movie to enjoy it.First of all, even though Paul Newman made a career out of playing "the bad boy", he didn't really pull it off this time around. He and Sidney are nightlife jazz musicians. They are supposed to be seedy, bad quality, different-dame-a-night swingers. Then why did both of them look incredibly clean cut, with never a hair out of place? I just didn't buy it when they'd say, "Can you dig it?" It felt like they were in a movie parodying the 1960s and they didn't know what they were talking about.Second, Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll play girlfriends on a two-week Paris vacation. They're not even off the train when Paul hits on Diahann, completely ignoring Joanne, who incidentally looks prettier than she usually does. Joanne is taken with him, so they go the low-life dive nightclub where he works and listen to him play. Once again, Paul hits on Diahann and is incredibly rude to Joanne. He pushes her away repeatedly and tells her to find someone else for what she wants. But Joanne wants to be an incredibly stupid woman. Seriously, what's her problem? She just arrived in Paris! There are nightclubs and seedy musicians everywhere—what's so special about Paul Newman? He's downright mean to her constantly. She knows where he stands. But he's the one for her? Both romances are quite stupid. Diahann and Sidney are awkward at best; it's as if they used one take to say their lines in the worst, most comical way possible, and that's the take the director kept. Joanne and Paul are mismatched; sometimes star-crossed lovers are a good plot point, but in Paris Blues it's just badly written. Throughout the entire movie, she's incredibly stupid, but she comes up with spur-the-moment zingers that don't fit her character."I told you from the beginning, I'm not on the market," Paul says. With a look that's supposed to be smoldering, but just comes across as confused, Joanne says, "I wasn't shopping," before leaving the room. I wasn't amused.

writers_reign In, I think, either Annie Hall or Manhattan, Woody Allen's character noted that in his family the biggest sin was buying retail. In my book it's sloppiness; sloppy writing, sloppy researching and this movie hits one out of the park as early as the opening credits which proclaim: introducing Serge Reggiani. That's breathtaking whichever way you look at it given that Paris Blues was Regiani's 40th - count 'm 40th - movie. Okay, the majority of these were French but they included such titles as La Ronde, Les Amants de Verone, Casque d'Or not forgetting Act Of Love, starring Kirk Douglas. In Paris Blues he plays a jazz guitarist known as the 'gypsy' an oh-so-subtle nod to Django Reindhart, an internationally renowned French jazz guitarist with celebrated gypsy blood. The film, shot in black and white, is about as far from a travelogue/valentine to Paris as you can get, set largely in the small jazz clubs on the Left Bank and although it does introduce themes like racism - Sidney Poitier's character had settled in Paris so that he could be just a musician as opposed to a Black musician; Diahann Carroll, the American tourist who falls in love with him is a committed campaigner for Civil Rights - it fails to address them adequately. If beguiling ninety minutes painlessly is your thing then this should hit the spot.

justincward Not just for Duke Ellington fans.Two American tourists (Carroll, Woodward) on a fortnight in Paris meet two competitive expat jazz musicians (Poitier, Newman). Will they get the boys to return stateside? Louis Armstrong ('Mad' Moore) steals the show.This is an, er, interesting movie. An early 60's period piece from before the Cuban missile crisis and the JFK assassination when the big issue for these young Americans was whether to settle down in suburbia or pursue the bohemian dream. With 56 years' hindsight, we see Black people and French people being patronized royally by prosperous white America, but this was 1961, and they meant well. They had just won WWII.Paul Newman is Ram Bowen, a star trombone player whose prowess with the slide has a hypnotic effect on the groovy types who spend all night in Parisian jazz cafés. Apparently star trombonists existed, but I did spend a while trying to work out what 'Ram' was short for. Ramon, perhaps. Rambunctious? Paul chews the scenery manfully, thankfully a little more restrained than in 'The Hustler', and some of his scenes with (wife) Joanne Woodward are actually quite affecting. Sydney P and Diahann C's scenes are lumbered with lines straight out of the liberal conscience handbook.I don't like the (to me, dated) Billy Strayhorn/Ellington sound at all, and it's a big component of Paris Blues: jazz music with pretensions to 'importance', whatever that is. I guess serious jazz like this symbolized the social advancement of people of colour, since they couldn't get a look in at classical music at the time. Tell it to Louis Armstrong.Nice photography, great locations, sets and supporting cast, and a satisfyingly downbeat ending. Way better than Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris, if you like a bit of jazz and Paris.

mark.waltz Two visiting American girls strike up romance with two working American musicians, and it's "An American in Paris" times four. That means four times the love, four times the sadness, four times the desires, and four times the blues. Real life American couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are joined by rising stars Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll, exploring the city of lights and romance, discovering each other and themselves, learning a little something about a society not quite as conservative as what they are used to, and hopefully finding out some valuable truths in the meantime.This is a somewhat plot less romantic drama, opening its characters to a life far different than what they are used to, and yet not finding at least the same types of prejudices that were rampant on the other side of the Atlantic. But when you are surrounded by artists of all kinds, the only thing you see is the art, and often skin color becomes like the frosting on the cake. Each of the couples find their differences, question their ideas about commitment, and in the end, it's a holiday romance with bittersweet jazz (brought on by "Sachmo" himself) and that downbeat note that brings on the blues.What you have here is an art house film made mainstream because of its cast, a delight to the ear but sad for the eyes because it's a black and white view of Paris, maybe a metaphor for the black couple and the white couple dealing with the highs (jazz) and the lows (blues), or from one extreme to the other with no real middle. I think this is a film you'd either have to be in a certain kind of mood to appreciate, or maybe revisit it several times. This is definitely not "Blues for dummies".