User reviews

This delightful and light-hearted film carries on in the tradition of gentle satire established by Mark Twain in his two popular novels 'The Innocents Abroad' and 'The Innocents at Home'. But instead of American 'innocents', this British film portrays British 'innocents', all except for a seasoned diplomat (Alastair Sim) making a first trip to Paris. The film follows the adventures of each character over the course of a weekend. They all fly out on the same plane and return on the same plane. We catch some wonderful glimpses of early performances by people who were later well known. Kenneth Williams is uncredited as someone arranging things beneath a counter in London Airport (not a window dresser, as wrongly described in IMDb), and in one fleeting cameo exchange, he manages to 'be Kenneth Williams' to an astonishing degree with just a few words. The 25 year-old Laurence Harvey, who is credited and not uncredited as claimed on IMDb, wears a tiny little moustache and is a floor waiter in a grand Paris hotel, complete with French accent. Claire Bloom plays an innocent your girl who has been 'saving up for ages' to afford her first weekend trip to Paris. She meets the romantic Claude Dauphin, and they have a weekend affair with numerous comical moments. Margaret Rutherford takes her easel and paints away in quaint streets and haunts the Louvre. She meets a British man who has lived in Paris for 30 years and has painted copies of the Mona Lisa 338 times but never sold one. She ends up being the first person to buy one, bringing ecstatic happiness to them both. There are some wonderful lines in the script. When Margaret Rutherford, who has never taken a plane before, is asked to fasten her seatbelt before takeoff, she answers innocently: 'But I haven't brought one with me.' James Copeland is excellent as a Scot in a kilt who meets a very sweet French shop girl and commences what will turn out to be a lasting romance. There are the usual jokes about his kilt, and the French women laugh at him heartily in the streets and one taunts him because she is wearing trousers and he is wearing a skirt. The film is shot on location in Paris, and it is astonishing to see how empty of traffic it was at that time. You could set up an easel in the middle of a quaint street and no car would come along and bother you for hours. Paris looks simply empty! And that can't just be because they cleared the locations for filming. From this film it is clear that it is not only the British visitors who are the 'innocents', it is the French as well, as very few of them have their own cars, and traffic is essentially nonexistent. Ronald Shiner is very amusing as a soldier who plays the drum in a military band which has travelled from Britain to play 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary', 'Colonel Bogey', and other such tunes on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue of Lord Byron. He becomes entangled with a French woman and when he discovers she has a child whom she can barely support, he gives her all his money. When he is being funny, his broad comedy technique verges on the over-obvious, but is tolerable for the character he plays. There are excellent performances from the French actresses Gaby Bruyère and Monique Gérard. There are some very fine moments in this multi-threaded film, and some genuine pathos along with all the good-natured comedy. It was written by Anatole de Grunwald, who had tremendous experience as a script writer as well as sophistication, so that the stories all work pretty well. Gordon Parry was the director, who two years before had directed TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS (1951); he died in 1961. This is a very entertaining and light-hearted film which shows a great deal of Paris as it was in 1952, and is also well worth seeing for those who are interested in the British stars of that era.

A fun little adventure with Alastair Sim on form as usual (always watch Sim closely to get the best from his performances). Margaret Rutherford is her usual dippy, wonderful self and a host of other fifties household British names pop up (including Christopher Lee), in this easy to watch little adventure.

Fifty plus years on, it doesn't really matter what the political motivations of the film were, it's an entertaining little story with a beginning, middle and an end.

There's a lot of dross been made since 1953 and this film by no means takes a back seat. Sit back and enjoy.

Innocents In Paris is several tales interwoven of a few British subjects going over the Channel on a weekend jaunt to gay Paree. For some like stuffy British diplomat Alastair Sim it's business as he's at a European economic conference as the British delegate. Pleasure almost gets forced on him as he arranges a back channel meeting with Russian delegate Peter Illing who shows Sim the pleasures of vodka and champagne and a few other things that Paris offers. They even get a little business done.

Margaret Rutherford is just Margaret Rutherford as an eccentric painter who for a weekend does a Gene Kelly as she paints and sells her product in the streets of Montmartre.

Romance in this film is handled by young Claire Bloom who gets some heavy wooing by Claude Dauphin. That one doesn't go quite on course, still it's a once in a lifetime experience.

That and a few others make Innocents In Paris a delightful experience and a look at post World War 2 Paris. It still holds up well because the experiences are eternal.

Half a dozen British subjects board a plane for a weekend flight to France and find themselves innocents in Paris. It's one of those movies in which several individual stories take place at a common venue, here with a mostly humorous theme. With a couple of comedy pros like Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford headlining the cast, Claire Bloom (fresh from her role in Chaplin's LIMELIGHT and James Copeland in more romantic plots and lesser stars to fill in the gaps, there's something for everyone.

It's a thoroughly pleasant effort with a script by Anatole de Grunewald and enough actual French talent to lend the necessary Gallic charm to the proceedings. Sim and Rutherford are, as always, delights, and the rest are amusing in their standard stories, although I can understand why the 100-minute movie is usually cut; although the subplot with Laurence Harvey as a French valet de chambre is good, the movie, as a whole, seemed to drag a bit.

I saw this on tv years ago but watched it today via new blu ray.

It is good fun and of interest in how it tells its story.

Even for 1953 it is cosy and unrealistic,I did not expect anything else.

But it has a lot of location filming in Paris and it looks great.

As someone obsessed with aviation history I expect they did provide meals on flights to Paris in this period.

Flying was for richer people then and this was before the jet age,the flight would have been longer than it is nowadays.

Passengers would expect food and drink on nearly all flights..

One of the reviews here made me scratch my head.

France famous for poor food produce? Really?

British airliners always crashing? Well we know about the Comet but Britain had a mighty aviation industry in the 1950s.

The French talk about the 30 glorious years of growth and prosperity after WW2.

I never found out exactly which years? 1945-1975? 1948-1978? In any case France recovered from world war 2 thanks to the Marshall plan but also to the hard work of its citizens and due to having an economic plan.

Unconvincing portmanteau comedy. Sim & Rutherford once again spin gold out of garbage, while the rest of the cast, notably Jimmy Edwards & Ronald Shiner, are defeated by a badly written screenplay. The Scotsman section, with James Copeland, is a good example of a poor performance meeting an inadequate script to produce unmistakable rubbish. Watching these innocents is not bliss!

A week-end in Paris. Too many characters are crowded into 100 minutes, making implausible romantic and other connections. Film might have been better with fewer story- lines, and certainly the 87-minute version, which excludes the Mara Lane/Laurence Harvey incidents, is an improvement over the longer version.

This is a cross between an attempt (1) to display "slice of life" and (2) to provide some "charming" atmosphere. Unfortunately, this overlong attempt is riddled with clichés. It is unfunny where humor was intended, and fails to move where pathos was intended. Completely misses the mark as a farce or light comedy.

Only Rutherford, Sim and Gordon's presences slightly redeem this waste of time, so in their honor it seems three points are in order, one for each of those actors.

An eclectic group of Brits is going to Paree. Susan, a beautiful young lady, is played by Claire Bloom. Bloom had just made Limelight with Charlie Chaplin. The really big name in here is Margaret Rutherford! she was Miss Marple in so many Aggie Christie films. she tries her hand at painting, and meets various locals. Sir Norman (Alastair Sim, aka Scrooge!) is going to talk with the Russians, on official, post-war business. many misunderstandings, but always the diplomat, Sir Norman keeps trying. and the (military ?) band ends up at what seems to be the Moulin Rouge dance hall, with the almost naughty dancers. the poor, kilt-wearing scotsman, who has lost his wallet. the airplane full of passengers each has their own set of adventures. travel to a foreign country was probably quite novel, back in the day. this one plods along, slow and steady. some fun moments, but slow overall. Directed by Gordon Parry. made 18 films in the 1940s and 1950s. i didn't recognize any of them. but what do i know. Story by Anatole de Grunwald. his OWN life story is much more interesting than this film, if you check him out on wikipedia dot org. apparently being born on christmas day, 1910, Anatole's family had to flee the russian revolution, and went to france, england, and the U.S.

I am obliged to review this very minor effort due to Christopher Lee's uncredited involvement in it, which lasts for all of 30 seconds(!), appearing merely to inspect an English military band before and after their flight to the titular location. The film is a British comedy, very typical of its era, and pitting established (Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford) with emerging (Claire Bloom) talent – not forgetting local, i.e. French, star presences (Claude Dauphin and Louis De Funes). To be honest, caricatures of various types emanating from these two countries have been done to death over the years – to have them engage in a clash of cultures, then, is even more lamentable (though it was obviously devised and intended as an irresistibly hilarious notion!)…and to which is even added that of the humorless Russian diplomat, who takes offense when his British counterpart (the perennially-flustered Sim) rather tastelessly compares the effect of drinking vodka to the devastation caused by an atom bomb – and who can only concede to the Western way of thinking while under the influence himself!!

Unsurprisingly, the narrative takes up several strands of plot as the various passengers of a plane enjoy a week-end in the French capital; most of these are wafer-thin and alternate between improbable romantic trysts (including a Scotsman falling for a local girl) and the idiosyncratic pursuit of a particular hobby (painting and indoor cricket!). Mind you, the film is tolerable enough for what it is – but it is certainly not among the better examples of its kind, especially when considering that the copy I acquired ran for 86 minutes against the movie's official duration of 102…which makes me wonder just how long was the print shown on local TV during the early 2000s, but which I had not managed to either view or record back in the day! Suffice it to say that, while Laurence Harvey's name and face is prominently featured in some of the film's theatrical posters (apparently playing a French waiter!), he was nowhere to be seen in the print I watched!!

Don't look for something deep, shocking or dramatic. This is a quiet, very charming little movie, with a number of humorous, lovely scenes. It contains several slices of life from the weekends of six characters visiting Paris, each with their own goals, problems and hopes.

The visiting characters are played by outstanding British actors and actresses. There is an absolutely priceless performance by Alistair Sim as a stuffy British diplomat. Margaret Rutherford plays to perfection the ever-lovable character we know from her other stellar performances. The only problem is finding a good copy of this movie. Hopefully some studio will realize its appeal and a good DVD will appear.

Ignore the agenda-driven propaganda from other reviewers.

If the film had concentrated just on the Sim, Rutherford, and Bloom characters then it would have been much more enjoyable. Instead it bounces around between five/six characters allowing just enough time for a punchline and then we're on to the next. I could have done without the American? Woman in the hotel, the guy in the kilt, the loud mouth with the handle bar moustache, and the military band. Should be a 5. But watching Alastair Sim get drunk and Claire Bloom in a bathing suit raises it to a 6.

After the war, France was a mess — an agricultural economy with a bad reputation world- wide because of near universal collaboration with the Nazis. America resolved to rebuild Europe and part of the plan was to cast Paris as a romantic place, in spite of its history. Hard to believe today, but Paris is wholly a cinematic invention.

The instruction went out to US and UK studios. The US studios went along to protect valuable monopolies, already eroding. UK studios required a subsidy. Many famous and important films followed.

This is one of the subsidized UK films. (Included in the story is a joke about the safety of air travel. The first British airliner was a disaster, with many crashes.)

Several Londoners visit Paris for the weekend and have their lives changed by the romanticism of the place and people. As with most subsidized films, including many French films to this day, it stinks.

The story is broken into five threads: a statesman, Scotsman, young pretty woman, old bat, and marine in a marching band.

The young woman is Claire Bloom when she was pretty. But the only thread that has any charm at all is the one that follows Margaret Rutherford and her always present husband, Stringer Davis. She's unique, inventing a character that has become a stereotype.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Nnocents in Paris is an interesting film, especially for those who are fans of Louis de Funès. This early role gives us a glimpse of the comedic genius that he would eventually become, and his performance is one of the highlights of the movie. The film, directed by Gordon Parry, is a light-hearted comedy that follows a group of British tourists experiencing Paris in their own quirky ways.

While it's delightful to see de Funès in one of his early roles, the film itself doesn't offer much in terms of story. The plot is rather thin and feels more like a series of loosely connected vignettes than a cohesive narrative. There are moments of charm and humor, particularly when de Funès is on screen, but overall, the film lacks the wit and energy that characterize his later works.

For those interested in cinema history or fans of Louis de Funès, Innocents in Paris is worth a watch. However, if you're looking for a film with a strong storyline and memorable characters, this one might not quite satisfy. I give it a 6/10, mainly for the nostalgic value and the pleasure of seeing de Funès in his early days, though the film itself is fairly forgettable.

A politician looking to negotiate with his Russian counterpart, a Scotsman on holiday, a military musician on tour, an Englishwoman looking to express herself artistically and several other people share a commercial flight over the water to Paris, France. Once there their experiences range from the romantic to the absurd, from the creative to the political.

I don't always agree with Tedg's reviews. No, scratch that, I don't always understand Tedg's reviews but on this title I think he nailed it when he mentioned that the film was made at a time where the foreign view of France was less than great and that those in power had committed to changing this. I was unsure reading it and I'm still not sure if his history is true or not but, watching the film for myself, I can certainly see no other reason for it existing other than promoting Paris as a place that is for more than just sympathising with invading armies.

The entertainment value is certainly close to nil and it is disappointing given the talent involved. The plot is a collection of stories that are only joined by the fact that the characters all travelled to Paris on the same plane. None of the threads are really that interesting or entertaining and, with only one or two funny moments in the entire thing, I did tire of it long before the end. With this being the situation the cast are all wasted. Sim is occasionally amusing but the material is way below him and it shows in his performance – at times he seems unable to really pick it up at all. Rutherford is no better but at least her dialling it in is distracting enough in her usual style. Shiner, Edwards, Copeland, Bloom, Dauphin and so on are all wasted and have nothing to work with and thus their performances are are allowed to be worth much.

Overall a pointless and uninteresting film that is all the more disappointing when you consider the talent involved in making it. I'm not sure why it was made if the "promote Paris" thing is not true because I certainly found no other reason for a studio expecting an audience to watch this.