Paris When It Sizzles (1964)

William Holden: Richard Benson, Rick

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Richard : [knock on door]  Yes?

  Gabrielle : Mr. Benson?

  Richard : You are, I assume, the young lady from the typing bureau?

  Gabrielle : I am.

  Richard : In that case, if we are to have a happy and harmonious relationship, I beg of you, never answer a question with a question. Is that clear?

  Gabrielle : Did I?

  Richard : There you go again, answering a question with a question. My original yes when you opened the door was a question, question mark implied of course. You do know the difference between implied and inferred?

  Gabrielle : Isn't that a question?

  Richard : [pauses]  Yes.

  Gabrielle : Well, you just answered my question with a question. To imply is to indicate without saying openly or directly, to infer is to conclude from something known or assumed.

• Gabrielle : You're not middle aged, Mr. Benson. In fact I think you're remarkably well preserved.

  Richard : As chilling a compliment as I've ever received, Miss Simpson.

• Gabrielle : It's quite all right, really. I once worked for an American novelist who could only write in the bathtub. I'm used to anything.

  Richard : You can unpack -

  [surprised] 

  Richard : in the bathtub?

  Gabrielle : Yes. On the second day, I gave him a packet of bubble bath and from then on we got along swimmingly.

  Richard : I see.

  [pointing to the name on the birdcage] 

  Richard : Uh, does that imply that the bird's name is Richelieu?

  Gabrielle : Oh, it's inferred, I believe, rather than implied.

  Richard : [pause]  "Swimmingly." Interesting figure of speech.

• Richard : Now then, the mysterious stranger. Who is he? What does he do? What suffering, what torment caused the deep sadness that lurks behind his eyes? And why, while we're asking questions, didn't I listen to my father and learn some sort of useful trade?

• Richard : [showing Gabrielle the apartment]  This is it. The office there, I live up here, and uh, the terrace is out there. That rather grotesque object looming so formidably on the horizon is the Eiffel Tower. I had it moved there to remind me what town I'm in. If it offends you, of course, I'll have it taken away again.

• Richard : You call the canary Richelieu because you always wanted a cardinal.

  Gabrielle : [laughs]  That's very funny!

  Richard : No, it isn't. Just one of the hazards of being an international wit, which I am. You have to keep trying all the time.

• Richard : And this guy you've got a date with on Bastille Day, is he part of the growth process?

  Gabrielle : Oh no, he's just a friend, a struggling young actor.

  Richard : [outraged]  An actor!

  [disgusted] 

  Richard : Eww. A tragic relation to begin with. I only hope he's not one of those method actors that who scratches and mumbles and pauses a lot, thereby destroying the impeccable rhythm of the author's prose.

• Richard : You really like it, don't you.

  Gabrielle : What?

  Richard : Life.

  Gabrielle : Oh! Every morning when I wake up and I see there's a whole new other day, I just go absolutely ape!

• Richard : I've got an idea. I've got an idea! First good one I've had in four months. No, that's not true. A few weeks ago I had an idea to give up drinking, but it didn't photograph.

• Richard : Cut to the Eiffel Tower. The main title. The trumpets segue into the inevitable title song. Maybe we can get Sinatra to sing it.

  [Frank Sinatra begins sing, "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, Also stole my heart..."] 

• Richard : I've got it! Of course, it means we'll have to start all over again, but that's not too serious. We've only got eight pages.

• Richard : He's not asking her to spend a weekend with him in a motel in Asbury Park, New Jersey; he's inviting her to lunch!

• Richard : The music soars, and there, totally oblivious of the fireworks, the fountains, and the holiday mad throngs, they fall happily and tenderly into each other's arms. Two enormous, highly paid heads come together for that ultimately inevitable moment, the final, earth-moving, studio rent-paying, theater-filling, popcorn-selling kiss.

• Richard : Miss Simpson, did you ever realize that "Frankenstein" and "My Fair Lady" are the same story? One ends happily and the other one doesn't. Think about that for a while.

• Gabrielle : What's the story about?

  Richard : lt's an action, suspense, romantic melodrama - with lots of comedy, of course. And deep down underneath a substrata of social comment.

  Gabrielle : Oh. Well, if l could see the pages you've written, l could estimate the size of the typing job.

  Richard : The pages, my dear girl, are right here. An Alexander Meyerheim production.

  [begins placing down blank sheets of paper] 

  Richard : "The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower" - original story and screenplay by Richard Benson. Here, with a page or two of interestingly photographed establishing shots, possibly from a helicopter - a boy and a girl meet.

  Gabrielle : But, Mr Benson...

  Richard : Now, after some chitchat, getting-to-know-you kind of stuff, the thing l do so brilliantly, we feel an unconscious attraction between the two. An indication to the audience of the tremulous beginnings of love. And then, conflict! We can tell by the music how deeply fraught with danger the whole situation is. And now, the first switch. The audience *gasps* when they realise they've been fooled. Things are not what they seem. Not at all. ln fact, the whole situation is completely reversed, involving the *magnificently* ingenious switch on the switch. Amazed by the sudden turn of events, the boy and girl realise how gravely they've misjudged each other. At that moment, the music turns ominous once more. They become aware of the danger that they're in and the chase is on! Screaming tires, rooftops, long shots of their tiny figures racing through the empty, fear-gripped city. When suddenly in a deserted alley we see, seated on the closed-cover of a garbage can, licking its wet rain-bedraggled fur, close shot, the cat! Now, as we build step-by-step to the climax, the music soars! And there, totally oblivious of the torrential rain pouring down upon them, the two fall happily and tenderly into each other's arms. And as the audience drools with sublimated sexual pleasure, the two enormous and highly paid heads come together for that ultimate and inevitable moment. The final, earth-moving, studio-rent-paying, theatre-filling, popcorn-selling - kiss. Fade out. The End.

• Richard : We've got to give the audience the taste and smell of the real Paris. Okay. Exterior. Christian Dior. The camera pans, and now we see a white Rolls-Royce pull up and come to a stop. No, wait a minute, make that a white Bentley. It's chicer. A chauffeur in white livery leaps out and opens the door. From inside emerges some classically glamorous star like - Marlene Dietrich. And now she, eh - dot, dot, dot - she sweeps majestically into the store and - and that's the last we ever see of her.

• Gabrielle : May I ask what you have been doing?

  Richard : I have been doing what any other red-blooded American screenwriter would or should, if he had any sense, have been doing for the first 19 and a fraction weeks of his employment. Water-skiing in St Tropez, lying in the sun in Antibes, studying Greek.

  Gabrielle : Greek?

  Richard : There was this starlet representing the Greek film industry at the Cannes Festival. Then, of course, a few weeks spent unlearning Greek, which involved a considerable amount of vodka and an unpremeditated trip to Madrid for the bullfights, which fortunately, since l can't bear the sight of blood, had long since gone on to Seville. Weeks 17 and 18 were spent in the casino at Monte Carlo, in a somewhat ill-advised attempt to win enough money to buy back my $5,000-a-week, plus expenses, contract from my friend, employer and patron, Mr Alexander Meyerheim, thus not having to write the picture at all. Take a note. For the textbook which l will someday do on the art of screenwriting, never play 13, 31 and the corners thereof for any serious length of time for any serious amount of money. lt doesn't work. And now l have to.

• Gabrielle : Last month l worked for Roger Roussin the young New Wave director. You've heard of him, of course.

  Richard : No, l'm more of an Old Wave man, myself.

  Gabrielle : The picture's terribly interesting. Very avant-garde. It's about a lot of people who go to this party and decide not to play Scrabble and then go home again. lt was called, "The Scrabble Game Will Not Take Place." His next one's about a girl who decides not to have a birthday party. It's called, "Blow Out No Candles." Roger believes the only important thing to put on the screen is what doesn't happen.

• Richard : [dictating]  She seats herself at a table at this little café she goes to. With breathless anticipation, she awaits the arrival of her date. Some - *actor*. Now I suppose we'll have to describe - *him*. I see him as curiously unattractive.

  Gabrielle : Not at all. Philippe happens to be very handsome. In fact, he looks rather like, eh, Tony Curtis.

  Richard : I see him as one of those mumbling scratching actors destined only for minor roles and character parts. And his name is not Philippe. It's Maurice.

• Richard : You and this "actor*, what do you plan to do on Bastille Day?

  Gabrielle : We're going to spend the whole day together. Starting with breakfast at this little café we go to, then we're going to dance from one end of Paris to the other, the opera at five, then to the guards and the singing of the "Marseillaise", then off to Montmartre for the fireworks, and then supper and champagne and, you know, *live*.

• Richard : How long have you lived in Paris?

  Gabrielle : Two years.

  Richard : And you came here to write.

  Gabrielle : Well, that, too, but mostly to - l don't know how to say it exactly: *Live*.

• Richard : [dictating]  At this magic moment her life has indeed begun. Tenderly he folds her into his arms, and moving with the nimble grace of a Fred Astaire, he dances her off into the crowd.

• Richard : A mysterious stranger.

  Gabrielle : A mysterious stranger. How exciting!

  Richard : Miss Simpson, before you escape the confines of this unpretentious hotel room, it's my intention to show you just how exciting a mysterious stranger can be.

• Richard : l suppose we'll have to describe him.

  Gabrielle : Yes, l suppose so.

  Richard : He's American, of course. l can write him better that way.

  [looking in the mirror] 

  Richard : Now let's see, what else? l see him as rather tall, rather suntanned, rather handsome, athletic looking, with a rugged but - curiously sensitive face.

• Rick : ln exactly ten seconds, l want you to slap me in the face as hard as you can.

• Gabrielle : How do we get from the square through all that charm and serendipity and everything you do so brilliantly?

  Richard : ln motion pictures we have a simple device which takes care of exactly this situation: The dissolve. Over the years, the audience has been conditioned to understand that when a scene fades away, like an old soldier, before their very eyes, and another scene gradually appears to take its place, a certain amount of time has elapsed. So, Miss Simpson, we dissolve.

• Richard : Miss Simpson, nobody's perfect. Why, he asks, as they dance and dance and dance, are you so sad when everyone is so gay?

• Gabrielle : All right, maybe, she would. If he promises they'll just lunch and that's absolutely all.

  Richard : He promises! Unless, of course, she can think of something she'd like to do afterwards.

  Gabrielle : Which she won't!

• Richard : Talk about men in trench coats, he spies on me constantly. His people are everywhere! For all l know, you might be one them.

  Gabrielle : Mr Benson

  Richard : l'm sorry. But, some of these days l just feel like whats-his-name in "Les Misérables".

  Gabrielle : Jean Valjean.

  Richard : l guess so.

• Richard : Now, Miss Simpson, that we have set the wheels of our plot in motion and *inflamed* the audience with a passionate desire to find out what happens next. And l don't blame them. l'm just dying to find out myself. We can pause for a few pages of chitchat, getting-to-know-you kind of stuff, the thing l do so brilliantly.

• Richard : lf you'll try raising your upper lip, you might at least create the illusion of a smile.

• Richard : We'd better change his wardrobe. Put him in some kind of a liar-and-a-thief suit. You know, various shades of black. Now, moving with the light grace of a jungle cat...

• Gaby : Who are you? What do you do?

  Rick : Who am l and what do l do? l'm nobody and l've done everything and nothing. Driven racing cars, white hunter for a while, piano player in a rather curious establishment in Buenos Aires. This and that, everything and nothing.

• Rick : To begin, we'll have paper-thin slices of prosciutto ham wrapped carefully around well-ripened sections of Persian melon. To follow, a touch of Dover sole sauted lightly in champagne and butter. With that, a bottle of...

  Gaby : Pouilly-Fuissé?

  Rick : '59 will do.

• Richard : Notice, Miss Simpson, how cleverly I will play our suspense-filled melodrama against a background of holiday serendipity in ''gay Paris''.

• Richard : [dictating]  To the Bois, a hansom cab bearing our handsome couple clippety-clops its way past waterfalls and trees toward a magnificent restaurant.

• Gabrielle : Mr Benson, have you any idea at all what happens next?

  Richard : Do you, Miss Simpson, have any idea what will happen?

• Richard : We'll have a Chateaubriand for two. Eh, make that for four. Charred and brown. Nay, black on the outside and gloriously rare on the in. With the beef, we'll have white asparagus and a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild '47. And for dessert, an enormous order of fraises des bois...

  Gabrielle : Served, of course, with globs of heavy cream so thick you can put it on with a shovel, s'il vous plaît. Mmm-wah!

  Richard : You heard the lady. And make it snappy, we're starving to death.

• Richard : Miss Simpson, l don't think you realize this, but a writer's life is a terribly lonely one.

• Richard : [dictating]  All right, lunch is over. The martinis, the two different kinds of wine and the brandy have had their effect and a glorious dream-like glow is settling over them.

• Gabrielle : Mr Benson, you mean you did all these pages last night? All by yourself?

  Richard : While some of us were sleeping snug in our bed, other more productive citizens were up toiling in the vineyards of beautiful letters. l'm only sorry that you, as a fledgling writer, weren't present to observe with your own big magic eyes a seasoned professional in action. l was, in those few short hours, the great DiMaggio, going back, back, back for the high-fly ball! l was Manolete in Seville, going in over the horns for the kill! And missing, fortunately, because l can't stand the sight of blood. l was Pablo Picasso, deftly adding the third eye to a portrait of his lady love.

• Rick : Please, sit down and enjoy your lunch. And l beg of you, watch the calories.

• Rick : Why do you think l picked up the girl?

  François : Because she has big magic eyes.

  Rick : Well, that, too, but actually l picked her up to throw our inspector friend off the scent.

• Richard : Sit down and brace yourself. Here comes the switch on the switch. ln a minute and a half, both you and the audience will *gasp* as you realize you've been fooled. Things are not as they seem. Not at all! ln fact, the whole situation is completely reversed.

• Gaby : l particularly like movies with complicated robberies in them, don't you?

  Rick : Absolutely.

  Gaby : l know this sounds childish, but next to pictures about robberies, l think l like horror pictures best. l always have! You won't believe this but when I was a little girl, l was *madly* in love with Dracula. My mother was very upset. She thought it was somehow - unhealthy. She used to say, that vampire's old enough to be your father! Whom, she would add, he in many ways resembles.

• Rick : Have you been inside a motion-picture studio?

  Gaby : No. Are you in the movie business?

  Rick : In a way. The studio is particularly marvelous on a holiday like this. Silent. Empty. The vast sound stages completely deserted. Like the night before Christmas, not a creature was stirring.

• Richard : You think she's an American intelligence agent. Well, Miss Simpson, you happen to be wrong. Our Gabby happens to be that most reliable, steadfast, and you-cannot-possibly-miss-with-no-matter-how-badly-you-write-it character in *all* popular literature: the prostitute with a heart of gold.

• Richard : You smell *wonderful*.

  Gabrielle : That's the bath oil. When l took my bath this morning, l put bath oil in. Only a few drops, of course.

  Richard : For which l am most grateful. For both our sakes.

• Richard : Now, where were we?

  Gabrielle : Bang, bang, bang! That's where we were.

• Gabrielle : l don't see how "Frankenstein" and "My Fair Lady" are the same. Oh, yes, l do. Professor Higgins created Eliza and Dr Frankenstein created the Monster. Oh, yes, of course.

  Richard : But don't tell anybody.

• Richard : He's chased her through the jungle and all that stuff. Blah, blah, blah. And passed the bathtub. lf you think there's going to be a Richard Benson movie without a bathtub, you're out of your head. And into the bedroom! She pulls out a gun, blah, blah, blah, blah.

• Richard : Their two bodies, now moving as one, roll like turbulent breakers crashing on an undiscovered shore. And now, now, we slowly - and lingeringly - dissolve.

  Gabrielle : Gracious.

• Richard : Miss Simpson, as l said before, a dissolve is a most useful device. Not only can it take you from one place to another, but it also leaves what's happening on the screen - to your imagination. Now, if l were you, Miss Simpson, l would stop going to those sinful art theaters and start seeing more good, wholesome American family-type pictures.

• Rick : it's almost eight-thirty. Time for the climax of our glorious day. We must be off.

• Gaby : [sitting in a bath tub]  Quite all right. l always carry a packet of bubble bath in my purse and l'm getting on swimmingly. Howdy, stranger.

  Rick : [dressed as a cowboy for costume party at the Eiffel Tower]  You must be the new schoolmarm.

• Maurice : Please. l - l am not Maurice. l am Philippe.

  Rick : Dear boy, you are a minor character and your name is of no importance.

• Richard : Miss Simpson, how can I dictate if you're going to...? Hmm...

• Richard : [dictating]  And now, darling, Rick and Gabby make their way to the elevator which will carry them and us to the inevitable party scene, so dear to the hearts of movie directors everywhere. It's summer time and the vita is dolce. Breakfast is at Tiffany's and everybody is high.

• Maurice : I don't understand.

  Rick : Of course not. You're not supposed to understand. Can't you get it through your mind? You're only a bit part. Nobody cares anything about you. You're a mere literary convenience. Someone for the hero to punch in the jaw at the correct moment. And that moment, l'm happy to state, has finally arrived!

• Gabrielle : Why, Mr Benson, what are you doing here?

  Richard : Come on, Miss Simpson, stop overacting. You know very well what l'm doing here. Of all the hokey, cornball, Grade-B picture devices. She forgot the bird! She forgot the bird! She forgot the bird!

  Gabrielle : l don't know what you're talking about.

  Richard : Oh, yes, you do. Girl leaves bird. Boy has to come looking for girl. l've written that scene a thousand times myself. Always works, of course.

• Richard : To you, Richard Benson. To you and your glorious professional know-how.

  [takes a drink] 

  Richard : Ah. Long may you wave. And may you - go on - fooling - the people.

  [passes out] 

• Richard : lt's too late. He's 43 years old. Or will be this October. He's been married twice, both times disastrously, and there have been too many years of - too much dough, too much bad writing, and too much whisky. He's got nothing left inside to give. Even if he could, which he can't.

• Richard : There is something l care about. Money - and good whisky. l am, as you've probably noticed, rather fond of that.

• Gabrielle : l know what happens next.

  Richard : You do?

  Gabrielle : The two enormous and highly paid heads come together for that ultimate and inevitable moment. The final, earth-moving, studio-rent-paying, theatre-filling, popcorn-selling...

• Richard : You're in love with me. And why shouldn't you be? Suddenly, waltzing into your life comes this charming, relatively handsome stranger. Me. Smooth as silk, with a highly practised line of chatter, specifically designed to knock relatively unsophisticated chicks like you, Miss Simpson, right on their ears. Which l'm terribly afraid l've done.

• Richard : If there's a single chink in Rick's armor, it's a pretty face.