The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)
Review and photos © The Invisible Hand of Alan Smithee

After years of toiling in uncredited obscurity, Roger Moore finally got his first on-screen credit in this adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited." Eight years before his role as Simon Templar in "The Saint" gave him a reason to wear a tuxedo full time, Moore got to try one out as Paul Lane, a rackish tennis pro/gigilo. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Helen (Liz Taylor) and Marion (Donna Reed) are sisters living with their father James (everyone's favorite screen dad Walter Pidgeon) in Paris. During the end-of-war celebrations Helen meets Charlie (Van Johnson), a reporter for Stars & Stripes. Before the end of the first reel Helen and Charlie are falling in love, while James cons Charlie into betting his last buck on a hot tip at the racetrack. A whirlwind romance ensues and by the end of reel two both sisters are married and Helen and Charlie are having a kid.

And it's all pretty much down hill from there. Charlie settles down to write the Great American Novel but can't sell it (Nor his second nor third novels, for that matter.) Helen continues her wayward ways, jumping into fountains and posing for murals and all the kind of thing you're supposed to do in post-war Paris. Even when the worthless Texas land Helen's father gave them for a wedding present starts spouting oil and they become filthy rich, Charlie can't get over not being able to get a book published and the couple begins to drift apart.

Into Helen and Charlie's troubled life saunters Paul, played by our firstie Roger Moore. Paul is a friend of dad's, speaks terrible French (either that or he flubs his first line) and immediately impresses Helen with his sophicated if somewhat oily continental charm. Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Paul attempts to seduce the wealthy and very married Helen into (gasp!) an extra-marital affair!

Meanwhile, Charlie is similarly tempted by Lorraine, played by high-wattage glamor gal Eva Gabor. Lorraine is an oft married Euro jet-setter with a wardrobe stuffed chock-a-block full of expensive dead animals and enough jewelry to outfit a pharoah's pyramid. Why she's attracted to a piece of day old beefcake like Charlie is something of a mystery.

In a regular Hollywood melodrama, Helen and Charlie would get back together in the end but, if you think that, you haven't been studying your film history. Ya see, this is what people in the g'industry used to call a "weepy" which essentially is the 1950's version of the "chick flick" but with a lot more crying. These things were made for only one reason; to have middle-aged hausfraus crying into their hankies by the end of the fourth reel. Were it not for the presence of Elizabeth Taylor, The Last Time I Saw Paris would have been left gently fade away into greatly deserved film obscurity.

Still, despite the soapy dialogue and horribly over-used clichés, everybody in the cast tries gamely to make a go of it. Even Van Johnson manages to tone down his he-man persona long enough to look vulnerable. Moore is suitably slimy and we even get to see a little bit of that old James Bond action. It comes during the big confrontation scene where Paul judo throws a drunken Charlie to the floor and stuns him with the old drink-in-the-face maneuver. I half expected him to whip out the old Walther PPK and blow Charlie in half. (Which, come to think of it, would have made for a vastly more entertaining film. Or at least a shorter one.)

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