Every frame of this movie is like a Renoir painting. Vincent Minnelli is an amazing director

So for me, it makes more dramatic sense to not have the chorus in this scene. It emphasizes the contrast between Gaston's arrival with Lianne and his arrival with Gigi and how different the stakes are. Is the crowd silenced because Gaston simply refuses to hear that he's dragging Gigi down the same path? They were right to make the change.

I just watched this earlier this evening. And in all honesty, Louis Jourdan is absolutely the most beautiful creature on the screen!

Verse 1: “There’s Gaston Lachille With his latest belle. She should keep him busy for a spell. Isn’t she a dream? Isn’t she a dear? Oh, if only dear Lianne were here.” Verse 2: “There’s Gaston Lachille. There’s Gaston Lachille With the latest apple of his eye. Where could she be from? Do you know her name? She’s a little young to play the game.” Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner ©️1958 Turner Entertainment/Arthur Freed Productions

Now this makes sense! I always thought it odd the silent sections were so drawn out.

I have to agree with whoever made the decision to take the chorus out of the scene. We already know from Lianne how the crowd gossips whenever anyone enters or does anything, and the kinds of things they say. Now if they're silent, it's left up to our imaginations of what they're saying about Gigi, which we know can't be anything good. And further it brings attention to it for Gaston's character and builds tension in the scene before he ends the night early, dragging her home. Gaston is now conscious of whenever eyes are on Gigi, and since he loves Gigi, he's more acutely aware of how people perceive her and it starts putting a magnifying glass on his own behavior of how he is treating Gigi and forces him to start down being introspective. Yeah, the chorus needed to be left out, because just being left to "imagine" what everyone is saying is a lot worse and conveys the stakes and builds tension in the scene a lot more than having the chorus in.

@lostvocals8

2 жыл бұрын

But I love the fact that they're all mouthing the words to a nonexistent song!

I think it's better without the chorus, actually. It emphasizes how Gigi does not fit in, that even the Maxim's patrons immediately realize this isn't the place for her.

I can’t believe they cut this out because you can see the others actually mouthing the lyrics but the film didn’t include their gossiping.

@lostvocals8

4 жыл бұрын

Even more amazing is the fact that no one watching the film notices it!

@jrbaskind

3 жыл бұрын

@@lostvocals8 maybe because our two stars are commanding all of our attention?

@kevincoxhead7137

2 жыл бұрын

I always feel it just looks like they're chatting and if you don't know the words they're actually singing, that doesn't really come across.

@kennethwayne6857

Жыл бұрын

@@lostvocals8 I've never noticed it either.

I actually like the version without the chorus. Having heard the people gossip about the previous two couples, this time we can't hear anything but we KNOW they're doing the same thing. It makes me feel even more paranoid for Gigi and Gaston.

@lostvocals8

3 жыл бұрын

Clearly, Vincente agreed with you!

I never noticed this when I was a kid watching this on a 19-inch, 4:3, CRT television. But when I went to see it in a theater five or six or seven years ago it was very obvious and felt extremely awkward.

“Maxim’s Chorus (Part II)” Music by Frederick Loewe Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner Performed by the Onlookers Orchestra Conducted by Andre Previn Orchestrations by Conrad Salinger & Alexander Courage ©️1958 Turner Entertainment

I played this as i watched the movie. As a child i noticed that the people were speaking and it killed me that i didn't know what they were saying. Kind of wish the had the chorus back.

@lostvocals8

2 жыл бұрын

As a child? 99.99% of all people who watch it never noticed!

@Eszra

2 жыл бұрын

@@lostvocals8 i saw their lips moving like earlier in the film so later on in life i learned i was right

@nicholerubes2959

9 ай бұрын

They are speaking french. I just now notice that. They are whispering in french

The version with the chorus is what I remember watching when I was young

@kuklafranandollie

9 ай бұрын

Nope. It was never released with this. There is a similar scene with the chorus, but it this one.

@oldageisdumb

9 ай бұрын

@@kuklafranandollie Yes, it was at some point. Either a version for TV or on video. Why else would I know the words to this scene? I actually said them aloud with the video and I’ve never seen this KZread video before. Sometime in the 80’s this was in the movie that was broadcast.

@kuklafranandollie

9 ай бұрын

@@oldageisdumb Because they were on the soundtrack album. Never used in any print of the film, anywhere.

I like this better with the chorus.

Everything about "Gigi" reminds me of the REAL France -- and the real Great Britain, and the real Germany, and the real Russia, and the real Austria-Hungary -- which, at that point, were all at the apogee of their development. Except for the catastrophe of the French Revolution, Europe had developed and evolved slowly and organically over fourteen centuries, from the fall of Rome in the fifth century to the early twentieth century. And then, a few years after the period in which "Gigi" is set, the Old World committed mass suicide on the battlefields of World War I -- the most pointlessly stupid war in history, the war that everybody lost. Even though I wasn't born until forty years after Sarajevo, whenever I see dramatic reconstructions of the period right before 1914 (especially gorgeous ones like this), I feel like someone who's been permanently exiled from his homeland.

@lostvocals8

3 жыл бұрын

But no comment about the chorus vocals that I added back in?

@tadimaggio

3 жыл бұрын

@@lostvocals8 I was referring to the version with the vocals. (Sorry I didn't make that explicit.) I can't for the life of me figure out why any sane person would ever have cut them. (Then again, we ARE talking about Hollywood producers.) They do an excellent job of summing up "les jeux d'amour" that were so much a part of life among the wealthy in the Belle Epoque, especially in Paris and Vienna. That line "Sbe's a little young to play the game" is a wonderfully chosen line, since, before the evening is over, Gigi will abandon "the game" in favor of marriage, and will carry Gaston along with her. Thank you for making the intact version available to us.

@lostvocals8

3 жыл бұрын

@@tadimaggio Actually, the decision to cut them was definitely made by the film's director, Vincente Minnelli.

@tadimaggio

3 жыл бұрын

@@lostvocals8 That AMAZES me. Vincente Minnelli was a man of taste and discrimination. (He also directed my all-time favorite film about Hollywood, "The Bad and the Beautiful"). Oh, well. If Homer nodded, and Shakespeare could write "King John", a gifted director could err once in a while. Thanks for being such a valuable source of information.

NO dislikes!

So, "Gigi" is not the M-G-M musical I'd want to have if i found myself marooned on an island. But the voices of the chorus gives me the heebie-jeebies!

Look😊😊

Leslie's voice in this movie was dubbed.

@lostvocals8

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, I restored her voice in other clips on my channel.