Looking at the Big Picture

Gigi

Gigi came out the summer before I turned 6. It can't have been the first movie I'd ever seen (I don't think), but it's definitely the first movie I remember seeing. It was at a movie palace off the boardwalk in Asbury Park, N.J., right next to the Palace arcade later immortalized in photo by Bruce Springsteen and the memories of so many others. I remember the setting almost as much as I remember the movie. The Mayfair, I think the theatre was called. I'm pretty sure it rained outside, adding to the evening's sense of specialness. It was my parents and me, but my grandfather was there, too, which was unusual when we were down the shore, and maybe partly why this memory remains so strong; he'd be dead four years later. And then the spectacle onscreen! The opulent visual palette of Vincente Minnelli, the songs, the dances, the puckish Leslie Caron whose Gigi didn't want to grow up to become a kept lady, and the throwback to a time when Maurice Chevalier crooning "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" didn't raise too many hackles and the flirtatious relationship between Chevalier and Hermione Gingold seemed the ne plus ultra of adult sophistication. Nine Oscars, including one for Best Picture, support my eternal enthusiasm for Gigi. But that one particular night? "Ah yes, I remember it well."

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Thu., July 7, 7pm (P)