When I was a little girl, of 5, or 6, or 7,
the movie “Gigi” was a big hit. The soundtrack was an best-selling LP, and of course, we had it along with “My Fair Lady”, “South Pacific” and “Oklahoma!”.
I hated that song, because I was a little girl, and it made me feel creepy.
I was too innocent to understand why it did, but my instincts told me it was not nice at all.
Turns out, the musical was about a little girl in Paris being raised to be a “courtesan” (prostitute). I kid you not.
Sounds like that cartoon cat named Pepe Le Pew.
Everything he said had a double meaning.
Yes, Gigi was being trained as a courtesan......very common in pre-war Europe and still is.
They look at love differently than we do.....for instance if a man kills his wife after finding her in the arms of another man, by law, it is considered justifiable homicide.
But....big but...... Gigi said she didnt want to and told Louis Jourdan he was a very bad man for wanting her to be his mistress.
So happy ending......Jourdan stepped up asked her grandmother for her hand in marriage.
Amazing that the premise of the Collette book produced such an enchanting movie, although Chevalier’s, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” might be construed differently on the world of pedophilia.
In her memoir, Leslie Caron wrote that Chevalier was a real crotchety old guy off the set, but when the cameras rolled, the famous lower lip curled up, and he turned on that magical charm of his.