Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (based on Paul Gallico’s novel) is a movie about beautiful clothes and following your dreams. I’ve been a fan of Lesley Manville for many years. In this movie, Manville reminds me of Betty White at her sweetest.
Manville plays a cleaning woman, Ada Harris, in London in 1957 who falls in love with a Christian Dior dress one of her clients has in her closet. Through hard work and some luck, Mrs. Harris accumulates enough money for a trip to Paris and enough to buy a Christian Dior original.
Director Anthony Fabian features stunning scenes in Paris. Jenny Beavan recreates the Dior dresses of that era with eye-popping elegance.
Yes, there’s a bit of Pygmalion fantasy in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. I prefer this version to the Angela Lansbury 1992 TV movie, Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris (which is the original title of Gallico’s 1958 novel). I think you will, too. GRADE: B
I’ll pass. May be a good film but it has no appeal to me.
Steve, there were 8 people in the AMC theater showing MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS and I was the only guy. Clearly, the audience for this film is middle-aged women.
I loved her in THE PHANTOM THREAD–also about clothing. I will probably see this if it comes to the two theaters near me. I am not very fussy nowadays.
Patti, set the bar low and you’ll enjoy MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS. With only 8 people in the audience yesterday, I’m guessing AMC is going to dump it fast.
Paul Gallico, another once popular novelist now largely forgotten. He may not have been a household name like Hemingway or Steinbeck, but at least you’d recognise his novels or the movies adapted therefrom. On a recent Jeopardy episode, the clue was, “In this Paul Gallico novel, survivors on a capsized ocean liner climb up to the bottom of the ship.” None of the three contestants, who all looked to be in their late 30s or early 40s, ventured an answer. Even the movie versions of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE have faded from memory, I guess.
Fred, I was watching that JEOPARDY episode when the Paul Gallico clue was missed by all three contestants. THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE kicked off a bunch of Hollywood disaster movies. But they are tame stuff compared to our contemporary disaster movies like THE ROAD. Also, Paul Gallico published FOUR novels about Mrs. Harris:
Flowers for Mrs. Harris (1958, U.S.: Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Paris)
Mrs. Harris Goes to New York (1960, U.S.: Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to New York)
Mrs. Harris, M.P. (1965, U.S.: Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Parliament)
Mrs. Harris Goes to Moscow (1974, U.S.: Mrs. ‘Arris Goes to Moscow)
It’s strange that someone with a memory as terrible as mine would remember seeing this book around the house in the 50s, probably a memory triggered by seeing an ad for the movie. This means my mother was reading it. This one doesn’t appeal to me, but I recall reading another Gallico novel called “Too Many Ghosts” around the same time period and thinking it was pretty good.
Michael, the same was true of my mother! What’s more, I know what the book was – it was in a Readers Digest Condensed Book edition. I think she read it.
There was a TV movie version of Gallico’s THE SNOW GOOSE shown on the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1971, starring Richard Harris and Jenny Agutter, who (according to Wikipedia) won a Supporting Actress Emmy for the performance. I remember seeing it but nothing else about it.
I did see the Angela Lansbury 1992 TV movie version of MRS. ‘HARRIS, but have no other memory of that one either. Lansbury’s son directed it.
I too was dumbfounded when no one on Jeopardy knew THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, but then that’s been the case with too many contestants lately.
I like Manville – recently saw her in several British TV shows, including the 2001 series of THE CAZALETS, the Elizabeth Jane Howard series, where she played the long-suffering wife of philandering Stephen Dillane – but have no interest in this.
Jeff, now that you mention it, it was one of those Reader’s Digest volumes, which I never read. Even as a teenager I somehow knew that wasn’t the proper way to read a book. My mother seemed to enjoy them though. I did see THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE but didn’t know until today that it was based on a Gallico novel.
Michael, I have a copy of TOO MANY GHOSTS around here somewhere. Several people have recommended it to me over the years…and now you! I’ll have to dig it out and give it a try.
Paul Gallico embraced the sentimentality of his stories. The Snow Goose was probably his most popular, and it inspired not only a movie but a progressive rock album by Camel. He wrote the story that Lili, with Leslie Caron, was based on. I just recently watched and enjoyed The Clock, starring Judy Garland, that was also based on one of his stories. I loved the Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina when I was younger; I haven’t seen it recently, but I expect it would hold up. (Patrick McGoohan and Susan Hampshire!) Gallico also wrote the book that the Lou Gehrig biopic Pride of the Yankees was based on. And of course The Poseidon Adventure has been filmed three times, and his sequel novel once. Paul McCartney wrote the theme song for the tv version of The Zoo Gang, about a group of friends who were Resistance fighters during the war and now scheme to steal money back from crooks and con artists, a sort of proto-Leverage.
Gallico may not have been a great writer, but he was able to write good stories that people liked.
Jeff, that’s a very accurate assessment of Paul Gallico’s career. I now need to rewatch THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA. I did not know Paul McCartney wrote the theme song for the TV version of THE ZOO GANG!
I remember reading THE BOY WHO INVENTED THE BUBBLE GUN by Gallico when it was new…possibly in a Condensed Books volume, finding it very oddly self-serious but readable enough (I would’ve been 10yo, and might’ve been missing the irony as applied…I had seen and enjoyed POSEIDON in theaters…really two more films since? Not a JEOPARDY question I’d get right).
Yes, Condensed Books were last resorts for me, as well, and I’d try to seek out the Real Texts if anything seemed good enough.
The ad campaign hasn’t excited me, but I might catch this at home. If I’m hesitant to go see Maria Bamford in concert on Thu, somehow even an amiable comedy isn’t likely to drag me into even a sparsely-populated theater.
Todd, while MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS was sparsely attended, there were at least 50 people in line at the Snack Counter. With TOP GUN, MINIONS, and CRAWDADS as alternate choices, AMC was well attended on a Monday evening. Of course, Diane and I were the only ones wearing N95 masks. Meanwhile, our lawyer’s office called us to tell us our lawyer’s wife has come down with Covid-19. We rescheduled our routine appointment for August.