Change Your Image
paranoja
Reviews
The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)
Ok first half, but loses its own narrative half way
I thought the first half was sort of cute - a love story played out with Taylor and Johnson in their prime. But it starts going wayward when Moore and Gabor are introduced as their respective temptations to stray outside the marriage - of course it has one of the more bizarre death sequences in history; Liz Taylor is locked out of the house in the snowy rain, makes her way to her sister's house (Donna Reed) collapses and then just dies as Van Johnson manages to arrive at the hospital. If the point of this movie was to be a tragic love story melodrama, you'd think they'd really let this death play out and try to go for the emotional punch but she literally just dies.
Johnson's character then leaves Paris for an undisclosed amount of time, leaving their daughter (Descher) with Reed and her husband (Kasznar). Upon his return there's some waffling about how the sister has never liked him and wants to keep the daughter, but again it's resolved rather quickly and there's no real emotional stakes in it because they never really built up that she supposedly had such a strong dislike for Johnson. The whole custody melodrama just serves to extend the movie for another 15 minutes or so.
Add in that the timeline often feels rather off, possibly because Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited (which the movie was based on) was set in the roaring 20s post-WWI. For whatever reason they decided that the movie would be set post-WWII, but in doing so they inadvertingly created a tight time line for themselves in addition that the party scenes really feel like they should be set in the 1920s instead.
Ultimately, it becomes a rather low stakes movie that doesn't serve its story, characters or actors that well.
The Unauthorized Melrose Place Story (2015)
Does what it says
An "Unauthorized Melrose Place" story was never going to be overly exciting, as unlike the predecessor Beverly Hills 90210, there was never any major drama on the set that one could build a story around like the Shannen Doherty/Jennie Garth drama. So they end up focusing on non-issues like Laura Leighton not wanting to step on anyone's toes or Thomas Calabro's supposedly smug New York theater background.
It also only covers seasons one through three and they barely touch upon the fact that Amy Locane was dumped after the first 13 episodes (and shockingly, they don't milk her recent legal troubles).
So, it's a pretty calm movie that chugs along nicely. Nothing overly revealing and a few factual errors, but what can you expect from a made-for-TV movie by Lifetime?