Couldn't sleep again! Uh-oh! You know the drill!
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown! 3:30 AM!
TCM!
Ann-Margret! Something called MADE IN
PARIS. Weird, uncomfortable opening where Chad Everett gets really grabby with our star. But at least she caves in his head with a decorative item from a nearby table. But it's a comedy so he's okay. He gets grabby again with her later in the movie, I mean, it's plain
sexual harassment and even worse, I mean, the general "romantic comedy" tone here is sexual harassment and, really, something darker. This is not what I meant to talk about. What I MEANT to say is that after the wordless opening bit, which is supposed to come off dry and light and clever (but seems like somebody might get murdered to me!) the credits start to roll (our stars represented by mannequins, another instance, so soon, of unintended, uncanny horror), and I noticed that
Red Skelton composed one of the songs in the movie. I didn't know he wrote music! The "internet" tells me he wrote more than 600 pieces of music. Shows you how much I know about Red Skelton. I thought, "This is going to be the most interesting thing about MADE IN PARIS." And I was right! But I'm going to keep typing about it anyway. But first let's talk some more about Red Skelton! I was tweeting about him and
Megan tweeted back at me that Red Skelton edited some anthologies of
ghost stories. And THAT made me remember (I think) reading an article when I was a little boy (maybe) in which it was revealed (possibly) that Red Skelton was illiterate! "Like most editors," I humorously remarked to Megan, but I didn't mean it! I love editors! Especially the ones I have now. It was just a humorous thing to say in that humorous way I have about me that wins over so many people all the time. My problem with Chad Everett (other than his character's horrific behavior) might be that I just kept seeing him as creepy old Chad Everett from
MULHOLLAND DR. (in which he was very good, but no less creepy). But you know, Louis Jourdan is in MADE IN PARIS, too (that's him gazing into Ann-Margret's eyes, above), and I didn't see HIM as
creepy old Louis Jourdan from SWAMP THING. I saw him as a French smoothie, with his own brand of sexual harassment, but managing a much more interesting performance of a more (relatively) layered character. FURTHERMORE I will say that I thought Chad Everett was creepy even when I was just a tot and Chad Everett was young and my grandmother wanted to watch him in a TV show called MEDICAL CENTER and I wanted to watch something else. He just seemed off to me! Walking around in his white lab coat looking down on people.
That's how I recall feeling. I'm learning a lot about my feelings regarding Chad Everett today! In MADE IN PARIS, Jourdan represents European sophistication, I guess, while Chad Everett is American brashness. It's
Jamesian. Is that Jamesian? I have no idea. I almost forgot to tell you, I'm an idiot! But it certainly gets metaphorical when Chad Everett and Louis Jourdan start beating up each other. I can't tell you who won the fistfight because a big rainstorm blew in and I lost the satellite reception. And that was it for MADE IN PARIS, as far as yours truly is concerned. Hey! There's this crazy scene where the bandleader Mongo Santamaria tells everyone in a nightclub to "do the pussycat" and everybody starts dancing around and this guy in Santamaria's band make what are supposed to be cat noises, but they're just terrifying! I mean, something is WRONG with that cat!
