Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Micransix Crappy film

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

chuck-reilly Director Rene Clement's 1966 film, the all-star extravaganza "Is Paris Burning?" regarding the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation in 1944, makes for an interesting movie even if it is top-heavy with every well-known French actor and actress of that era and some obvious miscasting (Kirk Douglas just doesn't cut it as General Patton). That said, the story itself is one that should be familiar to every American school-age kid and all knowledgeable adults. The fact that it isn't speaks volumes about our own educational system. The title "Is Paris Burning?" refers to Adolph Hitler's ranting and raving into the phone at General Choltitz, the German commander of the city played by Bert Frobe (Mr. "Goldfinger" himself). The film does an exceptional job of portraying Choltitz's decidedly mixed feelings about whether he should obey Hitler's order to destroy the city or preserve his own reputation for posterity. He made the right choice. The rest of the cast holds up well and does justice to the serious material and historical events. They include Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron, Glenn Ford (as General Omar Bradley) and many other familiar names and faces. As for the real General Choltitz, he forever fancied himself a hero in the eyes of the "liberators" even though his decision was based mainly on saving his own skin. There's no doubt that Choltitz would've been hanged (or worse) if he had followed orders. But being the loyal German soldier that he was, Choltitz did not hang up on Hitler that fateful day. He merely left the phone off the hook and took a nice stroll.

writers_reign For better or worse War and Art are linked inextricably. The first wave of novels about the second world war emerged in the closing stages and in the immediate post-war years and with the exception of Irwin Shaw's The Young Lions (arguably the finest because it spans the entire war in Europe and North Africa) they tended to cover small theatres and/or the fringes (Mr. Roberts, The Caine Mutiny)with one, From Here To Eternity, set largely in a peace-time Schofield Barracks and climaxing with the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor. Virtually all these novels were filmed in the 1950s, the first full decade of world peace but by the 1960s a new trend appeared, the Blockbuster Second World War Epic consisting of a broad canvas chock-full of blink-and-you'll-miss-them stars from Hollywood and Europe. The Longest Day kicked things off in 1962 and four years later Rene Clement weighed in with this entry on the liberation of Paris. Clement had made one of the first films about the second world war with Bataille du rail and gone on to distinguish himself with tiles likes Jeux Interdit so was an acceptable choice to make a film about ending the darkness in the City Of Light. Yes, it's uneven, yes, it's ponderous, yes, it's turgid in parts but it is a fairly accurate record of how it was and the street fighting skirmishes are highly effective. You may not want to revisit it but you will, or should, want to see it once.

zardoz-13 I have read all the user comments about "Is Paris Burning?" and I think that I understand the movie better now, but I still argue that it was an inferior opus. No, I have not read the book, but I will put it on my list of books to read. Nevertheless, good history doesn't always guarantee classic movies, and "Is Paris Burning" remains hopelessly questionable in my opinion. Before I generate a laundry list of flaws, let me tote up the assets. First, Maurice Jarre's orchestral soundtrack qualifies as nothing short of brilliant because he captures the atmosphere and the drama in the events. Second, Marcel ("Taxi to Tobruk") Grignon's black & white widescreen cinematography rivals Jarre's score in the epic scope that it confers on the film. The producers clearly filmed this movie on location in the City of the Lights and the filmmakers may be applauded for giving the film a documentary flavor. The performances raised no concerns for me, except for Kirk Douglas, looking like he was on vacation when the casting director caught him and convinced him to portray General Patton, did raise an eyebrow. "Is Paris Burning" is a professionally mounted motion picture and there is no evidence of a shoe-string budget. Ultimately, however, what undoes "IS Paris Burning" is the overlong Gore Vidal & Francis Ford Coppola screenplay, along with the other acknowledged contributions from other scenarists, because there are no truly sympathetic character--just too many to keep track of, the storyline is episodic to the point of incoherence, and the entire movie wears out its welcome by the time that it pauses nearly two hours later for an intermission. There is no quotable dialogue and I felt like a lot of information that I learned on IMDb.COM should have been in the film itself. At the intermission, I wish that Paris had burned in the movie, BUT NOT IN REAL LIFE. As a World War II military history scholar, I can now appreciate the historical contribution that "Is Paris Burning" makes in its cinematic context, but as a film consumer, this bland, obtuse yarn just makes me yawn.

pete36 Big-budgeted multi-story retelling of the liberation of Paris in 1944.Some spoilers aheadMovie starts off with firmly stating who the bad guys are (as if we didn't know) showing the German occupation forces at their most brutal : sending of wagon loads of prisoners to the concentration camps and the cold-blooded killing of dozens of young resistance fighters.Movie structure consists of two main segments, first the Parisian uprising then followed by the actual liberation by Free French and US troops. Due to the many characters and storyplots it all comes over rather incoherent and sometimes muddled as often quite important characters appear and disappear without no particular reason. Every major French star of the sixties is in this. Delon( as the later famous politician Chaban-Delmas), Belmondo (who still can't keep a straight face) but also Michel Piccoli, Claude Rich, JP Cassel, Yves Montand (as a tank driver) and so on. Some US actors get also thrown in but, besides Orson Welles, they have really no more then an extended cameo appearance. The one pivotal character, who also holds together the 2 main segments of the movie is General Von Choltitz, the German governor of Paris,excellently portrayed by Gerd Froebe. Von choltitz is right in their-from the start and keeps being on the screen continuously until the very last minutes, his surrender of course. By the way, the screenplay (based on the bestseller of Collins/Lapierre)was written by none other then Francis Ford Coppola and Gore Vidal.But this is of course mainly a French show, besides the actors it has a French producer and a French director and last but not least Paris itself, so there is quite a lot of French flagwaving going on, giving the impression that 95 % of the Parisians were in the "Resistance'. In reality it was more of the opposite, at least until the liberation. Keep also in mind that a few months prior to these events large numbers of Parisians were cheering Marechal Pétain, the leader of the Vichy collaboration government. But despite all its many plot lines and overall length it is competently directed and features quite some well-staged and realistic battle scenes, from numerous firefights in the Parisian streets, blowing up German vehicles, tanks crashing into each other and culminating in the storming of the German 'Kommandantur'. All in all, this is like "The Longest day" 'à la française', featuring many stars and stories, filmed in black-and-white, in 70 mm (it really needs to be seen on the big screen) and essentially a propaganda piece on one of the few exploits of the French during WWII.(I saw the letterboxed version on French TV with everybody speaking French. The best version is of course with everybody speaking their own language.