Innocents in Paris – 1953 | 102mins | Comedy | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Vintage episodic comedy telling the stories of seven stuffy British sightseers who have their horizons broadened after flying across the Channel to holiday in Paris. Despite the eminent cast and being filmed on location in Paris, Anatole de Grunwald‘s lacklustre script fails to elevate the film above pleasantly amusing.

The tourists comprise of British peer and diplomat Sir Norman Baker (Alastair Sim) who is in town to obtain economic plans from Russian representative Panitov (Peter Illing), primarily after a serious drinking bout. Elderly eccentric artist Gladys Inglott (Margaret Rutherford) visits the Louvre and is delighted to purchase a copy of the ‘Mona Lisa’ from a man (Rutherford’s real-life husband, Stringer Davies) who has painted 338 copies – but never sold one. Also along for the trip is British officer Captain George Stilton (Jimmy Edwards), who spends the whole weekend boozing at a Parisian bistro, and treating the regulars to an indoor cricket match. The next vignette involves impressionable Susan (Claire Bloom), who is swept off her feet by a local rake who gets more than he bargained for. Dicky Bird (Ronald Shiner) is a musician in a Marine band performing in Paris; he pub-crawls through the city’s fleshpots before picking up a girl at the Moulin Rouge. Andy MacGregor (James Copeland) is a kilted Scot whose misadventures involve wooing a Parisienne girl at the fun fair.