Paris When It Sizzles

Paris When It Sizzles is a 1964 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Quine from a screenplay by George Axelrod, based on the 1952 French film Holiday for Henrietta by Julien Duvivier and Henri Jeanson. The film stars William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, with Grégoire Aslan, Raymond Bussières, Noël Coward, and Tony Curtis. The film's title derives from the Cole Porter song "I Love Paris": I love Paris in the springtime I love Paris in the fall I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles Plot Alexander Meyerheim hires veteran playboy screenwriter Richard Benson to write a screenplay. Overly immersed in his playboy lifestyle, Benson procrastinates writing the script until two days before the due date. Gabrielle Simpson, a temp secretary Benson hired to type the script, arrives at Richard's hotel room, only to discover that little has been written. Richard tells her that Alexander will be in Paris by Sunday morning, in two days' time, and that they have that long to write a 138-page script. Richard and Gabrielle then begin to weave a script together, and Richard is awakened and inspired by the beautiful Gabrielle. They imagine various scenarios for his screenplay, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, which is based on their unfolding romance as Gabrielle goes back and forth between thinking Richard is a good man and her budding attraction to him, and her hesitancy when considering he described himself as a "liar and a thief" for taking Meyerheim's money and not delivering the script earlier. The screenplay, with small but inspired and comedic roles for Noël Coward, Tony Curtis, and other famous stars of the era, spoofs the movie industry, actors, studio heads, and itself, and is rife with allusions to the earlier film roles of Hepburn and Holden.