Gigi, You Are Absurd,... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Maurice Chevalier

All of the men listed are members of the cast, but Chevalier is the one who played Honore. At the time this movie was made, Chevalier was already seventy years old. He was born in France in 1888, and began acting in short silent French films after having started out as a circus acrobat at the age of 12. Chevalier was a soldier during WWI, and was briefly a POW of the Germans during that war. He began appearing in musical films in France after returning from combat. He and his wife moved to the US in 1920s, and Chevalier began acting in US films in 1929, at the outset of the talkies. His experience in musicals and his charming French accent helped him have a long acting career that extended to the late sixties. Chevalier died on New Year's Day, 1972, at the age of 83.

Louis Jourdan co-stars with Leslie Caron in "Gigi", and plays Gaston, Honore's nephew.

Jacques Bergerac plays the skating instructor, Sandomir.

John Abbott plays Manuel.

When my father used to sing "Thank Heaven" to my three sisters and me, instead of singing Chevalier's correct lyrics, "Thank heaven for little girls, for little girls get bigger every day...", our father would affectionately sing "for little girls get louder every day". I think we must have created quite a din a lot of the time.

Answer: False

Leslie Caron played Gigi during the whole movie. It is amazing how well the filmmakers did in getting Leslie Caron to look so young in the first part of the film. Pig tails, children's fashions and her own pixie-like face helped this deception succeed. Amazingly enough, Caron was really 27.

Early in the movie, to demonstrate that Gigi is a young girl with no curiosity about love, she sings "I Don't Understand the Parisians". My sisters and I would often mis-sing a line in the song as "making love every minute of the day". The true lyrics are, "I don't understand the Parisians, making love every time they get a chance. I don't understand the Parisians, wasting every lovely night on romance."

The right line actually rhymes and would be much less exhausting than the version my sisters and I came up with!

Answer: tonight!

Though in today's world, it seems strange for a young teenager to be drinking champagne like Gigi did in this scene, at the time the movie was made, it was not unusual for French youth to drink alcohol in their homes in the presence of adult relatives. Also, Gigi was being trained to be a courtesan, and her education necessarily involved learning how to drink responsibly and keep her wits about her.

For once, my sisters and I got the words right to a song we sang along with in this movie! And we loved singing those "woos"!

Answer: Hermione Gingold

The actresses listed are all wonderful character actresses, but only Hermione Gingold is British. The other three were born in the US. Agnes Morehead is best remembered as the mother, Endora, on TV's "Bewitched". Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz". Ethel Barrymore was in many movies and theatrical productions, and was part of the Barrymore family. My favorite picture of hers was "The Spiral Staircase". Drew Barrymore is Ethel's grand niece.

Hermione Gingold started her career in England as a child actress. Her distinctive gravelly voice made her more of a character actress than a leading lady, and that probably helped her to have the long and varied career she enjoyed, including "Gigi", until her death in 1987 at 89 years of age.

My sisters and I always thought Gingold's first name was "Hermiome" (with an "m" at the end instead of an "n"), and we only learned how to spell and pronounce her name correctly after the "Harry Potter" books came out with another famous "Hermione" (Granger)!

Answer: False

Chevallier's character actually remembers almost nothing right, but Hermione Gingold's Madame Alvarez is very sweet in the way she corrects him. My sisters and I would sing this back and forth to each other along with the movie, two of us taking the male part and two taking the female. It is a touching song about how each person's recollection of a shared experience can be very different, especially when many years have passed.

At each mistake that Honore makes and Alvarez corrects, he ends by saying, "Ah, yes, I remember it well." By the end, he sounds very uncertain. Finally, Hermione Gingold's character assures him that he is not getting old (which he is) with the following words, that end the song:

H: That brilliant sky.
M: We had some rain.
H: Those Russian songs.
M: From sunny Spain?
H: You wore a gown of gold.
M: I was all in blue.
H: Am I getting old?
M: Oh, no, not you.

M: How strong you were,
M: How young and gay,
M: A prince of love,
M: In every way!
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well!"

Answer: She is Not Thinking of Me

Gaston does sing all of the songs mentioned, but the only one that expresses his dissatisfaction with his lover's inattentiveness is "She is Not Thinking of Me!". It details all of the ways that Gaston realizes that his lover must be interested in someone other than him. The last verse is the culmination of his analysis and ends with a flourish:

"She is not thinking of me!
Someone has set her on fire.
Is is Jacques?
Is it Paul or Leon?
Who's turning her furnace up higher?
Oh she's hot but it's not
For Gaston!

Oh, she's gay tonight!
Oh, so gay tonight!
A gigantic romantic cliche tonight!
How she blushes!
How she gushes!
How she fills me with ennui!
She's so ooh-la-la-la-la,
So untrue-la-la-la-la!
Oh, she's not thinking of me!"

My sisters and I loved to sing the last three lines, because of all the "la-la-la-las". Interestingly enough, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner confessed that that line "She's so ooh-la-la-la, so untrue-la-la-la" took him the longest to write of any in his career!

Answer: It's a Bore!

The only title that is really one from the movie is "It's a Bore!" For men who spent so much of their time chasing women, lavishing them with gifts, and trying to be seen with the most beautiful of women, Gaston and Honore certainly didn't seem to be bored with love at all!

My sisters and I loved to sing the title line "It's a Bore" (which appears in the song over ten times). It's a tribute to the script and songwriters that they were able to treat such a sophisticated adult theme with such wit and fun that it was enjoyable to those of all ages, even children who really didn't understand all the implications of the lyrics they were having so much fun with.

H: Just imagine her chagrin when she sees you wander in, and you find her with that slippery senor. What a moment supreme when she totters with a scream!
G: What will she do?
H: Scream.
G: What did yours do?
H: Scream!
G: What do they all do?
H: Scream!
G: It's a bore!
H: But think of the bliss of the pleasure you would miss, when she topples in a heap and you leave her there to weep on the floor...
G: It's a bore!
H: You must catch her if you can!
V: For the dignity of man!
H: Take advantage of the chance!
V: You owe it, sir, to France!
H & V: This is war!
G: All right! But it's a bore!

Answer: Gigi

The transition from friend of the family to potential lover was a difficult one for the filmmakers to achieve without scandalizing the audience, especially since Jourdan was playing a 35 year-old, and Gigi's character was still in her teens. They did it extremely well. Gaston and Gigi had known each other since Gigi was a baby, and they had talked about everything under the sun.

Interestingly enough, despite her training, Gigi never minced words with Gaston. She had been taught to cater to and acquiesce to a man's every whim, to build up his ego and never make him feel threatened or bored. With Gaston, Gigi would laugh, ridicule him, and argue with him, honestly. This ends up being what Gaston most loves about Gigi.

The song "Gigi" expresses Gaston's realization that he has seen her slowly become the perfect woman for him, right under his nose. It is a tribute to Louis Jourdan's talents that he is able to make the emotional transition of this song and Gaston's relationship to Gigi so realistically.

Answer: I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore

Honore, played by the inimitable Maurice Chevalier, sings this song, in which he admits that he is no longer a young man, but feels fortunate about that. Honore sees his nephew, Gaston, suffering terribly over his trials and tribulations in love. Now that Honore is no longer a young man, he realizes that he no longer has to deal with all that drama.

"Poor boy! Poor boy!
Down-hearted and depressed and in a spin
Poor boy! Poor boy!
Oh, youth can really do a fellow in!

How lovely to sit here in the shade
With none of the woes of man and maid
I'm glad I'm not young anymore."

The other songs listed are all numbers that Chevalier also sang, either as solos or with others in the cast, in the role of Honore in "Gigi".

Answer: Gigi

Towards the end of the film, Gigi's relationship with Gaston changes. He invites her to accompany him out in society as his female companion, thereby initiating her to the life of a Parisian courtesan. Gigi has been brought up for this moment, and in some ways, it could be easiest to enter this role with someone she knows as well as Gaston. But Gigi is terrified!

"Say a prayer for me tonight
I'll need every prayer that you can spare
To get me by.

Say a prayer and while you're praying
Keep on saying
She's much too young to die.

On to your Waterloo, whispers my heart
Pray I'll be Wellington, not Bonaparte.

Oh, say a prayer for me this evening
Bow your head and please
Stay on your knees tonight."

In the end, Gigi decides not to fulfill her role as courtesan. She wants it all or nothing at all with Gaston. The movie ends happily with the pair deciding to try a more lasting kind of love.

My sisters and I loved Leslie Caron in this role. Perhaps the craziest change-up that we sometimes did with the lyrics of the songs was in "The Night They Invented Champagne". Instead of, "Gigi, you are absurd, no not another word!" as her grandmother sang to her, we would sometimes sing, "Gigi, you are absurd, now stop that you naughty bird."