Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Absolutely amazing

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited," is a clean, clearly written indictment of the disaffection promulgated by sudden, unearned wealth upon morally "uncompassed," ex-patriot Americans, an immature group fled to the decadence of between-the-wars Paris. One of the best examples of post-WWI Modernism, the story that provides the basis for the film is "thinned" into a screenplay designed to promote the two-dimensional stars, and in the process, the magic and depth of Fitzgerald is diluted into a mishmash of shallow characterizations wandering about upon a Technicolor screen. "Babylon" (and its author) deserved a far, far better script and a more reasonable treatment. . . . And the literature merited actors whose dramatic abilities outweigh their makeup.

Reason # 1 - Lousy casting. "The Last Time I Saw Paris" is an expansion of F Scott Fitzgerald's elegiac short story "Babylon Revisited," a lightly fictionalized depiction of the aftermath of Fitzgerald's marriage to Zelda. If MGM stretching a melancholy, intimate portrait of a flawed man into a feature-length romantic extravaganza was a bad idea, casting Van Johnson as the Fitzgerald character was a worse one. Charles Wills, the Fitzgerald stand-in, is a journalist who marries a beautiful but impulsive debutante in Paris right after World War II, lapses into drunken self-loathing after writing a few failed novels, and wastes his wife's inheritance on the way to becoming a puffy, alcoholic playboy. Johnson is certainly believable as a spineless gigolo, but he's too light in his loafers to play an angry husband and too light in the head to play a brilliant, tortured artist. Plus, he was in his late thirties by the time all this celluloid was wasted, so his celebrated boyish good looks were turning flabby. Thus, there's no reason Charles would attract two hot prospects like Liz Taylor and Donna Reed, the expatriate sisters who fight for the pudgy pretty boy's love in post- WWII Paris. Liz wins, of course, and while she's not bad as Wills' erratic wife Helen, she didn't have the acting chops to connect her character's wild, fountain-swimming side and hurt, vulnerable, wronged- wife side. At least she's having a lot more fun than poor Donna Reed, another beautiful actress hagged up to make Liz Taylor even prettier (I don't think Shelley Winters ever forgave George Stevens for frowzing her up in "A Place in the Sun"). The normally effervescent Miss Reed is asked to play Helen's repressed, embittered sister, and just in case she didn't get the hint that her character was emotionally distant, the studio decided to style and costume her like a constipated schoolmarm. Why MGM would waste an Oscar-winning knockout like Reed on such a drab, thankless role indicates some discombobulated priorities. Veteran actor Walter Pidgeon, as Liz and Donna's penniless bon vivant father, manages to project the necessary seedy charm, but since that's all he has to do, his near-constant presence makes him a well-manicured bore. Compounding the absurdity is Zsa Zsa Gabor, who by 1954 already looked like she'd just emerged from her seventh face-lift, wandering on screen as a wealthy socialite who has a tryst with Charles (why not just cast a drag queen - - it's Van Johnson, after all!). Van and Liz also manage to conceive a daughter, the most saccharine movie child this side of a Disney flick. The whole thing is a mess.Reason # 2 - Profligacy. Thousands of extras wander across the MGM soundstages intended to replicate post-WWII Paris. What could have been a sad, intimate portrait of two flawed people in love becomes an overlong Technicolor extravaganza of crowd scenes, party scenes, racetrack scenes, and one Monte Carlo Grand Prix auto race just to impede character development. At one point, the MGM costume department puts Johnson in a harlequin costume. The point?

If you've been reading my reviews under my username for the last several weeks, you probably know that I've been commenting on various previous films of the cast of the original "Dallas" in chronological order during that time. So it is here that I finally watched this long-in-public-domain M-G-M feature that starred Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor with Donna Reed-the second Miss Ellie on that soap-among the supporting cast. In another coincidence that I appreciated while watching, there was a scene where the father of Donna and Elizabeth mentioned investing in some oil wells from Texas that turned out to be useless but later on became the opposite. And it was Ms. Reed's character who made the "useless" statement! Otherwise, I liked this drama about Johnson and Ms. Taylor's romance and later marriage that threatened to fall into the rocks when they both take possible paramours in Eva Gabor and Roger Moore, respectively. As for Ms. Reed, she doesn't seem much use as Ms. Taylor's sister until her climatic scene with Van Johnson near the end concerning his daughter. Sure, there may not be such a good reason for the ending to occur considering the way certain characters behaved but if one is willing to believe in Second Chances, then this one surely deserved them! So, yeah, that's a recommendation of The Last Time I Saw Paris.

It's an update of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" for writer Van Johnson (as Charles Wills), recalling his whirlwind post-World War II encounter with beautiful and curvaceous sisters Elizabeth Taylor and Donna Reed (as Helen and Marion Ellswirth), in Paris. When beautiful Ms. Taylor secures Mr. Johnson's hand in marriage, beautiful Ms. Reed weds George Dolenz (as Claude Matine). This is one of Mr. Dolenz' higher profile roles; he was the father of "The Monkees" drummer Micky Dolenz.Veteran Walter Pidgeon (as James Ellswirth) gives some worthless Texas oil wells to Johnson, as a wedding gift; then, when the oil unexpectedly starts to flow, life changes for everyone. Multi-married Hungarian beauty Eva Gabor (later of "Green Acres") distracts Johnson from Taylor, and handsome young Roger Moore (later "James Bond") distracts Taylor from Johnson. Everyone is easily distracted. Alcohol dully plays a role in the story, especially, but unconvincingly, affecting star Johnson.**** The Last Time I Saw Paris (11/18/54) Richard Brooks ~ Van Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor, Donna Reed, Walter Pidgeon