Is Paris Burning?

Frostily received back in '66, this star-bedecked account of the Allies' liberation of Paris has scarcely improved with age. Despite the high-powered writing credit, the complicated narrative is prosaically organised, the vignettes lack pungency and the dialogue, at least in the semi-dubbed English version, is astonishingly leaden ('Issue a proclamation to the population'). Even as history it's suspect, since the famously bitter power struggle between the Gaullist resistance and its Communist counterpart is barely allowed to register. On the plus side, Grignon's photography is grainy and authentic looking, Jarre effectively counterpoints militaristic drums and cymbals with lilting French melodies; and some of the star turns are quite amusing - Kirk Douglas' wolfish rendering of General Patton, Welles as a concerned neutral, making a four course meal out of every banality he has to utter.