Cinema: Flame-Out

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Paris When It Sizzles is a multimillion dollar improvisation that does everything but what the title promises. It fakes, falters and fidgets. But mostly it just fizzles.

William Holden plays a hard-drinking hack screenwriter, given exactly 48 hours to hatch a movie script. He is assisted by Audrey Hepburn, the loveliest little stenographer a hack ever had, who reports to his Paris hotel suite with an overnight bag full of Givenchy originals. While falling in love on the job, Hepburn and Holden imagine themselves to be the hero and heroine of a movie within a movie: a master criminal steals the print of a film called The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower and holds it for ransom. Got it? Forget it. Lacking inspiration, Writer George Axelrod (The Seven Year Itch) and Director Richard Quine should have taken a hint from Holden, who writes his movie, takes a long sober look at what he has wrought, and burns it.