For starters, this is one of those rare movies that would not have been as good if it had been shot in colour. B&W somehow fits the mood, the story and the setting. Yet it's not really a sad or dark story. As in many older B&W films, the lighting is magnificent with highlights and shadows and textures that simply aren't workable in colour. The performances are universally superb. The script is free of the usual clichés. And the music is great. (How could you possibly make a bad movie with the likes of Louis Armstrong, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier and Diane Carrol?) Nor, in that era (1961), did Hollywood zoom in and linger obsessively on sexual acrobatics. This is a mature, sexy film without any graphic sex. Those were the rules back then and this film is the better for them. A thoroughly enjoyable movie with a great cast that has stood the test of a half century very well indeed.

Martin Ritt made interesting dramas during his long, respected career, about spies, union workers, teachers, black-listed writers, half-breeds, farmers, boxers, landowners, and miners, but he was not very lucky with female tourists and musicians in Paris, as witness this production, one of two films he made in Europe in the early 1960s: this "Paris Blues" released in 1961, and the year before, "Five Branded Women", about Yugoslavian women being accused of having sex with Nazis during II World War. "Paris Blues" seems a bit interesting from the outset, a reflection on cultural clash, as seen through the eyes of four American characters in Paris, but it slowly becomes a variant of 1960's beach-opera "Where the Boys Are"... for adults. Paul Newman (obnoxiously demonstrating the limitations of Method acting) and Sidney Poitier (doing his usual number of the chic African-American) unconvincingly play two jazz musicians in Paris who have a two-week adventure with "high-heeled-on-cobblestone" tourists Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll. Joanne turns into a mix of Connie Francis and Yvette Mimieux, as the light-hearted, fun but serious at the core gal, with a past (including two children); while Diahann mixes Dolores Hart's activist role with Paula Prentiss' "baby-machine" goal. They have no restraint about sex with the guys as the four girls on the beach film, but they spend most of the film trying so hard to get Paul and Sidney "back home", to domesticity and the "American way of life", that they become increasingly boring characters. On the French side, Barbara Laage plays Marie, Paul's silent, older lover and owner of the café where his band plays (and she sings a tune), while Serge Reggiani enacts a cliché of a cocaine-addict gypsy for good measure. The only time I felt the film came alive is when Louis Armstrong goes to Marie's Café with his musicians, and they all play with Paul, Sidney, Serge, Moustache and the rest of the guys. But the joy comes from Duke Ellington's pre-recorded music, for all the horn players seem to be sipping Coke bottles instead of blowing saxes, trumpets or trombones. Ritt was an efficient filmmaker, but this one is nothing more than a flat dramatic comedy, without style, and with a very bad script by four writers (including black-listed Walter Bernstein), based on a novel by Harold Flender.

I'll leave the criticism/review of this film to others. I didn't really follow the plot which is rare for me; instead, I was more interested in the music.Of course watching Poitier and Newman fake their way through the music performance sections was of interest. And they did manage to fake it with some success. You can see that Martin Ritt, the director, kept those shots to a minimum, especially when Louis Armstrong was in the house playing with them. Otherwise, too long of a shot of either Newman or Poitier playing would reveal their amateur ability.Armstrong was great in the later scene when his band "comes marching in" and he challenges the soloists in Newman's band to a playoff. And that scene was truly the best, both musically and otherwise in the film. The vitality and musical charm of that scene was great.One note about the storyline and the racial aspects that carried on between the characters, especially Poitier and Carroll, is important for several reasons. As others have said here, the Civil Rights movement in the US was surging ahead, so the significance of the story in the film rings true and is important.But no one seems to have mentioned the fact that Louis Armstrong was also, if not more than any other musician in mid-20th century America, an important victim of racial bias in the US during his career. Go listen to him sing "Black and Blue" and you'll get the idea. To see him here in Paris, where race was not a factor, only reinforces the historical rejection by many in America and the acceptance by many in Europe of jazz and African-Americans during this time.The title of this film, "Paris Blues" is more than just a comment about music.

This is not merely a movie about race, jazz, drug use, love affairs, Parisian scenery, etc. It's a movie about all the aforementioned and then some. Ritt & Co. go deeper than just superficially touching on so-called hip, trendy issues. Each character portrayed has his/her own set of "blues" to contend with and no individual set of "blues" is merely confined to one sole issue, but rather a complex mixture of many factors that comprise each of our character's makeup. It is in the intertwining of each character's individual persona with the other characters' own traits and idiosyncrasies that lets the story unfold and take cohesive shape. Successes and failures are inextricably linked, as in Ram's (Newman) fame as a jazz soloist counterpointed with his rejection as a serious composer/arranger. Eddie (Poitier) also has his own set of personal conflicts that are duly explored here.Joanne Wodward, Diahann Carrol and Barbara Laage (in a more minor role, albeit soulful and penetrating) all hit their mark with humor, depth and candor. Serge Reggiani's role as the junkie guitar player adds his own set of "blues" to an already spicy mixture of music, love, rejection and pathos. "Satchmo" and company provide a most welcome musical interlude at just the right time to lighten up the plot just a bit!A timelessly entertaining film.