Gigot
Encyclopedia
Gigot is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 motion picture; it was released in 1962 by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

. The film starred Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason
Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...

 and was directed by Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

.

Synopsis

Gigot (Gleason) is a mute Frenchman living in a cellar in the Ménilmontant district of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in the 1920s. He ekes out a hand-to-mouth existence as a lowly janitor at his landlady's apartment building. He is routinely treated with condescension by most of his neighbors and often is made the butt of practical jokes. However, he is a most decent and kindhearted fellow, traits not unnoticed by children and the local animals he often feeds. He is accepting of his humble existence, but has one unusual prediliction: he is attracted by funeral processions, and finds himself attending, whether or not he ever knew the departed. He marches straight through to the grave site and can't help but cry along with all the other mourners.

One evening after being extraordinarily abused by some locals at a nearby pub, he is meandering toward home in the rain. He chances upon a weakened and fearful street urchin Collette (Katherine Kath) and her 6-yr old daughter Nicole (Diane Gardner), huddled in a doorway trying to stay dry. Unaware and uncaring as to whom or what he might have encountered, he takes them to his dingy basement abode where he dries and warms them, gives them what food and drink he has, a bed to sleep in, and shelter from the rain. Collette is suspicious of Gigot but so exhausted and ill, she reluctantly and ingraciously accepts what she senses are likely his innocent tidings. Nicole, now rested and with the vitality of youth, begins to warm to him while mother convalesces.

Gigot gleefully dotes upon Nicole. They happen upon a local church where Gigot is astonished to discover she is ignorant of what a church is, and completely unaware of God. Nicole points to the altar crucifix and asks Gigot who that is upon it? The mute attempts to act out the story of Christ beginning with Mary cradling the baby Jesus, from childhood through to the horror of crucifixion. In a most poignant scene, Gigot rails at this Christ who has seemingly left him so inadequate to the job of explaining all to Nicole. Nicole protests his impulsive fit of anger at the God she has just found through Gigot's hand, and his self-incriminations. She cries a single tear for him, then blows a reassuringing kiss of love to the Christ upon the Cross.

Gigot entertains the little girl by dancing for her to his old Victrola, and by dressing as a waiter to feed his pet mouse, to her exteme delight. He is very protective of Nicole, once running alongside her on a merry-go-round to make sure she didn't fall off and in the process created a public scene. It is the same protectiveness that leads him to attempt to intervene to protect Collette's honor while she is in the act of soliciting a john
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 on a park bench near the merry-go-round. Gigot is trounced by the frustrated man and a friend for his trouble.

Furious over his interference with her 'activities', Collette threatens to bolt with Nicole unless Gigot can make good on her demand he provide her a life with a 'man of means'. With only an hour to prove himself before she leaves, Gigot, on the hunt, is tempted by a singular opportunity as he happens past his local bakery. The baker and his wife (having taken advantage of him for years) have been called away and thus left their till unattended. Gigot, though guilt ridden, seizes the opportunity and steals their money anyway.

With those ill-gotten gains all three go on a shopping spree, buying much-needed new clothes for Collette and Nicole, and for Gigot a straw boater
Boater
Boater may refer to:*Boater, a type of hat*Boater, one of the first disposable diapers*Someone involved in boating...

 and a shave. Later, he buys a grand meal and drinks for all at the local restaurant to the amazement of the locals. But the good times are not to last — Collette's ex-boyfriend decides he wants her back immediately, and Collette succumbs. She wants to take Nicole along, but her pimp persuades her to wait until morning to retrieve her, so they could share a single night together, alone.

The next morning two bumbling bureaucrat
Bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can comprise the administration of any organization of any size, though the term usually connotes someone within an institution of a government or corporation...

s previously called in by one of Gigot's snooty neighbors, have come to try to remove Gigot to a home for the feeble-minded. Meanwhile, the baker has discovered the theft, and when Collette returns she finds Gigot and Nicole are now missing. Soon Gigot becomes suspect, but he and Nicole are only waxing at their secret abandoned basement chamber below the streets of Paris, listening to his old Victrola while Gigot dances for her. Dancing with so much gusto the roof timbers fall in! Gigot and Nicole are nearly buried in rubble, but are actually only slightly hurt, although Nicole is at the moment unconscious. Frightened and thinking she is dead, Gigot rushes the girl to the church where the parish priest calls in a doctor. The priest wanting to know what happened, causes Gigot to rush back to retrieve his Victrola to help explain their actions before the cave-in. Gigot runs straight into the angry mob who is looking for them. Panicked Gigot runs right into an old industrial coal barge loader and is washed into the river and overrun by a tug; he fails to resurface.

Thinking him dead, once they recognize the truth, the locals are despondent over their despicable actions. In remorse they decide to organise a funeral for Gigot though all they have from the river is his chapeau to bury. It is obvious to all (other than them) what it is they wish to bury. However having survived, Gigot is merely hiding. Unknowingly, he witnesses his own funeral procession and as usual is compelled to join it. When the time comes for the eulogy, he realizes it is he for whom they are holding the service. Upon the conclusion of the burial Gigot is spotted by the crowd and the screwball chase begins again.

Background and other information

Gleason had conceived the story himself years earlier and had long dreamed of making the film. He wanted Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 as director, and Paddy Chayefsky
Paddy Chayefsky
Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....

 as screenwriter. Though Welles was an old friend, the board at Fox rejected him as being an overspender. Gene Kelly was selected as a compromise. Chayefsky was not interested and John Patrick, writer of Teahouse of the August Moon was signed instead.

The film was shot on location in Paris. Most of the production crew and cast were French, some spoke no English. Gleason bore with this in two ways: Kelly spoke French, and Gleason's character had no lines, being mute.

Gleason was extremely proud of the film, which earned one Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Score. Gleason received a story credit and a music credit. On the other hand, according to the book, The Films of Gene Kelly, by Tony Thomas, Kelly himself said that the movie "had been so drastically cut and reedited that it had little to do with my version".

Gigot bears many similarities to the short story "Gimpel the Fool
Gimpel the Fool
"Gimpel the Fool" is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated into English by Saul Bellow in 1953. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his town's jokes. It also gives its name to the collection first published in 1957...

" written by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...

.

Reception

The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

critic Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

 did not much care for Gigot: "[Gleason's] characterization of a lonely, unspeaking vagabond, who hungers for social acceptance and the warmth of somebody's love, is modeled after Chaplin... [U]nfortunately, Mr. Gleason, for all his recognized comic skill when it comes to cutting broad and grotesque capers, as he does now and then, does not have the power of expression or the subtleties of physical attitude to convey the poignant implications of such a difficult, delicate role."

Prolific critic Leslie Halliwell
Leslie Halliwell
Robert James Leslie Halliwell was a British film encyclopaedist and television impresario who in 1965 compiled The Filmgoer's Companion, the first one-volume encyclopaedia devoted to all aspects of the cinema. He followed it a dozen years later with Halliwell's Film Guide, another monumental work...

 was not nearly so polite: "[A] grotesque piece of self-indulgence, the arch example of the clown who wanted to play Hamlet. Plotless, mawkish and wholly unfunny."

Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

magazine was perhaps more taken with the spirit of the film, calling it a "genial fable." "Gleason portrays a Parisian ragamuffin who, though trapped in a world of silence and poverty, finds great joy in just being alive." The unsigned piece observes that "Because he cannot speak, people think Gigot is a fool and constantly make cruel fun of him. But like all legendary simpletons, Gigot has a heart of 36-carat gold and when he outsmarts the smart alecks, many customers in a good many lands are going to have their happiest cry since Little Red Ridinghood...."

In its entry on Jackie Gleason, the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors said the performer had "some starring vehicles, of which Gigot, from a story by Gleason himself, was the noblest attempt. In it he played, quite nicely, a mute, slow-witted Parisian janitor, but the extreme sentimentality of the whole piece turned off both critics and public."

Miscellaneous

  • In 2004, the movie was remade for television
    Television
    Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

     as The Wool Cap
    The Wool Cap
    The Wool Cap is a 2004 American cable television movie, an updated and Americanized version of the 1962 feature film Gigot starring Jackie Gleason, who wrote the original story....

    with William H. Macy
    William H. Macy
    William Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...

    .
  • The term "gigot" means "leg of mutton" in French.
  • French actress Katherine Kath is best known in the USA for her high-stepping role as the dancer La Goulue
    La Goulue
    Louise Weber was a French can-can dancer who performed under the stage name of La Goulue...

     in John Huston's
    John Huston
    John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

     biofilm Moulin Rouge
    Moulin Rouge (1952 film)
    Moulin Rouge is a 1952 film directed by John Huston, produced by Sir John Woolf and James Woolf of Romulus Films and released by United Artists. The film is set in Paris in the late 19th century, following artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in the city's bohemian sub-culture in and around the...

    (1952). She also appeared in an episode of the TV series The Prisoner
    The Prisoner
    The Prisoner is a 17-episode British television series first broadcast in the UK from 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968. Starring and co-created by Patrick McGoohan, it combined spy fiction with elements of science fiction, allegory and psychological drama.The series follows a British former...

    ("A.B. and C."), in which she played Madame Engadine.
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