This new special edition contains an audio commentary by AFI trustee and film historian Jeanine Basinger, with new comments by lead actress Leslie Caron inserted into it. On Blu-ray, it\'s given a myriad of language options, from Dolby Digital and Dolby TrueHD English, to French, German, Italian, Castilan and Spanish Dolby Mono tracks. Audio on the DVD is presented in a new Dolby Digital 5.1 track that highlights the music (with Andre Previn\'s Oscar-winning adaptation), and dialogue is rather centered, and never obscured. On Blu-ray it feels a tad dark, but Paris certainly looks vibrant and clean! There are hardly any noticeable compression artifacts going on. Filmed in CinemaScope and Metrocolor, the colors are a bit oversaturated at times, with a high contrast to the overall image. The visuals pop, with film grain being present but not intrusive.
Previously released as a bare-bones DVD that sported an unimpressive transfer, the new 2-disc Special Edition (released in September 2008) and Blu-ray releases of Gigi contain an improved image, as well as sound. It\'s no surprise that they would later go on to adapt their successful My Fair Lady for the big screen, and Gigi won a whopping nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The songs by Lerner and Loewe do a great job at progressing the story and providing emotional outlets for the characters. That\'s just modern society intruding on the movie\'s experience, of course. Chevalier is entertaining as the smarmy womanizing old bachelor, although it\'s hard not to feel some slight perversion when he sings the classic "Thank Heavens for Little Girls". And yet, it\'s a wholesome family film - go figure. There is rampant sexism in the film (released in 1958, it takes place in 1900), and there are plenty of allusions to sex and the role of the courtesan in Parisian society. The mere idea that an MGM musical is based on the idea of a woman being preened for a life of high-class prostitution is, to put it mildly, a surprising premise. Gigi is a delightfully adorable film, one that isn\'t without controversy. But now Aunt Alicia and Gigi\'s grandmother try to set it up so that Gigi will be Gaston\'s courtesan - but it might just destroy their budding romance. When (after "losing" a bet) he takes Gigi and her grandmother to the seaside for a weekend, he finds that renewed interest in life. But even though he tries, he just can\'t find the spark in life that drives him. After a rather public breakup with his current flame (played by Eva Gabor), Gaston is told by his rich bachelor uncle Honore (Maurice Chevalier) to go partying. He spoils Gigi, giving her expensive caramels and lets her cheat at playing cards.
Gaston, a rich friend of the family, finds socializing with the upper crust to be rather boring, and would rather spend time with Gigi and her grandmother. Young Gigi (Leslie Caron) is being trained by her grandmother (Hermione Gingold) and great-aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans) to become a courtesan. Famed director Vincente Minnelli came on board, and soon the film version started to roll. The story then caught the eye of Hollywood, and producer Arthur Freed ( An American in Paris, Singing\' in the Rain) asked the songwriting team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe to adapt it into a musical. Adapted into a feature film in 1948, Gigi found new life in the United States when it was worked into a rather successful Broadway play starring Audrey Hepburn. In 1944, the famed French author Colette wrote a story about a rich man who discovers that he is in love with a young woman being trained as a courtesan, and marries her. (Note: Portions of this review were originally seen in our DVD-only review posted in September 2008).
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