Springtime in Paris - Paris Blues

This post is part of the Springtime in Paris event that Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from Boondock Ramblings have on their blogs this spring.
Today's movie is "Paris Blues".

Artists of all kinds have always been drawn by the charms of Paris, painters, photographers, composers, musicians, and there is more than one movie about Americans in Paris (for example "An American in Paris", what a surprise).

"Paris Blues" is about two of them, Ram and Eddie, both of jazz musicians.
Ram is white and aspires to be a serious musician, Eddie is black and came to Paris because to escape racism at home (as in fact many black artists did).
At the train station, Ram meets two tourists, Connie who is black and her friend Lillian who is white. Ram is attracted to Connie and invites her to see him perform at the club. She's not interested, but Lillian convinces her to go. When they leave the club, Ram tries to flirt with Connie again and gets angry when she rejects him.
In the end, Connie leaves with Eddie and Ram ends up in bed with Lillian.

The relationships develop over the next few days.
Both of the women want the men to come back to the USA with them. Lillian, who has two children, wants Ram to commit to their relationship, Connie is convinced you can only change things at home and therefore tries to persuade Eddie to go back. Ram, however, puts his music first and Eddie is glad he experiences less discrimination and racism in Paris.
Thereupon, the women decide to head back home early.
After meeting with a record producer and having one of his compositions rejected, Ram is ready to go with Lillian.
Eddie can't bear the thought of losing Connie and agrees on following once he has settled his affairs in Paris.
When they meet at the train station, though, Ram tells Lillian he has changed his mind and will be staying in Paris because he can't give up on his dream of a more respected career as a musician. Lillian tells him he will never forget her and gets on the train, heart-broken.

The film doesn't show the romantic Paris for tourists. I couldn't imagine it in color. Actually Connie and Lillian don't even get the chance for sightseeing.
You get to see the Paris of the artists in pictures that are beautiful without being sugarcoated, the clubs, the bird market, the drugs, the good moments and the disappointments, the music and the mood, and the movie is easy enough to watch, but to me it was like a babbling brook. I can't help that image, that's what it felt like throughout the movie.
Connie and Eddie talk about racism and how she wants to fight it at its source and he wants to escape it, but it didn't sound as passionate to me as it could have been.
The same goes for Lillian and Ram, I didn't feel any big passion and therefore didn't feel very sympathetic towards both of them, Ram not getting his big chance with the producer and Lillian not getting the relationship she wanted.
Maybe I struggled understanding big decisions like that being made within 12 days?

There are only two scenes that really stood out for me and both of them didn't have to do with the couples.
One was when Louis Armstrong as Wild Man Moore comes into the club and starts a spontaneous jam session which is wonderful. Actually I loved the whole score by Duke Ellington, period.
The other one was when Ram got into a fight with his guitarist over his drug addiction. I really felt that one, but that wasn't what the movie was mainly about, right?

It has been said that the film missed the chance on making a real impact by not mixing the couples up. Poitier talked about the studio getting cold feet after - so the rumor goes - the original idea had been interracial relationships.
It would definitely have made it more interesting and given the opportunity for deeper conversations and conflict.

Now I'm not saying that "Paris Blue" is bad, I still enjoyed watching it, but I think it could have been better.
Poitier regarded it as a step in the right direction and maybe we should just take it as that.