1961’s Paris Blues tells the story of four Americans in Paris.

Ram (Paul Newman) and Eddie (Sidney Poitier) are expatriate jazz musicians.  Ram has come to Paris to try to find success as a musician.  He’s a little cocky.  He’s a little arrogant.  However, he’s talented and he believes enough in his talent that he takes it a little bit personally when he’s told that he should just focus on being a composer instead.  Eddie is Ram’s best friend and someone who has no interest in ever returning to America.  In America, he’s judged by the color of his skin.  In Paris, no one cares that he’s black.  In Paris, they just care about his talent.

Lillian (Joanne Woodward) and Connie (Diahann Carroll) are best friends who are spending two weeks in Paris.  They love jazz and eventually, Lillian comes to love Ram while Connie comes to love Eddie.  Connie tries to convince Eddie to marry her and come back to America with her but Eddie tells her that “the struggle” in America is not “my struggle.”  Ram also finds himself torn over whether he should stay in Paris or return to America with Lillian.  In the end, one man leaves and one man stays.  It’s not really much of a surprise who does what.

Paris Blues was directed by Martin Ritt, a director who had been blacklisted during the 50s and whose career was revived by several films that he made with Paul Newman.  (Newman and Joanne Woodward first met on the set of Ritt’s The Long Hot Summer.)  Ritt was one of those reliably liberal directors who made message films that dealt with political issues but were never quite radical.  Paris Blues features a lot of talk about the civil rights movement and it makes an attempt to be honest about why two Americans would chose to live in a different country.  And yet, as was so often the case with Martin Ritt’s films, the film presents itself as being far more daring than it actually is.  Yes, Ram initially hits on Connie but he loses interest once he sees Lillian.  Though the film is based on a novel that featured an interracial relationship, there’s never really any doubt that, in the film, Ram is going to end up with Lillian and Eddie is going to end up with Connie.  And while the film makes it clear that Ram and Lillian sleep together within hours of first meeting each other, the relationship between Connie and Eddie is romantic but chaste.  Paris Blues may be a mature film for 1961 but it’s still definitely a film of 1961.

That said, the music’s great (Louis Armstrong shows up to jam with Ram and Eddie) and Newman and Woodward’s chemistry is off the charts.  Ram is like a lot of the characters that Paul Newman played in the 50s and 60s.  He can be self-centered and he can be petulant and he can be self-destructive.  But he’s never less than honest and the fact that he refuses to compromise or give into self-doubt makes him very appealing.  While Poitier struggles with a script that refuses to allow him too much personality (he’s affably pleasant, even when he’s explaining why he doesn’t want to live in America), Newman dominates the film in the role of an artist determined to share his vision.

Paris Blues is never the masterpiece that it tries to be but Paul Newman makes it more than worth watching.