FAQ

After an absence of two years, Charles Wills (Van Johnson) returns to Paris and recalls his life with fun-loving wife Helen (Elizabeth Taylor) in the years following Paris' liberation after WW2.

The Last Time I Saw Paris is loosely based on a short story titled "Babylon Revisited" by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940] . It was first published in the The Saturday Evening Post on February 21, 1931. The story was adapted for the screen by American screenwriters Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Richard Brooks.

Charles' thoughts return to the present. He thanks Maurice (Kurt Kasznar) for the dinner, takes a wistful look at Helen's portrait, and leaves the café. He pays a visit to the Ellswirth home in hopes of seeing Vicki (Sandy Descher) and regaining custody of her, but Marion (Donna Reed) refuses, so Charles returns to the café in despair. Realizing that Marion is still angry with Charles for choosing Helen over her, Claude (George Dolenz) points out to Marion that she is punishing Charles for not loving her, that Vicki belongs with her father, and that he (Claude) is pained that he could never have all of Marion's love. As Charles sits in the café nursing his sorrows, he is surprised to see Marion walk in. She asks to see him outside, so he takes one last look at Helen's picture then follows Marion. Outside, he finds Claude and Vicki waiting. 'I don't think Helen would have wanted you to be alone,' Marion says. Vicki runs into Charles' arms. Charles and Claude nod to each other. In the final scene, Charles and Vicki walk down the street together, hand in hand.

Like most movie adaptations based on the written word, there are differences. Some are minor, e.g., Charlie and Helen's daughter's name is Honoria (not Vicki), Marion's husband's name is Lincoln (not Claude), and the story takes place in 1929 (not post-WW2). One big difference between short story and movie is that, in the short story, Lorraine makes a scene when she shows up drunk at Marion's house just when Charlie is trying to convince Marion to return his daughter's custody to him. That scene is not in the movie. Probably the biggest difference of all, however, is that, in Fitzgerald's story, Charlie does not get his daughter back.

While The Last Time I Saw Paris was not strictly autobiographical, it does have certain parallels between the relationships and problems of Fitzgerald, his wife Zelda, and their daughter "Scottie" and the relationships and problems of Charlie and Helen Wills and their daughter Vicki. Both Fitzgerald and Charlie led a life that consisted of highs and lows and both had problems with alcoholism. Like Helen's sister Marion, Fitzgerald's sister-in-law Rosalind Smith did not feel that he was a fit parent, although Fitzgerald never transferred custody of his daughter to Rosalind, as Charlie did with Vicki to Marion. Unlike the fictional Helen, who becomes very ill and dies after Charlie locks her outside in the snow, Zelda survived her husband by eight years, much of which she spent in a psychiatric hospital, having been diagnosed as schizophrenic many years earlier.