Irwin Strikes Back

In the French Style. Year after year, Irwin Shaw wept bitterly in his champagne. The cinemoguls gave him heaps of dough to write movie scripts (Act of Love, The Big Gamble), but a man cannot live by bread alone. As an artist, Irwin earnestly and frequently explained to the press, he was hurt by what happened to his scripts after he turned them in. Words were changed. Sometimes whole scenes were struck out by some thick-fingered fur salesman who had never read anything more difficult than a ledger. Sizzling from Hollywood's ignominies (and loaded with Hollywood's gold), Scriptwriter Shaw last year at last devised a stratagem to baffle the barbarians. He wrote a picture and then produced it himself--at a cost of about a million. This is it and he loves it. "For the first time," he says proudly, "I have a feeling that a movie is mine."

Well, he can have it. For one thing, his script urgently requires the attention of that fur salesman. For another, it tells a story that has been told, and told more excitingly, a hundred times before: the story of the innocent young American girl who goes to wicked old Paris and soon loses her illusions and everything. Jean Seberg as usual (Breathless, Playtime) plays the American in Paris, and as usual she wins the customer's sympathy--she tries so hard.

So does Irwin, and he can really use some sympathy. If this picture does as well as it deserves to, he may soon be weeping bitterly in his beer.

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