Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris is the latest story that I’ve both read the book and watched the movie. Keep reading to learn what I thought about Book vs Movie: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris!
The Book
By Paul Gallico
A simple story with a lot of meaning. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris has a light, uncomplicated plot filled with humor, friendship and love. It was a delight to read about Mrs. Ada Harris, an honest, hardworking charwoman (housekeeper) who transforms the lives of everyone she meets just by being herself.
Ada Harris is a widow who lives and works in London, cleaning the homes of rich city-dwellers. One day she finds in the closet of a client an utterly magnificent Christian Dior dress. The elegance! The colors! The extravagance. She simply has to have one of her own. Why would a simple charwoman need such an evening gown? She would literally have no reason to ever wear it, not to mention, it cost more money than she could ever hope to save. Nevertheless, something sparks in Mrs. Harris when seeing that dress. She becomes an obsessed woman.
The determined charwoman scrimps and saves with little show for her efforts, although her resolve never fails. Then she wins a lottery. A sign! She wins quite a lot of money, but it is still only about half of what she needs. For a day trip, the dress and flight will cost her over five hundred pounds! (This story was based in the fifties, so that’s the same as eleven and a half thousand pounds or $14,000 today.) But Mrs. Harris has made up her mind, and she never gives up. Ever so slowly but surely, she collects the rest of the money and makes her way to Paris.
Problems occur.
First of all, she finds out that one cannot just enter the business of Dior and buy a dress like one can at a department store. There’s a process, and typically one needs to be of some importance to even view the Dior collection. Well, that problem clears up because Mrs. Harris is such an endearing character that Madame Colbert, Dior employee extraordinaire, takes pity on her.
Problem two comes up as she is being fitted for her perfect gown. Mrs. Harris is told that her dress won’t be ready for a week. A week! This was supposed to be a day trip. She can’t afford a Paris hotel for a week, nor could she leave her clients for that long. That problem is resolved because her friend back home, Mrs. Butterfield, would do anything for her so, of course she will look after Mrs. Harris’ clients for the week. Then, M. Fauvel, Dior finance department, blurts out that she could stay at his house while in Paris, less for Mrs. Harris herself and more to impress the object of his affection, Natasha, who is standing next to Mrs. Harris. M. Fauvel has secretly loved Dior’s star model, Natasha for a long time, but she doesn’t even know his name. That is, until they both meet Mrs. Harris. In becoming friends with our main character, Natasha and Fauvel spend a lot of time together and they fall in love.
Mrs. Harris spend a lot of her week in Paris with Marquis de Chassagne. He was the lucky older gentleman to occupy the seat next to her at the Dior viewing. At first, he was caught off guard by her cockney accent and brashness, but during their initial conversation, he is reminded of the cleaning lady from his college many years ago, a caring woman he was very fond of. The Marquis is charmed by Mrs. Harris and takes her under his wing, so to speak. Theirs becomes a lasting friendship.
Mrs. Harris is also able to connect Madame Colbert with the Marquis, confident that he can help her family.
After such an adventure as she’d never had before, Mrs. Harris returns home with her gown and promptly looks in on one of her clients, a spoiled young actress whom Mrs. Harris was worried about. The girl is in despair! She was invited to a sophisticated, must-be-there event, but has nothing at all to wear! You guessed it, Mrs. Harris lends her the new Dior gown, knowing it needs to be worn and seen.
And the dress gets ruined. Finally, the honest charwoman’s naïveté gets her. The spoiled actress accidentally burned off one of the dress panels, then, in her shame, leaves Mrs. Harris an explanation in a note.
I’m sure it was the intent of the author to have us readers fuming at this turn of events! I wanted to both hug the main character and scold her like I would a child for touching a hot stove even after I told them not to. Mrs. Harris is far too trusting in people, and that led to the ruin of her beautiful dress, the one she had saved for years to own, the dress that made her so happy just to look at. Does our goal-driven Mrs. Harris cry in her bed for a week, worrying her friends because her goal was thwarted? (Not in the book version, she doesn’t.)
No, she picks herself up and realizes that it wasn’t the dress that was so important after all. She thinks about the people she met, the influence they had on her, and she had on them. She thinks of the beautiful sights she saw and the exciting adventure she had. She thinks about her friend, Mrs. Butterfield and her home and her work that she enjoys. She realizes that these are the things that really matter.
Mrs. Harris from the start of the book has a strong personality, though maybe, she was a little too head strong, and the ruining of the dress put her priorities in order. A beautiful dress can make you happy for a moment, but its all the rest that satisfies your soul.
The book I got from the library it also included the sequel, Mrs. Harris Goes to New York. I won’t detail that one, but it too was a light read about a spirited, compassionate, yet slightly naïve charwoman that runs into a few problems. Just like in the first story, those problems seem to resolve themselves in semi-fanciful ways due to Mrs. Harris’ genuine character and how drawn people are to her.
I loved the simple plot that had a lot of heart. The ending, though unconventional, left me with a feeling of hope.
The Movie
Starring Lesley Manville as Mrs. Harris
If I had only watched the movie, I might have really liked it. Unfortunately, I have this irresistible need to read the book first, and thus, set myself up for disappointment.
The changes they made to the plot may seem subtle, but they resulted in different, more typical for movie themes of the story. For the big screen, it makes sense. A simple plot usually doesn’t work for film, you have to add a rival and a love interest and more and more. However, in making the plot more complex, I think the story loses a lot of what made it special.
Adding a rival in Madam Avallon gives the plot intrigue and another hurdle for our main character to jump, but it also makes Mrs. Harris compromise on her dream, and it changes the deeper ending into a surface level meaning. Yes, the Dior staff shows great kindness to Mrs. Harris in sending her the other gown, and that was wonderful, though not truly generous since Mme. Avallon’s dress was just gathering dust after her husband’s downfall. When Mrs. Harris walks down the stairs in the last scene wearing her dream gown, looking so happy, making her friend, Archie, see her in a new, romantic way, our lovely story of hope was reduced to a make-over movie. Is the happiness of wearing a beautiful dress the key to life?
The movie also added a romantic interest (or two). The Marquis was very kind to Mrs. Harris from first meeting her, but encouraged by a comment from Natasha, Mrs. Harris misunderstands his intent. He is not in fact interested in a relationship with Mrs. Harris. When Mrs. Harris finds out that she reminds him of his college cleaning lady, she feels ashamed of herself, especially her class. That disagrees with the strong character from the book. The added love interest of Archie, though sweet, was unnecessary. I like a good love story as much as anyone, but not all stories need romance. I’m not saying that Mrs. Harris herself doesn’t need love, only that this love story is part of what distracts the viewer from could have been a deeper theme.
Mrs. Harris in the book was a strong woman from the beginning. She knew who she was, and though a bit innocent, was not intimidated by anyone. She was stubborn and energetic, fun and full of heart. In the movie, Mrs. Harris’ widowhood was more recent which made the character sad and quiet and even timid at the beginning. It was her trip to Paris that gave her the strength to stand up for herself, and even then, she fell to pieces when the dress was ruined.
The movie by itself was very nice. The acting was terrific, the scenes were beautiful, and even the plot was good, giving the story intrigue and romance. Those are great things to have in a movie. But the reason I loved the book was because of its simplicity. I liked that Mrs. Harris had a strong personality from the beginning and didn’t need to be made strong by her experiences (or made over by a dress). Based on the book, I think if Mrs. Harris had it all to do over again, she wouldn’t have changed a thing. She had an adventure, she bought her dream gown, and she generously lent it to someone who had a need for it. Even though the dress was burned, the book Mrs. Harris had no regrets.
In the movie, Mrs. Harris has one goal; to own a Christian Dior dress. She gets her dress and then she is happy. It gives you a smile, but it’s a superficial ending.
In the book, she only thinks that the dress is her end goal. Pursuing the dress, then losing the dress leads her to realize what is really important. This is an ending that makes you think about your own life. The book ending doesn’t just make your face smile, it makes your soul smile.
The book was better.
Read the book, watch the movie, and tell me what you think.
And as always, don’t forget to check out my book, The Footsteps of the Five: The Narratives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, available on Amazon!
Here’s a link to all my books.