The film was cut by a female editor, Nathalie Petit-Roux, as well as having era-appropriate costumes designed by Marie-Louise Bataille. Based on Colette’s novella concerning a teenage girl being prepped by her family for a life as a courtesan in turn-of-the-century Paris, Gaby Morlay played Tante Alicia (later played by Isabel Jeans in the 1958 film), Jean Tissier played Honoré (later Maurice Chevalier), Yvonne de Bray played Mamita (later Hermione Gingold) and Frank Villard played Gaston (later Louis Jourdan).

Gigi (1949) – Nine years before the MGM musical version, Audry directed a non-musical film of the same story which is a simple and quaint comedy starring Danièle Delorme in the title role. Of her fifteen films, only Gigi (her best-remembered film), Minne (1950, another Colette adaptation), Olivia (1951) and Mitsou (1956, Colette again) received American theatrical releases, but Audry certainly made a mark for herself in France, serving as a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963. Audry’s directorial career ended in the late 1960s and she died as the result of a car accident in 1977 at age 68. Audry made her directorial debut in 1946 with Les malheurs du Sophie, a dramedy starring Madeleine Rousset, who worked with Audry again in the role of Liane d’Exelmans in Gigi (1949).

Audry began as a script girl on the Max Ophüls-directed film Yoshiwara (1937), soon graduating to assistant director for a number of films made in the late 1930s and early 40s including Le roman de Werther (1938, another Max Ophüls film) and Girls in Distress (1939, Georg Wilhelm Pabst). Jacqueline Audry (1908-1977) has been described as the first woman director to achieve success at the box office in post-WWII France.

Gigi movie 1949