In Paris during World War II, penniless young American painter Philip Weber (Perry King) is coerced into collaborating with the Nazi leaders and help them steal priceless French artwork to keep his room in the chic Ritz Hotel and indulge in the pleasures of the Nazi-occupied city.
But when the Nazis insist on murdering his girlfriend Lily (Cherie Lunghi, who puts her lunghis on view when she poses for Philip), he begins to use his job as an art consultant for Hermann Göering (Joss Ackland) – who has also taken up residence at the Ritz – to spy on the Germans for the French Resistance.
That is dangerous. But not too dangerous because this set of Nazis is pretty easily duped.
The fictional story features several real characters, including Göering, Joseph Goebbels (Barrie Houghton), Heinrich Himmler (David Shawyer), Coco Chanel (Leslie Caron), Man Ray (Richard Durden) and Edith Piaf (Nathalie Cerda). There also is a lot of name-dropping in the dialogue, including Charles Lindbergh, Ernest Hemingway, and numerous painters.
Most of the leading ladies (apart from Leslie Caron) hasten to spring out of their garments and reveal their bared torsos, either for the pleasure of Weber or for that well-known groper and morphine addict Reichsmarshall Göering (who at one stage says, “I love the feel of makeup on my face” and is later seen wearing a full-length black lace dress, pearls and earrings).
David McCallum plays Charlie Ritz, the hotel owner’s reclusive son, as a bumbling, spoiled rich boy who spends his time playing with toy trainsets.
King couldn’t act his way out of an almond croissant; dozens of 1940s characters in foggy Paris flounce around dressed incredibly in the fashions of the 1980s; certain sequences take place in a brothel where one of the rooms is done out like a train, complete with swaying movements and steam whistles; and the script is such a bomb that it makes a B-24 raid over Dresden look like a cap gun fight.
Concocted from a novel by AE Hotchner, The Man Who Lived at the Ritz aired over two nights on NBC in December 1988. The series aired in the UK in 19991.
Philip Weber
Perry King Coco Chanel
Leslie Caron Lily Globuska
Cherie Lunghi Charlie Ritz
David McCallum Armand Forrestieur
David Robb Madame Rochaise
Mylène Demongeot Martine Fauvet
Sophie Barjac Hermann Göring
Joss Ackland Colonel Stupelmeyer
Terry Taplin Ilse Falk
Brigitte Kahn Joseph Goebbels
Barrie Houghton Von Behr
John Grillo Edith Piaf
Nathalie Cerda Kropp
Wolf Kahler Man Ray
Richard Durden Major Ritter
Donald Douglas Louis Delor
Murray Gronwall Henri Bretonne
André Penvern Karl
Christian Erickson Fuerbach
Geoffrey Bateman Auxerre
Marc Dejonge Goebbel’s Mistress
Mijou Kovacs Heinrich Himmler
David Shawyer Lohse
Nicholas Hawtrey Major Lindt
Jasper Jacob Pierre Monet
Marc Duret Delocque
David Gabison Denise
Lynette Dundas Uncle Gerard
Billy Kearns Claire
Christiane Jean Heller
Max Douchin Mylos
Paul Maxwell Victor
Michel Motu Boemann
Franz Sauer Captain Benz
Bernard Lepinaux Roger Dodeman
Jacques Leplus
Philip Weber
Armand Forrestieur
Edith Piaf
Auxerre
Denise
