The film starred Elizabeth Taylor and Van Johnson in his last role for MGM, with Walter Pidgeon, Donna Reed, Eva Gabor, Kurt Kasznar, George Dolenz, Sandy Descher, Odette, and Roger Moore in his Hollywood debut.

As World War II ends in Europe, Stars and Stripes journalist Charles Wills (Van Johnson) is on the streets of Paris, covering the celebrations.

Charles follows the crowd to Café Dhingo and meets another pretty woman named Marion Ellswirth (Donna Reed).

Their father, James Ellswirth (Walter Pidgeon), had survived World War I and promptly joined the Lost Generation.

They also each start to pursue other interests: Helen flirts with handsome tennis player Paul Lane (Roger Moore), and Charles competes in a local Monte Carlo-to-Paris race.

A few years later, having straightened himself out, published a book, and stopped drinking excessively, Charles returns to Paris to persuade Marion to give Vickie back to him.

Where Fitzgerald did it in a few words—in a few subtle phrases that evoked a reckless era of golden dissipation toward the end of the Twenties' boom—Richard Brooks, who directed this picture after polishing up an Epstein-brothers' script, has done it in a nigh two-hour assembly of bistro balderdash and lush, romantic scenes.At the time of the film's release, Variety called it an "engrossing romantic drama.

Mr. Johnson as the husband is too bumptious when happy and too dreary when drunk; Miss Taylor as the wife is delectable, but she is also occasionally quite dull.

Mr. Pidgeon is elaborately devilish, Sandra Descher as the child is over-cute, Donna Reed as the bitter sister is vapid and several others are in the same vein.

"[4] In 2011, The Time Out Film Guide said "Despite a very corny script from Julius and Philip Epstein, which borrows clichés from Casablanca and countless An American in Paris yarns, this remains an enjoyable, if heavy-handed, melodrama...Pidgeon steals the show as ... a penniless chancer who still manages to live the good life.