For one night on 28 October, 1940s Saint-Germain-des-Prés came to rue Maître-Albert, my street in the 5th arrondissement.
The crew filming Miles & Juliette, about Miles Davis and Juliette Gréco, had transformed my local bar into the legendary Tabou on rue Dauphine.
I find it almost unbelievable to think that Saint-Germain-des-Prés was such a cool, edgy place eighty years ago. Today it’s beautiful and squeaky clean, with very little that feels even mildly bohemian, let alone underground. To recreate its grungier days, the film crew had to come to the Latin Quarter, at the other end of the boulevard Saint-Germain. Not that our end has much of an edge these days either—it verges on chichi. (Place Maubert’s decidedly rougher past is another story, and another blog post.)
Going inside the bar—called Le Onze in real life—feels like stepping back in time. The walls are lined with old photographs of the 5th arrondissement, and something about the bar—the beams, the low ceiling, the tiny courtyard behind (you’ll see if you visit...) makes me imagine an even older Paris, before the French Revolution. There’s always someone interesting to talk to there, whether a neighbour, or a visitor staying at the hotel up the road. It was here that I first heard the story that timber from the scaffolding used to build Notre-Dame had been reused to build houses in our street. I don’t know if this story is true, but I love it.
On the night of the filming, I had to sneak out with the dog and back in again between shots. Curious to see what was happening around the corner, I tried getting back into my street from the other end, but was turned away. I did at least get to admire some beautiful 1940s cars parked in the next street. The pizzeria in the street had been transformed into a florist, but I wasn’t able to see it.
Here you can see the bar in real life, also the vintage cars that were lurking in the next street.
Of course, all this made me curious about Miles and Juliette, so I did a little reading. Their story will be told in the film, but if you can’t wait until then, you can read what I discovered in my article here.
This is the plaque commemorating the Tabou. On the corner of Rue Dauphine and Rue Christine in the 6th, the site now houses the Café Laurent, on the premises of the 5-star Hôtel D'Aubusson.
Photo: GANAS, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
