--- title: Behind the Picture: Children at a Puppet Show, Paris, 1963 description: LIFE celebrates Paris in the spring through Alfred Eisenstaedt's famous puppet-show picture -- and other pictures from the City of Light. canonical: https://time.com/3879428/children-at-a-puppet-show-paris-1963/ author: Liz Ronk article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-20T16:51:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:45.183Z og:title: Behind the Picture: Children at a Puppet Show, Paris, 1963 og:description: LIFE celebrates Paris in the spring through Alfred Eisenstaedt's famous puppet-show picture -- and other pictures from the City of Light. og:url: https://time.com/3879428/children-at-a-puppet-show-paris-1963/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt68ece59e0cf2196b/698849ad3c163926654572b9/01_00760343.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Paris 1963 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Behind the Picture: Children at a Puppet Show, Paris, 1963 twitter:description: LIFE celebrates Paris in the spring through Alfred Eisenstaedt's famous puppet-show picture -- and other pictures from the City of Light. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt68ece59e0cf2196b/698849ad3c163926654572b9/01_00760343.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # LIFE Behind the Picture: Children at a Puppet Show, Paris, 1963 > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Mar 20, 2014 4:51 PM UTC  Children watch the story of "Saint George and the Dragon" at an outdoor puppet theater in Paris, 1963. Children watch the story of "Saint George and the Dragon" at an outdoor puppet theater in Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Mar 20, 2014 4:51 PM UTC Forget the fabled rudeness of the Parisians. Forget the crowds of tourists who flock to the [City of Light](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris) in the summer, making the city’s winding streets, echoing stone churches and public gardens all but unbearable. Forget that everything, _everything_, is more expensive in Paris than it has any right to be. Forget that entire neighborhoods sometimes smell, suddenly and inexplicably, of rotting garbage — and then, as suddenly and as inexplicably, the stench vanishes. Forget that everybody smokes, everywhere, at all times, no matter what. Forget all of the worst aspects of the French capital and its denizens, and instead dwell for a moment on the Paris of everyone’s dreams. Picture the book stalls, the fishermen and the artists with their easels along the Seine. Picture lovers walking the winding streets, drunk on one other, oblivious to everyone and everything but each other. Picture [Sacré Cœur](http://www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.com/english/) and Montmartre, the flower peddlers and the Champs-Elysees, the mansard roofs and the zinc bars, Sainte-Chapelle and the Marais. Picture the Paris, in other words, that inspired Hemingway to remark (according to his friend, the writer and raconteur A.E. Hotchner), “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” Of all the pictures made of _that_ Paris — the Paris of the last century, when the city was still largely depicted in beautiful black and white — perhaps none is more famous than Alfred Eisenstaedt’s unforgettable shot of kids at a Parisian puppet show, “Saint George and the Dragon,” at an outdoor theater in 1963\. Capturing the thrill, the shock, the shared triumph-over-evil that the children feel at the very moment when St. George slays the mythical beast, Eisenstaedt’s picture feels as fresh as when it was made, more than 50 years ago. Here, the picture tells us, is an innocence that can remind even the most jaded of what it was once like to believe, to _really believe_, in the stories that unfold before our eyes onstage, or onscreen. The master photographer himself, meanwhile, said of this very picture: “It took a long time to get the angle I liked. But the best picture is the one I took at the climax of the action. It carries all the excitement of the children screaming, ‘The dragon is slain!’ Very often this sort of thing is only a momentary vision. My brain does not register, only my eyes and finger react. _Click_.” Here, as a new season finally begins to take hold after a brutally long, dismal winter, LIFE.com celebrates Paris in the spring through the lens of Eisenstaedt’s puppet-show picture — as well as a number of photographs of Parisians and their city that he made around the same time, but that never ran in LIFE magazine.  Children watch the story of "Saint George and the Dragon" at an outdoor puppet theater in Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisians at a sidewalk cafe, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Woman sitting with her pet cheetah having tea at a Bois de Boulogne cafe, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  People enjoying an afternoon on the banks of the Seine River, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Typical Parisian rooftop scene, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisians enjoying an amusement park ride, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Low angle of the Eiffel Tower, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Young Parisians enjoy an impromptu outdoor concert on the banks of the Seine, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisian beatniks hang out on bank of the Seine, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Paris street scene, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisian girl dressed for her first communion accompanied by family members, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  French children playing on toy horse and buggy vehicles, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Little boy on merry-go-round at the Tuileries Gardens, sticking out his tongue, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Children at play, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisian children riding merry-go-round in a playground, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisians, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisians play boule, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Young Parisian woman exhaling smoke, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Street performer drawing a crowd, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Parisian vendor, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Man smoking cigar while examining stamps at stamp market on Avenue Matignon, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Street artists at work, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Montmartre sidewalk artist and monkey entertaining tourists in the Place du Terte near Sacre Coeur, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Woman taxi driver sharing front seat with pet dog, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Children, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Children duelists on the Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Elderly woman walking along street while bride and groom walk behind, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Paris street scene, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Little girl, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Children, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Amphibious car crossing the Seine, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  The Louvre, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Ballerinas at the Paris Opera, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Young Parisian woman at a discotheque, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Young Parisians dancing at a discotheque, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Couple embracing at Golfe Drouot dance hall, Paris, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Woman under streetlight in Montmartre at night, 1963. Alfred Eisenstaedt—TIme & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Cat in the street, Paris, 1963. 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