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Introduction
Although the Netherlands didn’t want to host again two years after their last time hosting, France was willing to do so just two years after hosting in 1959. The now defunct broadcaster RTF brought Eurovision to the same location as two years ago, the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, and brought back Jacqueline Joubert as the presenter.
Three countries made their Eurovision debuts this year: Spain, Finland, and Yugoslavia. This gave the contest a nice, even 16 countries, so it was the first Eurovision year with more entries than 1956. Spain would start a perfect attendance streak that continues to this day, beaten only by the UK who has participated every year since 1959. Luxembourg earned their first victory with a song that we now know is about a gay relationship, the UK came second with a joyful duet, and Switzerland came third with an old-timey waltz.
The intro makes it clear this show is something of a rehash of the 1959 contest: once again we get an outdoor look at the Palais with flags on top, this time sixteen of them from l’Allemagne to la Yougoslavie. And once again we have Jacqueline introducing all the contests, but this time they start off positioned on a little building on stage, then they exit the stage one by one. Jacqueline says the name of each country, then each contestant says their own name into the microphone, presumably so that the host would avoid any pronunciation mistakes. The Allisons from the UK are the only duo here; they start off on opposite sides of the stage, then they approach the microphone together. John says “The Allisons”, then the two of them say their own names.
The scoreboard design is pretty similar to 1959, except it uses a cute handwriting font this time, and there are more countries so the scoreboard is way too tall to fit in a 4:3 aspect ratio. This means I have to brace myself for lots of annoying scoreboard zoom-ins.
This contest has been archived with French, Dutch, and British commentary. I watched with British commentary last time, so this time I’ll watch with French commentary. That way, the host won’t be talked over so much. The commentator Robert Beauvais said he served as the commentator for all of French-speaking Europe—not just France, but also Luxembourg, Monaco, and the francophone parts of Belgium and Switzerland, which is unusual and seems unique to this year.
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