Can-Can
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Movie Reviews of Can-Can
Movie Review: "I love Paris every moment, every moment of the year."
Summary: 4 Stars
CAN-CAN is a well-realized picture but to me it falls just a leeedle short of a 5 rating. I'd give it four-and-a-half if I could.
STRENGTHS: Beautiful color, which manages to be flamboyant and engaging both. Intriguing fantasy sequence (presented as the music-hall's take on Adam and Eve), some terrific ballet dances from Juliet Prowse and Shirley McLaine; in fact all the dancers were great. The colorful can-can scenes are an important part of the film and use widescreen to great effect. Wonderful Cole Porter songs, most of them previously written but a delight nonetheless.
WEAKNESSES: A little long -- it was shown in theaters as a "road show" including Overture, Intermission and leaving-the-theater music, all of which made it to the DVD. The Todd-AO widescreen process (ratio 2.2:1) shows a bit of distortion around the edge and the DVD-makers had to "cheat" on the letterbox a little in the Adam-and-Eve ballet scene or else the title characters would be way too small on the home screen. Movie is a little stage-bound and "set-bound" and apparently lacks location shots from Paris, not even the second-unit types.
If your reaction to this film is at all positive, if you enjoyed it at all, I would recommend you rent/buy 1958's Academy Award winner GIGI, which was made a year prior to CAN-CAN. Similar setting in "la belle epoque," with two of the principals in very similar mentor/protegee roles (Maurice Chevalier plays man-about-town Honore Lachaille and Louis Jordan his blase nephew Gaston). GIGI was an expensive picture to make but it shows; unlike CAN-CAN, most of the exterior shots were done in Paris. This meant more risk-taking, especially in night shots, but it paid off; hard to argue with Oscar!
Movie Review: This is the film that Khruschchev considered "decadent"!
Summary: 4 Stars
When then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the U.S. in 1959, he made a storied visit to Hollywood where he almost started a minor international incident when he wanted to visit Disneyland but was waved off for security reasons. He was also invited to visit the set of "Can-Can", then in filming, and he and his delegation were seated to view one of the movie's big set pieces with the can-can dancers. He reacted _exactly_ like the bluenoses in the movie. :) According to him, Shirley MacLaine and her can-can girls were a perfect example of Western decadence. One only wonders what he would have made of "Girls Gone Wild".
Be that as it may, this is a movie I've been waiting a very long time to see - I've never been able to find it on VHS. I'm not an especial fan of Shirley MacLaine, to be candid (which is why I give this movie "only" 4 stars), but that wariness really applies more to her New Age kookiness in the 1980's and later; in the 1950's, she was a young, sprightly, cute, sexy redhead with great legs. She's not half bad in the role of the cabaret owner who fights two comic battles; to save the can-can and to get the skittish Frank Sinatra to put a ring on her finger. Sinatra, Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier, the movie's three male leads, are also very good, and the film is full of gorgeous set-pieces, including (of course!) several can-can sequences full of whirling petticoats and royal flashes.
Not quite as good as Jean Renoir's immortal "French Can-Can", but great fare for a weekend evening!
Movie Review: Sinatra And MacClaine Seasoned by Chevalier - French Cooking At It's Most Manifique!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
An apt release in the year when Putin has subtlely began the Russian Sabre Rattling of old again. The movie lacks a plausible plot but the memories it evokes for the post-war baby boomers is anything but plotless. Like a Latrec painting it gaudily delights in it's own excesses and joys, both visual and visceral that it projects upon its audience Ah, the news stories from the set. Sinatra's temper tantrums. Shirley's peacemaking. Chevalier's Gaelic charm smoothing everthing over, and that was behind the scenes!!! Culminating in the famous visit by Nikita Krushchev, the then reigning Russian leader who uses the occasion to point out the moral decline in western civilization. This movie was the flagship that sailed America into the perilous waters of the swinging sixties. And as if we haven't seen enough reminders lately that celebrity has gone full circle with the woes of Paris Hilton. One of her relatives by marriage is Zsa Zsa Gabor, also mostly famous for being famous, and she has one of her few legitimate roles in this film! Cole Porter's tunes. The color. The Dancing. It all shines in your eye like a penny on the pavement. Bend over, pick it up. You might get lucky!Movie Review: Shirley for ever
Summary: 4 Stars
Shirley MacLaine est la star de cette comédie musicale bien filmée et bien rythmée, son rire est communicatif et son jeu de jambes impressionnant. C'est toujours un plaisir de revoir la fameuse scène où l'ivresse la rend particulièrement agressive et vulnérable. Non pas un chef d'oeuvre, mais un petit bijou magnifiquement restauré.
Very commendable, of course.
Movie Review: An almost perfect package
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a gorgeous release - color, sound, 70mm transfer - Fox really went all out on this DVD. BUT: does anyone know if they're going to fix the problem of the Entr'acte missing its last 10 seconds? Also - with all of the extras this package includes it sure would have been nice to finally hear why the "I Love Paris" duet between Sinatra and Chevalier was cut as it was definitely filmed.