Silk Stockings
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Movie Reviews of Silk Stockings
Movie Review: A Most Fitting Tribute to Charisse's Terpsichorean Talents
Summary: 4 Stars
With the passing of Cyd Charisse last week at age 86, it's worth seeking out what is probably her finest work on celluloid. Granted as an actress, she was bland, and as a singer, she was dubbed (this time by the sonorous-sounding Carol Richards). But as a dancer, she was extraordinary. Along with Vera-Ellen, the ballet-trained Charisse was in the top echelon of the female dancers that MGM showcased during the studio's golden years of which this film is one of its final stops. The clearest evidence of this claim can be found in the title tune when she dances with beauty and precision elegantly changing from her drab street clothes into silk and satin. It's a remarkable number, no small feat since her co-star is Fred Astaire. Directed by early musical maven Rouben Mamoulian (Love Me Tonight) in what turned out to be his last film, the movie also marks Astaire's swan song as a musical comedy leading man. Symbolically, he smashes his top hat at the end of his final solo number, "The Ritz Roll and Rock". The wear barely shows in his dancing where he pulls off some of his most acrobatic numbers, but other than the professionalism of the two leads, the inspiration seems sadly missing.
The film is a partial remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1939 classic comedy, Ninotchka - in fact, some scenes are repeated verbatim - although certain elements have been altered to accommodate Cole Porter's musical score. This musical translation first showed up on Broadway two years earlier, but further revisions have obviously been made to tailor the story to the dancing talents of the leads. Charisse has the unenviable task of stepping into Greta Garbo's shoes as top Soviet envoy Ninotchka Yoschenko, who is sent to Paris to retrieve three lesser envoys swept up by the City of Lights. They had already botched their mission to lure famous Russian composer Peter Boroff back to the mother country. At the same time, American movie producer Steve Canfield wants Boroff to score his next picture, a musical bowdlerization of Tolstoy's War and Peace starring comically curvaceous Peggy Dayton, a parody of an Esther Williams-style swimming star whose been in the pool too long. As Dayton uses her feminine wiles to entice Boroff, Canfield tries to seduce Ninotchka, a far frostier proposition though the eventual thawing is inevitable. Porter's music tends to have that effect or so we're led to believe.
Playing another variation on the worldly photographer he played in the same year's Funny Face, Astaire is still at the top of his game, but his dance numbers are less elegant and appear markedly shorter than usual here. Charisse cannot compare to the legendary Garbo when it comes to line readings as a stoic communist. However, her dancing truly transcends - not only the title tune but also "The Red Blues", an impressive ensemble number showcasing Charisse in a variety of dance styles, and the two duets with Astaire to "All of You" - the first a romantic defrosting of Ninotchka and the second a jauntier, rhythmic pas-de-deux. I wish the rest of the film was as good, but sadly, the energy wavers and the pacing flags during its 117-minute running time. The rest of the cast is serviceable, in particular, Janis Paige on familiar ground as Peggy (nicely paired with Astaire on the energetically cynical "Stereophonic Sound") and George Tobias as the deadpan Soviet commissar. Peter Lorre (M) and Jules Munshin (Ozzie in On the Town) show up as two of the bumbling envoys. The 2003 DVD has some interesting extras beginning with a ten-minute short featuring a 2003 interview with the still-elegant Charisse in "Cole Porter in Hollywood: Satin and Silk". Because of the Porter tie-in, there is also a 1934 Bob Hope short, "Paree, Paree", a silly musical comedy with Hope wooing singer Dorothy Stone. Also included is the original theatrical trailer, as well as "Poet and Peasant Overture" with Alfred Wallenstein conducting the MGM symphony orchestra playing the Franz Von Suppe piece as an overture to the movie.
Movie Review: the End of Fred Astaire
Summary: 4 Stars
Fred Astaire has always been a performer who's work is very close to my heart. The last real Fred Astaire movie (excluding his geriatric non-singing, non-dancing or non-starring roles) is 1957's "Silk Stockings".
I was a little afraid to watch Silk Stockings at first. Sure, it had a Cole Porter score supervised by Andre Previn, and Hermes Pan choreography, and, sure, Fred made fabulous movies even at that age ("the Bandwagon", "Daddy Long Legs"), but I knew it was Fred's last, and I didn't want to know why. Now I know what a pleasure I was depriving myself of.
"Silk Stockings" is a musical remake of "Ninotchka", a 1939 Greta Garbo picture. It's about a serious stern young russian woman, sent as an envoy to nab a russian composer living illegally in Paris. The composer is betraying his russian classical heritage by writing music for a low brow movie musical. The director of this movie, played by Fred Astaire, distracts the pretty young russian (Cyd Charisse) with the wonders of Paris, classy night clubs, and dancing to jazz. In falling for him, her strict heartless personality melts away.
This movie was produced at the height of the cold war, and the height of Hollywood blacklisting, and it's commie-bashing could make some uncomfortable. To me, those jokes are anything but propaganda. The cultural stereotypes are played for laughs, and should be taken with a grain of salt. Of course, I'm a big fan of the top hat and tails ritzy romantic culture that Astaire's character teaches Charisse's character the joys of, so it's easy for me to say.
With the exception of the classics "All of You" and "Paris is For Lovers", Cole Porter's songs are comic, here. But, that being said, they are hilarious. This was towards the end of Porter's career too. Infact, this was towards the end of the movie musical as America knew it.
Rock and Roll was taking over. To me, the most moving moments in this movie are not the dramatic love scenes shared by Astaire and Charisse, they are the self referential moments, where Porter, Astaire, and choreographer Hermes Pan acknowledge that their era in over.
Porter wrote special material just for this movie. One highlight is a tune called "Stereophonic Sound". In it, the singer quips about how moviegoers used to be content to see talented performers do their thing, and a nice love story, but these days all they want is "glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope, and Stereophonic sound!" The song puts down all the gimmickry of the modern Hollywood, and even has one verse quite obviously about Fred Astaire himself. Porter writes that these days a great hoofer in tails is not enough, they want a ballet (alluding to Gene Kelly's ballet dance number fad).
Fred Astaire's last MGM dance number is to the song "Ritz Rollin' Rock". It's Porter's parody of this new music called Rock and Roll, ironically borrowing from Irving Berlin's dated "Puttin' On the Ritz". This sequence, choreographed by Astaire's long-time collaborator Hermes Pan, ends with Fred writhing on the floor, wearing his 1930's tails and top hat. As the horns hit the last big chord, Fred removes his trade-marked top hat and smashes it flat with his fist.
The message Porter, Astaire and Pan slipped into this novelty number, is very powerful, if you know what you're seeing.
Pop entertainment changed in the sixties, and the the old kings abdicated their thrones to... well... the King, I suppose.
Anyway, if you're a Fred-head like me, and you're afraid to see Fred's final fling, "Silk Stockings", don't be. You'll be reminded why he and his period of Hollywood was great.
Movie Review: Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sound
Summary: 4 Stars
If they advertised Ninotchka with the immortal ad-line 'Garbo laughs!', they should have plugged this musical remake with the legend 'Lorre Dances!' The human goldfish shares two musical numbers as one of three Russian commissars sent after a runaway Russian composer who, horror of horrors, is considering composing the score for an American picture to be shot in Paris.
If his dancing is amusingly underwhelming, most of the rest of the numbers are in the charge of Fred Astaire as the playboy producer of Janis Paige's 'first non-swimming picture' - War and Peace (well, a bit of it). "How do you feel about Tolstoy?" ask the gentlemen of the press. "There's absolutely no truth to the rumours, we're just good friends," she replies between smacking the water out of her ears. Ninotchka (Charisse), the humourless Russian commissar they send after their original commissars, takes a more disapproving view. "This is an American picture. You're liable to have Napoleon win." Even if you haven't seen the original, it's not hard to guess which two characters fall in love.
Nonetheless, the film is surprisingly entertaining for a later MGM musical (Fred Astaire's last at the studio). Cole Porter delivers a strong score (minus the lyrics to the title number, here used as background to Charisse's big dance solo), Janis Paige delivers a more streetwise variation of Jean Hagen's dumb blonde from Singin' in theRain and the script delivers plenty of digs at the movies in general ("You know what prestige means?" "Yeah, pictures that don't make money."), CinemaScope in particular and Communism as a matter of course ("Get me a copy of 'Who's Still Who.'").
Mamoulian doesn't always know how to handle the Scope frame, ruining a potentially priceless early joke where Lorre coaches his comrades to smile by shooting only the back of his head and not making best use of the frame in Janis Paige and Fred Astaire's number celebrating 'Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sound', but elsewhere uses it well enough to make this widescreen version a particular treat if you've only seen the fullframe video or TV versions (the Russkies may have sent three commissars after Borov, but you'd only ever see two at one time on those!). The print used could have done with a bit more remastering but it's more than acceptable and there's a good range of extras - a 2003 behind-the-scenes featurette with Charisse, trailer, a weak early Bob Hope short Paree, Paree with Cole Porter score and and Scope short of the MGM Symphony Orchestra playing The Poet and The Peasant Overture.
Movie Review: Fred and Cyd are Pure Silk!
Summary: 4 Stars
Here's an interesting Fred Astaire film from the late fifties that is both dated and timeless. The timelessness comes from Fred and Cyd Charisse in a great musical romantic comedy. The dated aspects are most of the digs at the Cold War Russians, but it's all part of the fun. In this retelling of "Ninotchka", lots of comedy mileage is gotten from the Cold War and the sad state of the Russian citizenry ("You mean you want to get IN to Russia? Of your own free will?!"). Three whole numbers are dedicated to the misery of being a Russian under Communist rule ("Siberia", "Too Bad, We Can't Go Back to Moscow", and "The Red Blues"). Some other tunes like "It's a Chemical Reaction, That's All" pit the Commie view of love against the good ol' red white and blue all-American view.
Two numbers, "All of You" and "Silk Stockings", are both well worth the price of admission. There has never been a finer example of the pure grace in the art of dance than when Cyd and Fred perform in "All of You". In the "Silk Stockings" number, Cyd solos in a balletic dance showing how the Russian robot becomes seduced by the luxury and femininity of Paris.
The Cole Porter songs are okay, but hardly his apex. "Ritz Roll and Rock" is an interesting curio if nothing else, as Porter and Astaire try their hand at rock n' roll. Even though the song is so-so, the dance number is pretty good, and when the curtain rises on Fred in this one, you know he and he alone owns the dance floor... before the dance even starts!
"The Poet and Peasant Overture" is included as a short subject, apparently to show off the new miracle of the CinemaScope widescreen process. As an odd, but added treat, an early Bob Hope short "Paree, Paree", rounds things out. Bob gets second billing to the (now) forgotten actress Dorothy Stone in this 1934 musical tidbit. There's even a strange, Busby Berkeley look to the impromptu dance numbers, with a score of leggy dancers forming ever-evolving star and pinwheel patterns.
A good disc by far for Fred fans, and a keeper, regardless.
Movie Review: RITZY LOOKING TRANSFER OF A GREAT MOVIE MUSICAL
Summary: 4 Stars
In hindsight "Silk Stockings" proved to be one of MGM's last great musical acheivements and Fred Astaire's final appearance in a musical worthy of his inimitable talents. Astaire plays, Steven Canfield, a rotten capitalist and movie producer who butts heads with communist, special envoy, Nina Yoshenko, who has been sent from Moscow to Paris to apprehend a wayward Russian composer. The cast also includes Janis Paige in a hilarious and campy lampoon of an 'Esther Williams-type' actress attempting to play Napoleon's Josephine in a musical remake of "War and Peace". Peter Lorre and Jules Munshin are at their comedy best as two communist sympathizers wooed by the pleasures of Paris.AT LAST - a transfer worthy of the elegant Mr. Cole Porter. Warner Home Video gives us a rich looking, robust sounding DVD that really celebrates the performances in this memorable musical. Colors are deep, rich, gorgeous and consistant throughout. Contrast and shadow levels are outstanding. Fine details are amazingly sharp. Edge enhancement, shimmering and aliasing are practically non-existant. There is no pixelization or film or digital grain to speak of, for a thoroughly smooth but sharp visual presentation that will surely please. The audio has been remixed to 5.1 and is marvelous, rich sounding and fully realized within the confines of its dated characteristic.
Extras: Another Cole Porter/making-of featurette that is really a throw away, save the few glimpses of Cyd Charisse and Janis Paige that we get. Theatrical trailer and cast bios and a couple of short subjects - not anamorphically enhanced, even though the film (thank heaven) is!
Bottom Line: This disc is a must have and the only DVD of the Cole Porter bunch worthy of your hard earned money. BUY IT TODAY!