In the Montmartre district of Paris, a dance known as the can-can, considered lewd, is performed nightly at the Bal du Paradis, a cabaret where Simone Pistache is both a dancer and the proprietor. On a night when her lawyer and lover François Durnais brings his good friend chief magistrate Paul Barrière to the café, a raid is staged by police and Claudine and the other dancers are placed under arrest and brought before the court.
Paul wishes the charges to be dismissed, but his younger colleague Philippe Forrestier believes that the laws against public indecency should be enforced. Visiting the café and pretending to be someone else in order to gain evidence, Philippe becomes acquainted with Simone and develops a romantic interest in her, but she is warned by Claudine that he is actually a judge.
Despite his attraction to her, Philippe proceeds with again raiding the café, and Simone is arrested. François attempts to blackmail Philippe with a compromising photograph in an effort to force him to drop the charges. However, Philippe had already decided to stop the case. He then shocks Simone by proposing marriage to her. When François comes to visit her, she warns him that she will accept the proposal if he does not marry her himself, but he refuses the notion of ever marrying. Meanwhile, Paul tries dissuade Philippe from the marriage, believing such an arrangement would end his career, but Philippe ignores his advice. Conspiring to sabotage the engagement, Paul arranges a party for the couple aboard a riverboat, during which François gets Simone drunk and encourages her to perform a bawdy routine in front of the upper-class guests. Humiliated, Simone jumps off the boat and refuses to see Philippe again, writing to him that she cannot in good conscience become his bride.
Simone obtains a loan from François to stage a ball, insisting he accept the deed to the café as collateral. On the night of the ball, Simone gets her revenge by arranging for the police to raid the café and arrest François, now the legal proprietor. At the ensuing trial, Simone is called to testify but does not have the heart to give evidence against François. As the case is to be dismissed for lack of evidence, the president of a local moral league demands that action must be taken against the lewd performance. Paul suggests that the court view the dance firsthand to determine that it is indeed indecent. A can-can is performed to the approval of all, who agree that it is not obscene. When the police nonetheless escort Simone to a jail wagon, she is startled to find François inside, and even more surprised when he finally proposes.
The film contains what critics now consider some of Cole Porter's most enduring songs, including "I Love Paris," "It's All Right With Me" and "C'est Magnifique." However, when the musical play premiered in 1953, many critics complained that Porter was producing material far below his usual standard. Some of the songs from the original Broadway musical were replaced by other more famous Porter songs for the film, including "Let's Do It," "Just One of Those Things" and "You Do Something to Me." "I Love Paris" is sung by the chorus over the opening credits rather than in the actual story by MacLaine. A version of "I Love Paris" by Sinatra and Chevalier was featured on the film's soundtrack album, but it was cut in previews when the studio realized that it slowed the film down. A photo of the sequence can be found in a New York Times Magazine article from February 21, 1960. The song takes place shortly after Act Two opens, in the scene in which Chevalier visits Sinatra in a nightclub.
• "I Love Paris" – Sung by chorus over the beginning credits and end screen
• "Montmart'" – Sung by Frank Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier and chorus
• "Maidens Typical of France" – Performed by Juliet Prowse and can-can girls
• "Can-Can" – Danced by Juliet Prowse and can-can girls; Reprised in the finale by Shirley MacLaine, Prowse, can-can girls and male dancers
• "C'est Magnifique" – Performed by Frank Sinatra; Reprised by Shirley MacLaine
• "Apache Dance" – Danced by Shirley MacLaine and male dancers
• "Live and Let Live" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan
• "You Do Something to Me" – Sung by Louis Jourdan
• "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" – Performed by Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine
• "It's All Right with Me" – Sung by Frank Sinatra; Reprised by Louis Jourdan
• "Come Along with Me" – Performed by Shirley MacLaine
• "Just One of Those Things" – Sung by Maurice Chevalier
• "Garden of Eden Ballet" (interpolating portions of "I Love Paris") – Danced by Shirley MacLaine, Juliet Prowse, Marc Wilder and dancers
Plot alterations
The plot of the musical was revised for the film adaptation. In the stage version, the judge is the leading character, but in the film, it is the lover of the nightclub owner who is the lead, and the judge forms the other half of a love triangle not found in the play. The character of Paul Barriere, a non-singing supporting part on stage, was enhanced and given two songs for Maurice Chevalier .
Soviet Propaganda controversy
During the filming, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev famously visited the 20th Century Fox studios[3] and was allegedly shocked by what he saw. He took the opportunity to make propagandistic use of his visit and described the dance, and by extension American culture, as "depraved" and "pornographic."[4]
Reception
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther lamented the film's deviations from the musical play: "The music has been reduced to snatches, the book has been weirdly changed and the dances–well, they have been abandoned for some tired jigs ..." Crowther also panned the script and performances: "The story is also a downright foolish pastiche, cut to Frank Sinatra and Miss MacLaine, who look about as logical in Paris of the Eighteen Nineties as they would look on the Russian hockey team. He, as a nonchalant young lawyer, and she, as the owner of a cabaret that is frequently being raided because they do the can-can there, behave, under Walter Lang's direction, as if they were companions in a Hoboken bar, slightly intoxicated and garrulous with gags. The experience of watching and listening to two such people would probably be about as amusing as watching and listening to Mr. Sinatra and Miss MacLaine."[5] Kate Cameron, however, gave the film a full four-star rating in the New York Daily News, calling it "a rough-and-tumble, rowdy but entertaining film. The exhibition of the dance that has made Paris night clubs the mecca of world tourists since it was first introduced there in the early part of the 19th Century, is a rude, noisy, fast dance number, expertly performed by the chorus." She added:
The characters in the film production are admirably handled by Shirley MacLaine, Frank Sinatra, the incomparable Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Marcel Dalio and a new dancer named Juliet Prowse.
SINATRA SINGS the Cole Porter songs in his inimitable style and plays the role of a rogue with ingratiating smoothness and although Shirley MacLaine hasn't the vocal force of Lilo, she manages the clever lyrics and enticing rhythms of the Porter score with deftness. Her dancing is her greatest talent and she performs an Apache number and the Garden of Eden ballet superbly. Juliet Prowse makes an auspicious debut as an actress-dancer, as she plays a role in the story and is a principal in the Garden of Eden ballet and a leader of the Can-Can chorus. She is expert in both forms of Terpsichorean art.
CHEVALIER AND Jourdan are excellent and have a duet together which is rendered with the charming comedy style that distinguished them in "Gigi." Jack Cummings has produced the film for 20th Century-Fox with a lavish hand, making it into lively screen entertainment. The sets, lighting and costuming are attractively done and Walter Lang has directed the players with skill. The action never lags, even when the story is interrupted by song and dance.[6]
Dick Williams of the Los Angeles Mirror called it "a racy, raucous show with its ups and downs, emerging as a mixture of TV spec, Broadway revue and movie musical. It often seems more Beverly Hills Rat Pack Clan, thanks to members Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine who are starred, than Paris, Montmartre, circa 1896."[7] A user of the Mae Tinee pseudonym in the Chicago Daily Tribune opened her remark by saying that "Shirley MacLaine is a girl who can light up a screen, even a giant size one, and when she's in action, this musical is a lively affair. Frank Sinatra, as a glib and wary bachelor, is an excellent foil for her and also provides some good moments. But there are some dull stretches in the film when the thinness of the script shows thru, in spite of lavish sets and colorful costumes."[8] Herb Lyon, in the same newspaper's Tower Ticker column, reacted differently to the film:
"Can Can" is a sheer filmusical delight. Tho hokey, it's never pokey. You don't even mind Frank Sinatra's and Shirley MacLaine's Brooklynese in a lush gay '90s Parisian setting. And, oo-la-la, that Cole Porter musical magic.[9]
I'm surprised at Shirley MacLalne. She "mugs" all over the screen in "Can-Can." It's funny at first but it gets tiresome. As a result, Frank Sinatra "relaxes" the picture right out from under Shirley, who has plenty to learn about the art of underplaying parts.[10]
Hortense Morton, in the San Francisco Examiner, "found the film real enjoyment despite the fact, it runs very long and one begins to wonder if one should have told the milkman to hold up morning delivery of the naif and half; left word with the gardener to water the lawn and told the neighbors to keep a lookout for prowlers."[11] Myles Standish of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote:
“CAN-CAN,” which is being offered with much ballyhoo at the AMBASSADOR THEATER, is something of a disappointment as an exposition of the gay life of a wicked Paris. It has three fairly good dance numbers, and some comic moments, But it is surprisingly deficient in over-all zest, is slow-paced, and lacks the charm and spirit of two musicals to which it might fairly be compared, “Gigi,” and “American in Paris.”[12]
Richard L. Coe observed in The Washington Post that "KHRUSHCHEV was quite right. Though the dance he found so vulgar does not strike me so, 'Can-Can,' in full dosage at the Uptown, is just that. Consider: Metro having scored with turn-of-the-century Paris in “Gigi,” Twentieth Century-Fox takes two of its stars, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan, the same period and Cole Porter’s stage musical. It then gives those stars little to do, adds Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine, who are amusing but nonetheless pure Hoboken. Next it bolsters three of the master’s irrelevant favorites, “Let’s Do It,” “You Do Something to Me” and “Just One of Those Things.” All this is then presented in Todd-AO, vast screen, stereophonic sound, all worthy of the Creation. At upped, reserved-seat prices. Heaven knows, Abe Burrows' stage book was fairly dim but what Dorothy Kingsley and Charles Lederer have been paid to add is even less inspired. Its most conspicuous quality is that inverse snobbism our West Coast gold-miners seem to find profitable with the masses: that judges and society folk are just snobs and that night club entertainers, crooked lawyers and others with no manners and bad speech are The Salt of the Earth." He added:
My major complaint is that the most has not been made of the material at hand, that it is ridiculous to have Chevalier around and not let him sing “I Love Paris” and that by having Miss MacLaine tear up a sketch by Toulouse-Lautrec does not necessarily suggest the period. I yield to no one in enjoyment of Sinatra singing Porter but I infinitely preferred the neglected elegance of Messrs. Jourdan and Chevalier and the sinuous underworked Juliet Prowse. Mr. Khrushchev only saw a smidget of “Can-Can” but had he seen it all he might have added a more devastating observation: it’s a bore. Small wonder he blew up in Paris.[13]
Harold Whitehead of the Montreal Gazette said that the "producer and director have taken what we have always felt was second rate Cole Porter and turned it into a first-rate motion picture production."[14] Jacob Siskind of the Montreal Star called it "one of the more enjoyable musicals to have come out of Hollywood in some time. It’s partly the music and partly the cast that make it so."[15]Clyde Gilmour of Maclean's magazine wrote:
Cole Porter’s Broadway hit of a few seasons ago has been processed into a big noisy musical which is pleasant entertainment although several of its top numbers are lacking in zip and sparkle. All-Amurrican voices and professional gay-Paree accents are somewhat incongruously mingled in the speech-patterns of the principals, all of whom are supposedly turn-of-the-century French.[16]
Dick Richards of London's Daily Mirror called it "a feckless frolic version of a film. It is too long and leisurely but—thanks mainly to Shirley—it's as bubbly as a glass of champagne."[17] Campbell Dixon of The Daily Telegraph of London wrote that "The production has faults. We could do with more Chevalier Mr Sinatra’s Americanism is so evident that the director gives Mr Jourdan a chance to mock it pleasantly. A running time of 141 minutes could have been cut with advantage. But there can be nothing but praise for the acting and direction. Shirley MacLaine's Simone is lush and sexy but not gross; Mr Sinatra manages to make the tricky lawyer llkeable; M Chevalier walks through his part with consummate ease; and Mr Jourdan with a combination of charm, distinction, and gentle courtesy that must be unique on the screen, gives a basically commonplace little fable a kind of grace."[18]
The film was listed by Variety as the highest-grossing film of 1960 (behind 1959's Ben-Hur) with estimated rentals of $10 million,[19] based on an estimated $3 million from 70-mm showings to December 1960 and $7 million estimated from future 35-mm showings.[20] The expected future rentals were not achieved, and the rental was revised down to $4.2 million the following year.[2]
Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French singer, actor, and entertainer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including "Livin' In The Sunlight", "Valentine", "Louise", "Mimi", and "Thank Heaven for Little Girls", and for his films, including The Love Parade, The Big Pond, The Smiling Lieutenant, One Hour with You, and Love Me Tonight. His trademark attire was a boater hat and tuxedo.
The Love Parade is a 1929 American pre-Code musical comedy film, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, involving the marital difficulties of Queen Louise of Sylvania (MacDonald) and her consort, Count Alfred Renard (Chevalier). Despite his love for Louise and his promise to be an obedient husband, Count Alfred finds his role as a figurehead unbearable. The supporting cast features Lupino Lane, Lillian Roth and Eugene Pallette.
Shirley MacLaine is an American actress and author. Known for her portrayals of quirky, strong-willed and eccentric women, she has received numerous accolades over her eight-decade career, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups and two Silver Bears. She has been honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Tribute in 1995, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1998, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2013.
The Rat Pack was an informal group of entertainers, the second iteration of which ultimately made films and appeared together in Las Vegas casino venues. They originated in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a group of A-list show business friends, such as Errol Flynn, Nat King Cole, Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra and others who met casually at the Holmby Hills home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. In the 1960s, the group featured Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford, among others. They appeared together on stage and in films in the 1950s and 1960s, including the films Ocean's 11 and Sergeants 3; after Lawford's expulsion, they filmed Robin and the 7 Hoods with Bing Crosby in what was to have been Lawford's role. Sinatra, Martin, and Davis were regarded as the group's lead members after Bogart's death.
The can-can is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular music-hall dance in the 1840s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day. Originally danced by couples, it is now traditionally associated with a chorus line of female dancers. The main features of the dance are the vigorous manipulation of skirts and petticoats, along with high kicks, splits, and cartwheels.
Louis Jourdan was a French film and television actor. He was known for his suave roles in several Hollywood films, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Gigi (1958), The Best of Everything (1959), The V.I.P.s (1963) and Octopussy (1983). He played Dracula in the 1977 BBC television production Count Dracula.
That's Entertainment! is a 1974 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The success of the retrospective prompted a 1976 sequel, the related 1985 film That's Dancing!, and a third installment in 1994.
Juliet Anne Prowse was a British-American dancer and actress whose four-decade career included stage, television and film. She was born in Bombay then of British India, raised in South Africa, where her family emigrated after World War II. Known for her attractive legs, she was described after her death as having "arguably the best legs since Betty Grable."
Gigi is a 1958 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Vincente Minnelli and processed using Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Eastmancolor film process Metrocolor. The screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette. The film features songs with lyrics by Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, arranged and conducted by André Previn. Costume design was done by Cecil Beaton.
"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" (also known as "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" or simply "Let's Do It") is a popular song written in 1928 by Cole Porter. It was introduced in Porter's first Broadway success, the musical Paris (1928) by French chanteuse Irène Bordoni for whom Porter had written the musical as a starring vehicle.
Apache, or La Danse Apache, Bowery Waltz, Apache Turn, Apache Dance and Tough Dance is a highly dramatic dance associated in popular culture with Parisian street culture at the beginning of the 20th century. The name of the dance is pronounced ah-PAHSH, not uh-PATCH-ee. In fin de siècle Paris young members of street gangs were labelled Apaches by the press because of the ferocity of their savagery towards one another, a name taken from the native North American indigenous people, the Apache.
Charles Powell Walters was an American Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Pepe is a 1960 American musical comedy film starring Cantinflas in the title role, directed by George Sidney. The film contained a multitude of cameo appearances, attempting to replicate the success of Cantiflas' American debut Around the World in 80 Days.
"Just One of Those Things" is a popular song written by Cole Porter for the 1935 musical Jubilee.
"I Love Paris" is a popular song written by Cole Porter and published in 1953. The song was introduced by Lilo in the role of La Mome in the musical Can-Can. A line in the song's lyrics inspired the title of the 1964 movie Paris When It Sizzles.
The 16th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film for 1958 films, were held on March 5, 1959.
"It's All Right with Me" is a popular song written by Cole Porter, for his 1953 musical Can-Can, where it was introduced by Peter Cookson as the character Judge Aristide Forestier.
"C'est Magnifique" is a 1953 popular song written by Cole Porter for his 1953 musical Can-Can, where it was introduced by Lilo and Peter Cookson. The song become a standard. The only version to chart was by Gordon MacRae which reached No. 29 for one week.
The Copa Room was an entertainment nightclub showroom at the now-defunct Sands Hotel on The Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was demolished in 1996 when the Sands Hotel was imploded.
Maria Pogee, sometimes credited as Maria Pohji, is an Argentine-American dancer who performed on stage, television and film in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. She is also a choreographer, dance teacher and actress. She appeared in the movie Wacky Taxi (1972).
References
Notes
↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN978-0-8108-4244-1. p252
1 2 "All-Time Top Grossers", Variety, 8 January 1964 p 69
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