- Film Review
- Reviewed By Tony Sloman
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2 out of 5
When Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev visited Hollywood, he was taken onto the set of this 20th Century-Fox musical and shown the can-can number being filmed. He commented: "The face of humanity is more beautiful than its backside" - a very poor PR result, but then Fox did sometimes lack taste when it came to musicals. Although based on Cole Porter's Broadway hit, set in turn-of-the-20th-century Paris, this movie manages to lose some of Porter's best material, notably the brilliant lyric to Can-Can itself, and remains resolutely anachronistic, casting the all-too-contemporary Frank Sinatra, who takes diabolical liberties with other lyrics, and the all-American Shirley MacLaine. The film is at its best in the intimate moments, especially a touching first-half finale as Sinatra croons It's All Right with Me to Juliet Prowse. But the whole movie's simply too long.
Plot Summary
Period romantic musical starring Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine and Maurice Chevalier. Paris in the 1890s. A lawyer defends a woman's right to keep open her nightclub, a lively venue where the daring illegal dance the can-can is performed nightly.
Cast and crew
Cast
- François Durnais
- Frank Sinatra
- Simone Pistache
- Shirley MacLaine
- Paul Barrière
- Maurice Chevalier
- Philippe Forrestier
- Louis Jourdan
- Claudine
- Juliet Prowse
- Head waiter
- Marcel Dalio
- Orchestra leader
- Leon Belasco
- Bailiff
- Nestor Paiva
Crew
- Director
- Walter Lang
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