• Can-Can

5/23/24 (Wed)

Walter Lang’s unfortunate 1960 adaptation of the Paris-based Broadway musical hit of seven years earlier. The stage show’s flimsy plot involves a magistrate who, seeking to shut down a Montmartre cabaret that hosts scandalous can-can dances, makes the mistake of falling in love with the beautiful proprietor. The film adds to that by giving the hostess a long-term lover who is allergic to marriage, allowing her to play each man against the other.

The limp plot is only made worse by a script that is embarrassingly weak even by the standards of film musicals at the time. Broadway was then at the very peak of its Golden Age – contemporary shows included My Fair Lady, The Music Man, Gypsy and West Side Story – but film directors had yet to figure out how to shape such material effectively for the screen. The story in this show’s case was never the strong point anyway, but this makes a bad situation worse.

Shirley MacLaine’s feisty club owner is more than capable against both men in an energetic performance, while a laconic Frank Sinatra seems to be walking through his part as her lover. (He was filling a contract for Fox after quitting Carousel – now there’s a seriously regrettable loss.) Neither attempts a French accent, which is a relief, but their acting style nevertheless makes them seem 100% American interlopers in France. I wish the script had been adapted to reflect that. The contrast is especially sharp with Louis Jourdan as the magistrate and Maurice Chevalier as his boss in a Gigi reunion. They have just the right amount of French flair despite the American-penned script and give the film what little lift it has. The filmmakers apparently beefed up Chevalier’s role once they had cast him, a good choice.

The story on both stage and screen is really just an excuse for the songs and numerous dance numbers. The film’s choice of music was problematic. While the Broadway show was not Cole Porter’s best by a long shot, it did offer some gems. The film gives us “C’est Magnifique” and a few others, but barely acknowledges among others the wonderful “I Am In Love” and “Can-Can”, neither of which was provided in full (the former was only in the underscoring). There’s a recording of Sinatra and Chevalier crooning “I Love Paris”, but that does not appear in the movie (it was apparently filmed but lost); it was sung instead by the chorus over the opening credits. In the place of those numbers, unrelated Porter hits like “Let’s Do It” (which here includes the lyric “Japs do it” – ugh – along with a non-PC gesture involving the eyes) were shoehorned unconvincingly into the plot. I understand wanting to make the best use of Sinatra and others, and not all of the stage songs were up to the task. But if they have to search for new numbers, they would have done better to draw from Porter’s substantial well of lesser-known numbers, which could be equally effective without drawing attention to themselves. By and large, the songs as presented here were nearly all forgettable with one significant exception: Sinatra’s searing balladic rendition of “It’s All Right With Me”, which ranks among his best moments on film. I wish all numbers could have been at that level.

The dance numbers by Hermes Pan were energetic if over-the-top, including a wild face-slapping “Apache Dance” and bizarre Adam-and-Eve fantasy “Garden of Eden Ballet”. Neither was my style, but they did give MacLaine and Juliet Prowse (in her film debut) a chance to show off their dance skills. It made me wish that Bob Fosse had let MacLaine loose in Sweet Charity some years later. The can-can numbers, which play a central role in the plot, were super fun and more in the light spirit of the musical.

The film all in all is a waste of good talent. The biggest culprit is the amateurish script by Dorothy Kingsley and Charles Lederer, especially given the casting of Sinatra and MacLaine with their own distinctive personalities. That said, the director failed to take advantage of a script set in Paris, one of the world’s most iconic cities – they reportedly didn’t do any location shooting there – and the sets looked cheap. The song selection and choreography were also wanting. The rarely performed stage show, which I saw years ago, is a decidedly minor piece as well, but was greatly enlivened by the dances, winking performances, and lively staging. I had been hoping for the same here too. Ah, well.