Cyd Charisse, along with Vera-Ellen and Ann Miller, was one of the premier dancing stars of the 1940's and 1950's...
Known for her cool sex appeal, Cyd Charisse has a beautiful face, a perfect figure, and a thrilling musicality... She is the American cinema's lyrical dancing beauty with a lovely flow of movements and crystalline footwork, a bonus to any film, a compliment of any arm, a true gem... The sensitivity and eloquence of character she projects as a dancer found great echo in her roles as an acclaimed ballerina capable of expressing herself to the entire audience with a flick of the wrist, tapering her high extensions into a musical phrase like a painter controlling a fine sable brush...
When she danced 'La Bamba' and 'Flaming Flamenco' with Ricardo Montalban in Richard Thorpe's "Fiesta," she excelled in technical dynamics... But in 'Broadway Rhythm Ballet,' number from "Singin' in the Rain," Stanley Donen's camera followed the leg up to the figure of a seductive Dancer, a gangster's moll: Charisse was beautiful, bewitching exotic nightclub performer and city vamp, teasing Gene Kelly by balancing his straw hat on the end of her foot, and leaving us all breathless...
In 'Silk Stockings' she is a humorless, unromantic and cold, a seriously-austere Russian envoy who is sent from Moscow to check three Russian emissaries who, in turn, have orders to bring back with them a Soviet composer about to lend his talents to an American movie producer...
A 'beautiful dynamite,' Charisse warms to the appeal of romance, and Fred Astaire, to luxury, jazz, and French champagne... The chemistry was there when they danced the 'Paris Loves Lovers,' number in which the suave Astaire awakens her interest in life and the City of lights, but in the title song where she throws off her cold uniform for her first fine pair of silk stockings and laces, Charisse, (the very serious and dedicated Ninotchka), turns into an explosion of talent and glamor, with the qualities of a scintillating star, radiantly charming and sweet, filling the screen with bravura, energy and spark...
Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff are the three Kremlin agents, the trio of 'clowns' who become fond of freedom and the pleasures of Paris...
Janis Paige is delightfully amusing as the temperamental movie star for whom producer Astaire was preparing a musical about Napoleon and Josephine...
'Silk Stockings' has definite virtues, the foremost being Fred Astaire... Although worried about being ageless for the role, Astaire sings 'All of You' to Charisse with all of his old ardent feelings, dances beautifully with her in a deserted movie studio to 'Fated to Be Mated,' and joins Janis Paige, playing 'America's Swimming Sweetheart,' in Cole Porter's delicious 'Stereophonic Sound.' His solo to 'The Ritz Roll 'n' Rock,' in which he wears his trademarked top hat and tails, is a proof of his grace, sophistication and talent...
For all its merits, Mamoulian's 'Silk Stockings' has a degree of elegance and sophistication, but mostly a sweet sadness, the end of a living legend, in which Fred Astaire appears in his last great musical role...
Known for her cool sex appeal, Cyd Charisse has a beautiful face, a perfect figure, and a thrilling musicality... She is the American cinema's lyrical dancing beauty with a lovely flow of movements and crystalline footwork, a bonus to any film, a compliment of any arm, a true gem... The sensitivity and eloquence of character she projects as a dancer found great echo in her roles as an acclaimed ballerina capable of expressing herself to the entire audience with a flick of the wrist, tapering her high extensions into a musical phrase like a painter controlling a fine sable brush...
When she danced 'La Bamba' and 'Flaming Flamenco' with Ricardo Montalban in Richard Thorpe's "Fiesta," she excelled in technical dynamics... But in 'Broadway Rhythm Ballet,' number from "Singin' in the Rain," Stanley Donen's camera followed the leg up to the figure of a seductive Dancer, a gangster's moll: Charisse was beautiful, bewitching exotic nightclub performer and city vamp, teasing Gene Kelly by balancing his straw hat on the end of her foot, and leaving us all breathless...
In 'Silk Stockings' she is a humorless, unromantic and cold, a seriously-austere Russian envoy who is sent from Moscow to check three Russian emissaries who, in turn, have orders to bring back with them a Soviet composer about to lend his talents to an American movie producer...
A 'beautiful dynamite,' Charisse warms to the appeal of romance, and Fred Astaire, to luxury, jazz, and French champagne... The chemistry was there when they danced the 'Paris Loves Lovers,' number in which the suave Astaire awakens her interest in life and the City of lights, but in the title song where she throws off her cold uniform for her first fine pair of silk stockings and laces, Charisse, (the very serious and dedicated Ninotchka), turns into an explosion of talent and glamor, with the qualities of a scintillating star, radiantly charming and sweet, filling the screen with bravura, energy and spark...
Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff are the three Kremlin agents, the trio of 'clowns' who become fond of freedom and the pleasures of Paris...
Janis Paige is delightfully amusing as the temperamental movie star for whom producer Astaire was preparing a musical about Napoleon and Josephine...
'Silk Stockings' has definite virtues, the foremost being Fred Astaire... Although worried about being ageless for the role, Astaire sings 'All of You' to Charisse with all of his old ardent feelings, dances beautifully with her in a deserted movie studio to 'Fated to Be Mated,' and joins Janis Paige, playing 'America's Swimming Sweetheart,' in Cole Porter's delicious 'Stereophonic Sound.' His solo to 'The Ritz Roll 'n' Rock,' in which he wears his trademarked top hat and tails, is a proof of his grace, sophistication and talent...
For all its merits, Mamoulian's 'Silk Stockings' has a degree of elegance and sophistication, but mostly a sweet sadness, the end of a living legend, in which Fred Astaire appears in his last great musical role...