After his greatest stage success (KISS ME KATE) Cole Porter entered the last decade and a half of his life with a track record of hit and miss musicals. It was not that he lost his abilities to compose great songs. It was that not everything he touched turned to gold.
The "gold" of this decade was his music for SILK STOCKINGS (his version of NINOTCHKA) and his musical CAN-CAN. His misses included OUT OF THIS WORLD, his attempt at a modern retelling of the Amphitryon myth from Greece. OUT OF THIS WORLD has entered the history of Broadway as a potentially great musical that was too advanced for its period. Apparently much of the musical involved homosexual as well as heterosexual sex (in keeping with ancient Greek culture both forms of love were acceptable). Unfortunately they were not acceptable in 1950 New York City (and one may add in 2008 California and elsewhere). Only one number from OUT OF THIS WORLD survived: FROM THIS MOMENT ON. It got grafted into the film version of KISS ME KATE.
It is a tradition that none of Porter's scores survived totally intact in Hollywood. Songs were dropped from films or pushed into others. So CAN-CAN has Let's Do It in the film score, although it was not in the musical (it was over thirty years old by that time), and yet I LOVE Paris, Porter's greatest anthem to the foreign city he adored above all others, was dropped from the film. Still there is enough Porter in this film to appreciate his best work. And as was said in another review, Sinatra's singing "But It's All Right With Me" to Juliet Prowse happens to be quite the best moment for old "Blue Eyes" in the film.
The film tried to capitalize on the success (two years before) of GIGI, by reuniting Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan from that film with Sinatra, and fellow rat-packers Shirley MacLaine and Prowse. Set again in the France of the 1890s, here we are not watching a young girl blossom into womanhood and win the man of her dreams, but we are watching the sleazier theatrical world of the day in the Montmartre District*. For MacLaine runs a dance hall/bar that has the town in a tizzy due to the dancing of the "forbidden" can-can by the dance hall girls. MacLaine's partner is her lawyer (and lover) Sinatra. When a bunch of reformers cause a raid on the dance hall, they just miss arresting Sinatra, MacLaine, and a corrupt (or friendly) jurist played by Chevalier. MacLaine has to appear in court, and the judge there is Jourdan, who is known to be incorruptible. He is, but he falls for MacLaine. It enables Sinatra to beat the legal attack temporarily, but it leaves MacLaine with a lovesick Jourdan to worry about.
(*GIGI is not the only recent film that has an influence on CAN-CAN. The Montmartre area is where Toulouse - Lautrec and other painters of that period resided. The color of Huston's MOULIN ROUGE (1953) and the background of the cabarets Toulouse - Lautrec went to is evident in the film too. However, there even is a little joke (no pun intended). While singing the opening song "Montmartre", Sinatra is in the street, and passes Toulouse - Lautrec holding one of his canvasses. Toulouse - Lautrec shows it to Sinatra, who looks at it, and says, "It'll never sell!")
The film follows MacLaine trying to get a commitment from Sinatra that will make their sexual relationship permanent, but he is too independent. So she is slowly finding the interest of Jourdan a kind of refreshing alternative (although she does suspect it just cannot work). Chevalier is pleased to see this troublesomely honest protégé of his somewhat corrupted so that he won't interfere with the business at the dance hall, but he realizes that Jourdan is serious enough to consider marrying MacLaine, and ruining his career. Their duet ("Your Business is Your Business, and My Business is Mine.") is not one of the best recalled Porter tunes, but it is a bouncy enough one, and it certainly illustrates Chevalier's realization that what was previously a useful slip by Jourdan is now totally out of hand.
The conclusion of the film is set in the dance hall, where the puritan critics are given a demonstration of the sinful dance, and discover it has a charm and excitement they had not expected.
The dance sequence at the end was the only time that MacLaine (a pretty affective dancer before she became an actress) shared film dance time with Prowse. Juliet Prowse was a mediocre actress at best (see my review of MONA MCCLUSKY, her attempt at a sit com), but she was a first rate dancer, and the production number of her and MacLaine leading the Can-Can is quite memorable. The number is a fine way to end the film, and also for it to enter diplomatic history. As pointed out elsewhere on this thread, Khrustchev was touring Hollywood when they were shooting Can-Can, and watched the dance number being shot. He did condemn the film as proof of the decadence of the west. However, that did not prevent him from having his photo taken with Sinatra and MacLaine. I guess there is decadence and there is decadence.
The "gold" of this decade was his music for SILK STOCKINGS (his version of NINOTCHKA) and his musical CAN-CAN. His misses included OUT OF THIS WORLD, his attempt at a modern retelling of the Amphitryon myth from Greece. OUT OF THIS WORLD has entered the history of Broadway as a potentially great musical that was too advanced for its period. Apparently much of the musical involved homosexual as well as heterosexual sex (in keeping with ancient Greek culture both forms of love were acceptable). Unfortunately they were not acceptable in 1950 New York City (and one may add in 2008 California and elsewhere). Only one number from OUT OF THIS WORLD survived: FROM THIS MOMENT ON. It got grafted into the film version of KISS ME KATE.
It is a tradition that none of Porter's scores survived totally intact in Hollywood. Songs were dropped from films or pushed into others. So CAN-CAN has Let's Do It in the film score, although it was not in the musical (it was over thirty years old by that time), and yet I LOVE Paris, Porter's greatest anthem to the foreign city he adored above all others, was dropped from the film. Still there is enough Porter in this film to appreciate his best work. And as was said in another review, Sinatra's singing "But It's All Right With Me" to Juliet Prowse happens to be quite the best moment for old "Blue Eyes" in the film.
The film tried to capitalize on the success (two years before) of GIGI, by reuniting Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan from that film with Sinatra, and fellow rat-packers Shirley MacLaine and Prowse. Set again in the France of the 1890s, here we are not watching a young girl blossom into womanhood and win the man of her dreams, but we are watching the sleazier theatrical world of the day in the Montmartre District*. For MacLaine runs a dance hall/bar that has the town in a tizzy due to the dancing of the "forbidden" can-can by the dance hall girls. MacLaine's partner is her lawyer (and lover) Sinatra. When a bunch of reformers cause a raid on the dance hall, they just miss arresting Sinatra, MacLaine, and a corrupt (or friendly) jurist played by Chevalier. MacLaine has to appear in court, and the judge there is Jourdan, who is known to be incorruptible. He is, but he falls for MacLaine. It enables Sinatra to beat the legal attack temporarily, but it leaves MacLaine with a lovesick Jourdan to worry about.
(*GIGI is not the only recent film that has an influence on CAN-CAN. The Montmartre area is where Toulouse - Lautrec and other painters of that period resided. The color of Huston's MOULIN ROUGE (1953) and the background of the cabarets Toulouse - Lautrec went to is evident in the film too. However, there even is a little joke (no pun intended). While singing the opening song "Montmartre", Sinatra is in the street, and passes Toulouse - Lautrec holding one of his canvasses. Toulouse - Lautrec shows it to Sinatra, who looks at it, and says, "It'll never sell!")
The film follows MacLaine trying to get a commitment from Sinatra that will make their sexual relationship permanent, but he is too independent. So she is slowly finding the interest of Jourdan a kind of refreshing alternative (although she does suspect it just cannot work). Chevalier is pleased to see this troublesomely honest protégé of his somewhat corrupted so that he won't interfere with the business at the dance hall, but he realizes that Jourdan is serious enough to consider marrying MacLaine, and ruining his career. Their duet ("Your Business is Your Business, and My Business is Mine.") is not one of the best recalled Porter tunes, but it is a bouncy enough one, and it certainly illustrates Chevalier's realization that what was previously a useful slip by Jourdan is now totally out of hand.
The conclusion of the film is set in the dance hall, where the puritan critics are given a demonstration of the sinful dance, and discover it has a charm and excitement they had not expected.
The dance sequence at the end was the only time that MacLaine (a pretty affective dancer before she became an actress) shared film dance time with Prowse. Juliet Prowse was a mediocre actress at best (see my review of MONA MCCLUSKY, her attempt at a sit com), but she was a first rate dancer, and the production number of her and MacLaine leading the Can-Can is quite memorable. The number is a fine way to end the film, and also for it to enter diplomatic history. As pointed out elsewhere on this thread, Khrustchev was touring Hollywood when they were shooting Can-Can, and watched the dance number being shot. He did condemn the film as proof of the decadence of the west. However, that did not prevent him from having his photo taken with Sinatra and MacLaine. I guess there is decadence and there is decadence.