Hit Broadway musical about a Parisian judge falling in love with a brass nightclub owner was converted to a vehicle for then Hollywood heavyweight Frank Sinatra by the addition of a second love interest, the club owner's pal and lawyer. Neither Sinatra nor Shirley MacLaine make any attempt to blend into the period or place (just as well, 2 hours of 'The Chairman' faking a France accent would have been exorable) so all the French flavour comes from Gallic pros Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jorden. The score includes a hodgepodge of Cole Porter songs, some from the musical, some not, and strangely, a duet of Sinatra and Chevalier singing the standard "I Love Paris" was cut out of the release. The dancing is generally good, especially by Juliet Prowse, the 'snake' in the weird 'Garden of Eden' sequence. The final Can-Can number, although a bit chaste for a dance banned by the authorities for its ribaldry, is energetic and impressive although I was somewhat disappointed that it performed to music written for the show rather than to Offenbach's "Infernal Gallop", the music usually associated with the dance. Not a bad Broadway adaptation but not one of the great ones.
Review of Can-Can
