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Can-Can
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by 20th Century Fox
Sales Rank: 1679
Price: $9.98
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How to adapt a Broadway musical for the movies? Well, if you've got Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine signed up, you throw out most of the original and make up something new--which is how Cole Porter's <I>Can-Can</I> came to the screen. It had been a smash on Broadway, and on film <I>Can-Can</I> locked up the #2 box-office spot for 1960 (nestled between <I>Ben-Hur</I> and <I>Psycho</I>). From a modern standpoint, the movie's popularity can be attributed to the stars, the colorful widescreen production, the sexy subject matter, and of course the Porter songs. It can't really be explained any other way, because <I>Can-Can</I> isn't among the most engaging movie musicals; it has the stolid, proscenium-framed look of Fox's 1950s widescreen musicals, and the story is only mildly diverting. The saturated color makes 19th-century Montmarte come to life, and the can-can numbers (and the wonderfully daft Garden of Eden ballet) look appropriately splashy. For a bit of authentic Gallic je ne sais quoi, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan are imported from <I>Gigi</I>, a big hit two years earlier. MacLaine and Sinatra have their cozy chemistry ("Let's Do It" fares especially well with them), and the movie marks the film debut of the dimply dancer Juliet Prowse.<p> The DVD provides a gorgeous color presentation of the movie. A second disc has some OK featurettes, including a making-of documentary that includes the famous story of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the set of <I>Can-Can</I>, at which he witnessed an ooh-la-la can-can number, after which he denounced the proceedings as an example of Western depravity. <I>--Robert Horton</I>
Viewer Reviews
CAN-CAN is a well-realized picture but to me it falls just a leeedle short of a 5 rating. I'd give it four-and-a-half if I could.
STRENGTHS: Beautiful color, which manages to be flamboyant and engaging both. Intriguing fantasy sequence (presented as the music-hall's take on Adam and Eve), some terrific ballet dances from Juliet Prowse and Shirley McLaine; in fact all the dancers were great. The colorful can-can scenes are an important part of the film and use widescreen to great effect. Wonderful Cole Porter songs, most of them previously written but a delight nonetheless.
WEAKNESSES: A little long -- it was shown in theaters as a "road show" including Overture, Intermission and leaving-the-theater music, all of which made it to the DVD. The Todd-AO widescreen process (ratio 2.2:1) shows a bit of distortion around the edge and the DVD-makers had to "cheat" on the letterbox a little in the Adam-and-Eve ballet scene or else the title characters would be way too small on the home screen. Movie is a little stage-bound and "set-bound" and apparently lacks location shots from Paris, not even the second-unit types.
If your reaction to this film is at all positive, if you enjoyed it at all, I would recommend you rent/buy 1958's Academy Award winner GIGI, which was made a year prior to CAN-CAN. Similar setting in "la belle epoque," with two of the principals in very similar mentor/protegee roles (Maurice Chevalier plays man-about-town Honore Lachaille and Louis Jordan his blase nephew Gaston). GIGI was an expensive picture to make but it shows; unlike CAN-CAN, most of the exterior shots were done in Paris. This meant more risk-taking, especially in night shots, but it paid off; hard to argue with Oscar!
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Can-Can
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