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One of the great sissy movies of the late 50’s is this sort of backstage musical with a Rashomon slant about three young women who are performing in a cut rate (you’d never know this from the lavish look of the show.) musical revue in Paris. Taking place in the years right after the war, the revue is run by Gene Kelly who wears an unfortunate toupee and was coming to his end as a big M.G.M. musical star at the same time the Hollywood original movie musical was breathing its last breath. The “girls” are played by Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall and Taina Elg and all three are fun to watch, but it’s especially wonderful to see Kay Kendall who died very young cut up the screen in song, dance and comedy, she pretty much walks off with the movie. The plot light and slim as Kay waist concerns a libel suit brought by one of the “girls” years later and their conflicting stories which are told in flashback as they testify in London against one another. Directed by George Cukor with style and flair and featuring an original score, his last for a movie by Cole Porter. Kelly was getting a bit long in the tooth here, but he still had what it takes to pull off a few wonderful dance routines that shows that he still had it along with a nice dollop of sexual appeal. Cukor ah George had a fantastic eye for color, space and decor and he used the difficult CinemaScope space brilliantly with the great help of his frequent collaborator, the color specialist George Hoyningen-Huene. Each scene in the film is a visual delight, with deep saturated colors, lots of movement, (the backstage moments are simply glorious) and telling objects and details. Also great are the wonderful costumes and clothes by Orry- Kelly who won an Oscar for his designs. I saw this film at the age of 10 at Radio City Music Hall, and can still remember how it felt seeing it for the first time in this great theatre with my mother and sister. There’s a lot of red in the film that matched the red red lipstick that my mother and sister had on their 1950’s mouths, and I still remember my sister leaving a perfect lip stain on her program after blotting them. One of the ten best films of 1957.
_NRFPT_02.jpg)
One of the great sissy movies of the late 50’s is this sort of backstage musical with a Rashomon slant about three young women who are performing in a cut rate (you’d never know this from the lavish look of the show.) musical revue in Paris. Taking place in the years right after the war, the revue is run by Gene Kelly who wears an unfortunate toupee and was coming to his end as a big M.G.M. musical star at the same time the Hollywood original movie musical was breathing its last breath. The “girls” are played by Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall and Taina Elg and all three are fun to watch, but it’s especially wonderful to see Kay Kendall who died very young cut up the screen in song, dance and comedy, she pretty much walks off with the movie. The plot light and slim as Kay waist concerns a libel suit brought by one of the “girls” years later and their conflicting stories which are told in flashback as they testify in London against one another. Directed by George Cukor with style and flair and featuring an original score, his last for a movie by Cole Porter. Kelly was getting a bit long in the tooth here, but he still had what it takes to pull off a few wonderful dance routines that shows that he still had it along with a nice dollop of sexual appeal. Cukor ah George had a fantastic eye for color, space and decor and he used the difficult CinemaScope space brilliantly with the great help of his frequent collaborator, the color specialist George Hoyningen-Huene. Each scene in the film is a visual delight, with deep saturated colors, lots of movement, (the backstage moments are simply glorious) and telling objects and details. Also great are the wonderful costumes and clothes by Orry- Kelly who won an Oscar for his designs. I saw this film at the age of 10 at Radio City Music Hall, and can still remember how it felt seeing it for the first time in this great theatre with my mother and sister. There’s a lot of red in the film that matched the red red lipstick that my mother and sister had on their 1950’s mouths, and I still remember my sister leaving a perfect lip stain on her program after blotting them. One of the ten best films of 1957.
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