Crappy film

Absolutely Fantastic

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

'Can-Can' from personal opinion is one of Cole Porter's best later musicals, and there was so much talent involved in this film. It's just sad that something that should have sparkled like diamonds fell as flat as over-egged soufflé despite some very great things.There's more to the problem than it being a butchered treatment of the Broadway hit, including a mangled re-written story with an additional character to cater Frank Sinatra, omitted songs and changes to lyrics. Pretty much all of the problems with 'Can-Can' are to do with how it fared on its own terms, which is while nowhere near one of the duds in musicals it's one of the classics either, if anything a missed opportunity.Despite how this all sounds there is a good amount to like about 'Can-Can'. The film is visually stunning, opulently produced and photographed with spectacular gorgeousness. Porter's music and songs, even with how they're treated (most inexplicable being the lyric liberties in the title song, the original ones are brilliant and part of what makes 'Can-Can' one of Porter's better later musicals), are still superb. Especially the very touching "It's All Right With Me", sung (or crooned) beautifully by Sinatra.Parts of the script has wit and charm, especially with Maurice Chevalier. Chevalier and Louis Jourdan give the film's two best performances, the former performing with a humorous twinkle and effortless charm and the latter having an urbane likability. Juliet Prowse also proves herself to be a wonderful dancer, and the choreography and musical numbers are really where 'Can-Can' really picks up in the interest value.Yet, 'Can-Can', despite the music, Chevalier and Jourdan and the production values, never makes one properly feel like they've been transported to late 19th century Paris. Part of it is to do with the mostly anachronistic and talky script (especially in the courtroom parts that really dragged the film down pace-wise), and a larger part is do with the miscasting of the two leading roles. There is no denying that Sinatra sings beautifully with impeccable phrasing and breath control, but he is too contemporary and completely fails to bring personality, let alone any endearing traits, to a total sleazebag of a character. Shirley MacLaine is also too American, annoyingly shrill and doesn't look like her heart was completely in it.As a result of the numerous changes, despite some moments, the story suffers consequently, the material needed more wit, emotion and life than what the film provides. Sluggish pacing in the non-musical moments and a rather too overlong length doesn't help. It's indifferently directed, the "Garden of Eden" sequence despite great dancing and choreography is overblown and goes on for far too long and the ending, with Simone's decision completely ringing false, feels like a cheat.On the whole, some definite great things but considering the source material and talent 'Can-Can' should have sparkled so much more. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Cole Porter had a mixed bag with his last group of Broadway musicals after Ethel Merman moved onto Irving Berlin. Only one of them, "Kiss Me Kate", was a smash hit both critically and financially, and two ("Can- Can" and "Silk Stockings") were fairly successful. Several flops ("Around the World in 80 Days" and the underrated "Out of this World") made Broadway life difficult for the ailing composer. For the movie version of "Can-Can", the basic story remained but much of the score changed with a hot box office cast brought into play the leads.The legal system is battling the nightclub area of Monmarte with women's groups protesting against the allegedly dirty dance. But the judges enjoy it just as much as the tourists and locals who go to see the jumps, twists and splits of the sexy chorines lead by Shirley MacLaine. Among the legal eagles involved are "Gigi" co-stars Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan, with MacLaine supported by none other than "Pal Joey", Frank Sinatra, re-teaming them after "Some Came Running". An overlong movie is broken up by a perky musical score, not one of Porter's best on stage, but a few songs stand out as classics.The lyrics have been taken out of the title song which MacLaine, Juliet Prowse and the Can-Can girls perform with great exertion. "C'est Magnifique", "I Love Paris" and "Live and Let Live" have all become standards, and of the other lesser known songs, MacLaine's drunken "Come Along With Me" is the most amusing. There's an Adam and Eve ballet, an Apache Dance (of course!) and the wittiness of Porter's lyrics which reflects his "Parisian" era seen earlier on Broadway in shows like "Fifty Million Frenchmen" and "Paris" which claimed some of his more risqué lyrics. All in all, there's nothing special about this likable but over-stuffed piece of fluff, but the performers all put their best foot forward (or dancing shoes) and the direction by Walter Lang is swift in spite of the running time. While this may not stand out as a classic among the golden age of movie versions of Broadway musicals, it certainly doesn't rank up there with some of the disasters, either.

... what have they done to your wonderful Broadway show? Answer; about what you'd expect from a Hollywood that had a congenital aversion to transposing Broadway musicals to the screen untampered with so that, for example, a family from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, who went to NY on vacation and saw, for example, The Pajama Game, on Broadway could return home secure in the knowledge that the movie version they saw at their local movie theatre a couple of years later would NOT be the show they saw on Broadway.Frank Sinatra appeared in Five movie versions of Broadway musicals during his career and NONE of them was wholly satisfactory, mostly because of meaningless tampering. Higher and Higher, for example, retained only ONE number from the Rodgers and Hart Broadway show and that one, Disgustingly Rich, was a minor number; on the other hand the film did give Sinatra two 'hits' in A Lovely Way To Spend An Evening and I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night. On The Town also jettisoned a sizable portion of the Broadway score, including Lonely Town, and added stuff that was one step above total garbage. Guys and Dolls was by far the most faithful to the Broadway original but even then they jettisoned the 'big' ballad, I've Never Been In Love Before (as well as A Bushel And A Peck) but they DID prevail on the original composer, Frank Loesser, to supply new material (Adelaide, A Woman In Love); Pal Joey suffered a bad case of both jettisoning and interpolating disparate songs by the same writers (Rodgers and Hart) so that Happy Hunting Horn, Do It The Hard Way, In Our Little Den Of Iniquity, What Is A Man, Plant You Now, Dig You Later, all went out the window and were replaced - if that's the word - by There's A Small Hotel, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, My Funny Valentine and The Lady Is A Tramp. Which brings us to Can-Can. Cole Porter went to great pains to replicate the Sound of Parisian Music Hall circa 1890 - a fact I mentioned in my review of the execrable Moulin Rouge, which made absolutely NO concession to its time frame - so it is ironic that Fox elected to discard such Porter gems as Allez-vous en, I Am In Love, Never Give Anything Away, Ev'ry Man Is A Stupid Man, Never, Never Be An Artist, all of which had the FEEL of the period, in favour of You Do Something To Me, Just One Of Those Things, Let's Do It, which are totally out of place in the context of the story and time. They also 'created' a part for Sinatra that didn't exist in the show and he was allowed to PLAY the Sinatra for which he is best known, hip, cool, ring-a-ding ding (at one point Louis Jourdan even SAYS ring-a-ding ding - in 1896, yet - when describing the Sinatra character to Shirley MacLaine). I write as a lifetime admirer of both Sinatra AND Cole Porter so I was doubly disappointed with this travesty. Ironically the BEST Screen musical in which Sinatra ever appeared was High Society, also the work of Cole Porter and DOUBLY ironically it was so successful that it became s Stage musical with - you've guessed it - several EXTRA Porter numbers interpolated. Can-Can had the potential to be an outstanding film musical instead it is little more than mediocre.

Shirley MacLaine is a delight as the owner/operator of an 1895 Paris Night Club. The problem: A new, "disgusting" dance craze called the "Can Can" has swept Paris, and Shirley's night club seems to be the only place that dares to perform it nightly. Money man Frank Sinatra, who also is the on-again-off-again fiancé of the owner, attempts to bribe the authorities to turn a blind eye to what's going on at the club. Law man Louis Jourdan also falls for Shirley, while an ever-wise Maurice Chevallier tries his best to play cupid.The musical numbers are wonderful, especially Shirley MacLaine's solo "Come Along With Me", The MacLaine/Sinatra duet "Let's Do It" and the grand finale "Can Can". -- This film cost 6 million dollars to produce, which was a lot in 1960. I'm glad they went through with it, because this is one of my favorite film musicals. They don't come much better than this!