Can-Can

Dir: Walter Lang

1960

****

1960's Can-Can was a bit of a hodge podge of ideas, making it a bit of an eclectic musical. Jack Cummings (Louis B. Mayer's nephew) and Saul Chaplin (musical legend) produced the film based on Abe Burrows' Broadway show and Dorothy Kingsley's subsequent re-write. The Cole Porter songs originally used were replaced with more of his better known hits and each character's role completely changed. It is one of the last big studio musicals of its kind, 1961's West Side Story taking the genre to a whole new level. Some of the dance sequences are rather ahead of their time and quite risque too, as they should be given the subject matter, but it does suffer a certain formulaic approach. That said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Shirley MacLaine gives the film all the light, buzz and energy it needs to succeed, with great support from Frank Sinatra, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan. Sinatra was contractually obliged to appear in Can-Can after walking from the set of 1955's Carousel but he agreed to star in the film before any legal threats were made as he'd loved what Dorothy Kingsley did with her 1957 film Pal Joey (that he also starred in) and he agreed to appear before the script was written. Maurice Chevalier and a young Juliet Prowse both delight in their supporting roles but I think overall it is Louis Jourdan's performance that is greatly overlooked. Louis Jourdan was Omar Sharif before Omar Sharif was, I often wonder if he would have taken his roles had Sharif not become an actor and stared in Dr. Zhivago. I love a good musical and while Can-Can isn't the greatest, it's a hell of a lot of fun.