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The precedent is La Chienne, and Renoir returns the compliment in French Cancan. John Huston kicks things off with a bit of dazzle, la Belle Époque in full swing, a jumpin' view of the titular Parisian cabaret. A panning shot of the countertop is angled for a flurry of hands reflected on the ceiling mirror, for full bodies there are fervid dancers hurling themselves across the floor and pulling each other's hair ("I hope you split your breeches!"). Toulouse-Lautrec (José Ferrer) watches them from the sidelines with cognac bottle and charcoal stick in hand, the tablecloth is his canvas. The sawed-off aesthete pines for the woman who will see him "tall and straight," the jittery demimondaine (Colette Marchand) ain't it but she'll do on a lonesome night. "I am a painter of the streets, and of the gutter." Huston the adventurous colorist has all of this at his fingertips: The blue pallor of a room slowly filling with asphyxiating gas modulates into suffused greens and thick inky textures as inspiration is revived, morning light fills the screen. The freedom of Bohemia is an illusion (Christopher Lee's Seurat nods amusedly), success points to stodginess as the rowdy Moulin Rouge grows plush and respectable. "The Louvre—that graveyard!" A beady eye through the pince-nez, down in his cups at the gallery opening, enduring the paternal critic, turning his wit against the sensible model (Suzanne Flon) and himself. The ruined bawd by the bateau-mouche returns in Fat City, the turning camera on the Venus de Milo is repeated in Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia. Absinthe spiral and deathbed pageant, "you must allow an artist to take certain liberties." Minnelli (Lust for Life) and Becker (Montparnasse 19) offer sharp ripostes, to say nothing of Russell's The Music Lovers. Cinematography by Oswald Morris. With Zsa Zsa Gabor, Claude Nollier, Katherine Kath, Mary Clare, Lee Montague, Walter Crisham, Harold Kasket, Peter Cushing, Muriel Smith, and Tutte Lemkow1.
--- Fernando F. Croce |