Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, George Tobias Directed By: Rouben Mamoulian, Roy Mack Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 22, 2003 Running Time: 117 minutes Theatrical Release Date: July 18, 1957
Product Description: You'd think chilled borscht pulses in her veins. She's Nina Yoshenka a lovely yet severe Soviet envoy sent to Paris to rescue wayward comrades from the perils of champagne and capitalism. But there may be a thaw in Nina's cold war. She meets Steve Canfield a smoothly brash American who won't take nyet for an answer.Running Time: 117 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569562929
Amazon.com: Fred Astaire took one of his final musical turns in this delightful 1957 comedy, a cold war update of the classic Ninotchka. Cyd Charisse, having previously wrapped her endless legs around Fred in The Band Wagon, plays the Greta Garbo role: a humorless Soviet functionary who sternly refuses the allure of Paris… for a while, anyway. Like some of the first widescreen musicals, Silk Stockings feels a little slowed down by the horizontal format, but nothing can dim the sparkle of Astaire and Charisse, nor quench the razzmatazz of Janis Paige. Paige and Astaire assess the current state of movies by singing that films today need "glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope, and Stereophonic sound!" In the hands of Cole Porter, that phrase becomes wonderfully musical--and by the way, it's nice to see the composer identified with so many breezy 1930s songs staying au courant in the age of Sputnik and television. --Robert Horton
A Most Fitting Tribute to Charisse's Terpsichorean Talents With the passing of Cyd Charisse last week at age 86, it's worth seeking out what is probably her finest work on celluloid. Granted as an actress, she was bland, and as a singer, she was dubbed (this time by the sonorous-sounding Carol Richards). But as a dancer, she was extraordinary. Along with Vera-Ellen, the ballet-trained Charisse was in the top echelon of the female dancers that MGM showcased during the studio's golden years of which this film is one of its final stops. The clearest evidence of this claim can be found in the title tune when she dances with beauty and precision elegantly changing from her drab street clothes into silk and satin. It's a remarkable number, no small feat since her co-star is Fred Astaire. Directed by early musical maven Rouben Mamoulian (Love Me Tonight) in what turned out to be his last film, the movie also marks Astaire's swan song as a musical comedy leading man. Symbolically, he smashes his top hat at the end of his final solo number, "The Ritz Roll and Rock". The wear barely shows in his dancing where he pulls off some of his most acrobatic numbers, but other than the professionalism of the two leads, the inspiration seems sadly missing.
The film is a partial remake of Ernst Lubitsch's 1939 classic comedy, Ninotchka - in fact, some scenes are repeated verbatim - although certain elements have been altered to accommodate Cole Porter's musical score. This musical translation first showed up on Broadway two years earlier, but further revisions have obviously been made to tailor the story to the dancing talents of the leads. Charisse has the unenviable task of stepping into Greta Garbo's shoes as top Soviet envoy Ninotchka Yoschenko, who is sent to Paris to retrieve three lesser envoys swept up by the City of Lights. They had already botched their mission to lure famous Russian composer Peter Boroff back to the mother country. At the same time, American movie producer Steve Canfield wants Boroff to score his next picture, a musical bowdlerization of Tolstoy's War and Peace starring comically curvaceous Peggy Dayton, a parody of an Esther Williams-style swimming star whose been in the pool too long. As Dayton uses her feminine wiles to entice Boroff, Canfield tries to seduce Ninotchka, a far frostier proposition though the eventual thawing is inevitable. Porter's music tends to have that effect or so we're led to believe.
Playing another variation on the worldly photographer he played in the same year's Funny Face, Astaire is still at the top of his game, but his dance numbers are less elegant and appear markedly shorter than usual here. Charisse cannot compare to the legendary Garbo when it comes to line readings as a stoic communist. However, her dancing truly transcends - not only the title tune but also "The Red Blues", an impressive ensemble number showcasing Charisse in a variety of dance styles, and the two duets with Astaire to "All of You" - the first a romantic defrosting of Ninotchka and the second a jauntier, rhythmic pas-de-deux. I wish the rest of the film was as good, but sadly, the energy wavers and the pacing flags during its 117-minute running time. The rest of the cast is serviceable, in particular, Janis Paige on familiar ground as Peggy (nicely paired with Astaire on the energetically cynical "Stereophonic Sound") and George Tobias as the deadpan Soviet commissar. Peter Lorre (M) and Jules Munshin (Ozzie in On the Town) show up as two of the bumbling envoys. The 2003 DVD has some interesting extras beginning with a ten-minute short featuring a 2003 interview with the still-elegant Charisse in "Cole Porter in Hollywood: Satin and Silk". Because of the Porter tie-in, there is also a 1934 Bob Hope short, "Paree, Paree", a silly musical comedy with Hope wooing singer Dorothy Stone. Also included is the original theatrical trailer, as well as "Poet and Peasant Overture" with Alfred Wallenstein conducting the MGM symphony orchestra playing the Franz Von Suppe piece as an overture to the movie.
Don't miss this cha-cha routine! Besides featuring the talented Cyd Charrise and Fred Astaire, this film has a great dance routine featuring three girls as another reviewer quoted, "definitely know how to dance." These gals must have rehearsed with Fred for weeks just for this 3-minute routine but it adds significant value to the movie.
Dancers are Tybee Afra as Fifi (dark hair in red dress), Barrie Chase as Gabrielle (brunette in gold dress and long gloves), Betty Uitti as Suzette (the blonde in the dropped-waist beautiful dress).
Tybee is from Cuba and this Latina definitely has the cha-cha moves. Sadly she passed away in 1982. Barrie went on to be Fred Astaire's TV program partner. No other info on Betty.
What also makes this dance very spectacular are the beautiful dresses wore by Tybee, Barrie, and Betty. Such fashions are no longer seen in Hollywood these days which illustrate how much women's fashions have gone downhill since then. Compared to this, dance routines on VH1 these days are boring.
Would be great to see a presentation/tribute featuring Tybee, Barrie, and Betty at a PDS Gypsy Awards.
Smooth as silk This is the last musical Fred Astaire made and he did go out on a high note with this musical remake of Ninotchka. Fred Astaire is up to his usually high standard. His numbers with Cyd Charisse are sheer perfection. I agree with one of the early reivewers of this film who called for congress to mandate Astaire and Charisse to make a film every two years. Along with Astaire and Charisse, there is also Janis Page who steals every scene that is not nailed down (and sometimes even then).
While the plot of the movie is meant to follow that of the old Melvin Douglas Greta Garbo movie, this movie is a departure in many ways. First of all instead of a cache of jewels, the two protagonists argue over a Soviet composer, is he Russian or is he French. This sets things in motion. Since the jewels are out, so is the Countess Swana, instead there Janis Page who plays a kind of Esther Williams swimming musical star, Peggy Dayton who is trying to grow professionally by playing Empress Josephine in a crazy film version of "War and Peace" which apparently is not about "War and Peace." She is not so much a rival for Cyd Charisse, but a frequent and wonderful distraction. Her numbers like "Silk and Satin" and "Stereophnic Sound" are wonderful. The funniest number is "Ritz Roll and Rock" in which Fred Astaire attempts to get down in a kind of pastiche of teen rock and roll musical numbers popular at the time.
This is an excellent movie, loads of fun, with stand out performances by all concerned.
Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sound If they advertised Ninotchka with the immortal ad-line 'Garbo laughs!', they should have plugged this musical remake with the legend 'Lorre Dances!' The human goldfish shares two musical numbers as one of three Russian commissars sent after a runaway Russian composer who, horror of horrors, is considering composing the score for an American picture to be shot in Paris.
If his dancing is amusingly underwhelming, most of the rest of the numbers are in the charge of Fred Astaire as the playboy producer of Janis Paige's 'first non-swimming picture' - War and Peace (well, a bit of it). "How do you feel about Tolstoy?" ask the gentlemen of the press. "There's absolutely no truth to the rumours, we're just good friends," she replies between smacking the water out of her ears. Ninotchka (Charisse), the humourless Russian commissar they send after their original commissars, takes a more disapproving view. "This is an American picture. You're liable to have Napoleon win." Even if you haven't seen the original, it's not hard to guess which two characters fall in love.
Nonetheless, the film is surprisingly entertaininbg for a later MGM musical (Fred Astaire's last at the studio). Cole Porter delivers a strong score (minus the lyrics to the title number, here used as background to Charisse's big dance solo), Janis Paige delivers a more streetwise variation of Jean Hagen's dumb blonde from Singin' in theRain and the script delivers plenty of digs at the movies in general ("You know what prestige means?" "Yeah, pictures that don't make money."), CinemaScope in particular and Communism as a matter of course ("Get me a copy of 'Who's Still Who.'").
Mamoulian doesn't always know how to handle the Scope frame, ruining a potentially priceless early joke where Lorre coaches his comrades to smile by shooting only the back of his head and not making best use of the frame in Janis Paige and Fred Astaire's number celebrating 'Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sound', but elsewhere uses it well enough to make this widescreen version a particular treat if you've only seen the fullframe video or TV versions (the Russkies may have sent three commissars after Borov, but you'd only ever see two at one time on those!).
Silk Stockings A witty and warm Cold War romance, "Stockings" re-shapes Garbo's famous MGM comedy "Ninotchka" into a delightful music and dance-fest. Thanks to the romance of a Paris setting and a buttery Cole Porter score, détente between stars Astaire and Charisse develops quickly, followed by marvelous dancing routines. At age 57, Astaire is still a dazzling, graceful performer, while Charisse ably fills Garbo's shoes. Peter Lorre, in a rare comic turn, even vamps his way through the rollicking "Siberia." Irresistible entertainment.
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