Silk Stockings

source: Silk Stockings

With the passing of Cyd Charisse last week at age 86, it's worth seeking out what is probably her finest work on celluloid. As an actress, she was bland. As a singer, she was dubbed (this time by the sonorous-sounding Carole 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 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 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 has that effect or so we are 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 featurette 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.

After an adaption to Broadway as the final stage musical of Cole Porter's career, Ernest Lubitsch's acclaimed film Ninotchka, now Silk Stockings is getting its film treatment. Silk Stockings ran for 478 performances on Broadway in the 1955-1956 season and starred Don Ameche and Hildegarde Neff in the roles originally played by Melvyn Douglas and Greta Garbo. For reasons I don't understand Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder's names are not given credit here. I distinctly heard a lot of lines from the original Ninotchka that came from them. I also heard some of the acid barbs of George S. Kaufman who worked with Abe Burrows on the book for Silk Stockings. Most of Cole Porter's score makes it intact to the screen, but since the male and female leads were now dancers, Porter wrote Fated To Be Mated and The Ritz Roll and Rock for Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. The latter is one of my favorite Astaire numbers from his film. Porter who was no mean satirist himself was having a bit of fun at the new trend in music called Rock and Roll in a spoof of Rock Around the Clock. The plot from the original Ninotchka was changed and updated from the time of the pre-World War II Soviet Union of Stalin to the Cold War. Commissar Ninotchka is no longer concerned with selling jewels of the former nobility, she's negotiating with an American producer who wants a famous Russian composer to score his film adaption of War and Peace. Curiously enough War and Peace did make it to the screen the previous year. Astaire as the producer also has a sexy, but very tough minded star in Janis Paige to contend with. Janis has her moments on screen with the song Josephine and singing and dancing with Astaire in Stereophonic Sound. The big hit song from the score, All of You is sung and danced elegantly by Fred and Cyd. As usual Cyd's vocals were dubbed in this case by Carole Richards who used to be a regular for a while on Bing Crosby's radio show. Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, and Alexander Granach are the three commissars who Ninotchka has to bail out as in the original film. Granach repeats his role from Ninotchka. But George Tobias sets a record as the only player to appear in both film and the Broadway version. In the original Ninotchka he was the Soviet Embassy Official who balks at granting Melvyn Douglas a visa. On stage and on screen he plays the boss of Garbo/Neff/Charisse, a part that was done in the original Ninotchka by Bela Lugosi. The comedy is a lot more broad than in the Lubitsch film, but with that Cole Porter music and the charm and dancing of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, Silk Stockings is a film you should not miss.

Astaire too old! Gimme a break. He danced with a polish that was always present. Charisse should have been grateful for his presence and I suspect that she was. A characiture of the USSR and America of the Cold War period? Yes indeed, and it was almost as good as "One, Two, Three" in its dialogue and situation. Its sensuality as presented in its dance numbers far exceeded the 1939 version and all comers of the same subject. I had no problem watching a 56 year old Astaire romancing a 36 year old Charisse. As a matter of fact, I found the pair quite sensuous. I have often wondered why in the final dance scene Cyd's costume skirt was switched to a cullote in the middle of the scene. The switch was not seamless as it was very noticeable. But, all in all I give this delightful musical a rating of 8 on a 0 to 10 scale. Dave

It is Cole Porter meeting Ernst Lubitsch's best recalled film, NINOTCHKA. Up-dated to be sure, but still an affective comedy about rival systems of politics, social structure, and economics. In the original, a Soviet economic mission is trying to use some jewelry that was originally owned by a Grand Duchess to purchase needed agricultural equipment. This is jettisoned in the new version. Fred Astaire (Steve Canfield) is a movie producer who is planning a production of WAR AND PEACE with Janis Paige as his star (she is Peggy Dayton, a noted Hollywood swim star, a la Esther Williams), who will play the Empress Josephine. Interesting point: Josephine does not appear in WAR AND PEACE - keep that in mind. Canfield wants to have a score by Russia's leading composer, Peter Ilyitsch Boroff (Wim Sonneveld) who is currently in Paris with a culture mission that is under Jules Munshin, Peter Lorre, and Alexander Granach. Their boss, George Tobias (promoted since NINOTCHKA - he's now a commissar) sends Cyd Charisse (Ninotchka Yoschencko) to keep the other three and Boroff under control. Tobias has reason to be upset. Not only is Canfield trying to corrupt the culture mission (not too difficult there) but also Boroff, who falls for Peggy Dayton (as Canfield hopes). It follows closely the pursuit and "corruption" of Ninotchka, but there is one aspect that is shown here that was barely touched upon in the 1939 film. There Swanna's cynical use of the jewelry as a bargaining chip to keep Leon from Ninotchka sort of suggests that pure capitalism has it's drawbacks when in the wrong hands. In SILK STOCKINGS it is the cavalier use of culture for a fast buck that gets a go over. Boroff's masterpiece is called "Overture to a tractor", but Canfield has it changed into a song for Peggy "Jo,Jo, Jo, Jo, Josephine...commonly called Jo". Whatever one thinks of music in honor of inanimate objects, Boroff's work represents serious art. Ninotchka and the others (including Boroff) are furious, and dismiss the glib excuse Steve comes up with (many other popular songs are based on classic tunes). They leave for Russia, and the rest of the musical follows Steve's attempts (like Leon's before him) to get Ninotchka back. The Porter score here (with the score for CAN-CAN) were the last two really first rate scores Porter composed, but both were composed for the stage productions of the musicals and transposed to the screen. Here the title song (originally sung by Don Ameche on stage, but here by Astaire) is one of the best numbers, as is "Glorious Technicolor", where Astaire and Paige describe all the cinematography gimmicks used to draw in the audience (leading up to "sterophonic sound", which the film sound track blasts out). Munchkin, Lorre, and Granach have two big numbers, the second (SIBERIA) being one of Porter's best comic pieces as the three culture mission people look gloomily to returning to Russia, and possibly being sent to Siberia ("Have you seen our choice bill of fare...Please try the fillet of polar bear!"). There is even a second piece by "Boroff" composed in Russia, "I've got the Red Blues!" which uses forbidden rock and roll. If it does not have the fine Lubitsch elegance and "touch", SILK STOCKINGS still shows a first rate handling on it's own.

Rarely have I seen my wife and oldest daughter hate a film as much as they hated "Silk Stockings"! I didn't think it was that bad, but I did understand SOME of their feelings. It sure should have been a lot better! "Silk Stockings" is a musical remake of "Ninotchka". Now that is a serious problem, as this Ernst Lubitsch film is a wonderful classic--a film that is very, very hard to top. But the film didn't even come close to the quality of the original for many reasons--though the biggest one is the music. Too often, the romance or comedy of the film grinds to a severe halt when the musical numbers intrude--and they did intrude! Few of the song and dance numbers were that good or had much to do with the film, but the tempo was even more seriously a problem. While the film is a sweet little plot--the songs are often HUGE production numbers. The fit is all wrong. And you know it's a problem when Fred Astaire is totally lost in the process! On top of all this, the characters are way too cartoony and silly to work. Overall, I see no need to see this one considering that "Ninotchka" is light-years better!

There have been quite a few Cole Porter musicals transplanted from Broadway to Hollywood film, but, they usually lose the Cole Porter songs in the process. Silk Stockings is one of the few which made it to the silver screen with the great music and lyrics of Porter intact. Silk Stockings is a joyous musical version of the Garbo film Ninotchka. The stars, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charise and Janis Page shine. The singing and dancing are superb. Watch for the dance sequence with Fred and Cyd where her skirt magically changes from a plain skirt, to one with a pleat in the middle to kulots and then back to a skirt with a pleat. It is one of the most incredible edit jobs on film, totally seamless. All in all this is one of the best of the MGM musicals. Silk Stockings is an all around great musical film. I doubt you will be unable to hum Stereophonic Sound for days after viewing it.

I'm grateful for any Cyd Charisse appearance, even if it is a bungled musical with a by now distractingly ugly Fred Astair and desperate Peter Lorre. I'm not expert enough in musicals to see precisely what went wrong and how it could have been fixed. But this gives the impression of tiredness: the numbers don't have any energy or cleverness: the cinematic nature of the thing is lacking; and the story (even though it worked before) is insufficient to move things along. This isn't quite Cyd: she is made to act with an oddly stilted accent. But she has one rather terrific dance sequence (thankfully not choreographed by the then lazy Hermes Pan) where she transforms herself from the grim appara-chick to a "modern" woman, going through two stages of underwear that couldn't possibly have been worn under the final getup. Its the centerpiece of the whole thing and presumably where the title comes from. Oh, and there's another redhead here. This was in the heyday of reds (Technicolor, you see) so we got a sexy one and a library-type one. If you rent the DVD, there is a far, far superior short musical on it: "Paree, Paree." By the way, this is where Jim Critchfield got his characters of Boris and Natasha for the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons — the looks of course, but even the names are similar. And a second incidental comment regarding Paris. France performed very badly in the war, what with embarrassing military capitulation, eager collaboration with the Germans, and native antisemitism. So (until France decided to side with the Soviet Union in the sixties) there was a deliberate policy of the Americans and French to rehabilitate the nation. And the centerpiece of that was the invention of Paris as a place for romance. The French never thought of it that way; its an American, mostly Hollywood invention. The French would have thought of Paris as a center of thought, art, industry, commerce, rather like Americans think of New York. Since after the war (and mostly since) it has none of these things, it has reinvented itself as a theme park for lovers. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

I have been reading the comments on this film as part of my revision as we are studying this picture on my uni course for our end of unit exam. I have been astounded at the number of ppl that have raved about how good this musical is. I felt decidedly uncomfortable throughout in regards to the political message it portrayed, it seems to confuse communism and puritanism, just because they didn't have silk stockings didn't mean they weren't allowed to dance or sing! it takes the anti communist propaganda too far for my liking and spoils what would have been a reasonable musical. I know political feeling, especially in America was different in 1957 and that it was a remake of an existing film but i still think the film suffers for it, as i couldn't concentrate on any of the sweeping elegance that other viewers have commented on. (with the exception of the silk stocking scene itself, despite my objections to it's politics it is a beautiful and seductive scene)

Like so many films produced in the mid- to late Fifties and early Sixties, when CinemaScope and other widescreen processes enhanced a production, directors and cinematographers were usually unafraid to take full advantage of the wider ratio. They weren't so concerned about how the final product would look on TV's square screens and probably didn't anticipate the visual desecration of "formatting" and "pan-and-scan" reductions. So it's nice to know that this musical, filmed when M-G-M was about to throw in the musical towel and bid an undeserved farewell to the Arthur Freed "unit," can now be enjoyed again close to its original theatrical aspect ratio on DVD. Astaire and Charisse are a team to be treasured (so wonderful together in "The Band Wagon" a few years earlier, under Minnelli's astute guidance) and all of the others listed in this film's credits are professionals of the highest caliber. Astaire has a fun solo (with a chorus of top-hatted dancers) in the "Ritz Roll 'n' Rock" number; Cyd gets to put those legendary legs to dazzlingly opulent use in the "Red Blues" production show-stopper; and even Janis Paige gets to raunch it up in an amusing example of clever Cole Porter risking something risqué (for its day) in a song about the Empress Josephine, "commonly known as Jo"! And there's that first reel number, "Stere-oh-phonic Sound," that cleverly spoofs the contemporary moviemakers' attempts to lure people from their TV sets with widescreens, sound coming from every corner of the auditorium and eye-glazing color processes. It may not be prime Porter but it's all far-and-away more fun and enjoyable than anything we're likely to get today with the threatened revival of the movie musical with barbarians like Baz Luhrmann given the directorial reins.