FRENCH CAN-CAN Movie Review

Only the French Can!

In the Paris of 1888, a nightclub owner named Danglard (Jean Gabin) has fallen on hard times; he decides that the only way to restore himself to financial health is to revive the Can Can. To do it properly, he'll need to present it in a dazzling, spectacular cabaret, but since nothing already in existence is good enough, Danglard sets out to build the nightclub of his dreams—he will call it the Moulin Rouge. Of the trilogy of lushly colorful period films that Jean Renoir directed in the 1950s (The Golden Coach and Eléna et les Hommes were the others), French Can-Can may be the most purely and gloriously entertaining. What seems at first to be a subplot—Danglard's love affair with the dancer he wants to make into a star—culminates in the revelation of Danglard's true passion: his art. The sacrifice he is willing to make for that passion makes the opening night sequence at the Moulin Rouge into a powerful and surprisingly moving climax; we feel Renoir and Gabin speaking to us directly, and what had threatened to be just a glossy, polished entertainment is suddenly, magically transformed into a profoundly touching tribute to all artists, and all dreamers. Happily, French Can-Can was restored in 1985 to its full, colorful glory.

NEXT STOP … The Golden Coach, Children of Paradise, Singin'in the Rain

1955 93m/C FR Jean Gabin, Francoise Arnoul, Maria Felix, Jean-Roger Caussimon, Edith Piaf, Patachou; D: Jean Renoir. VHS.LV INT