Can-Can

1960
Approved
2h 11m

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

2.6K

YOUR RATING

Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Maurice Chevalier, and Louis Jourdan in Can-Can (1960)

Montmartre, 1896: the Can-Can, the dance in which the women lift their skirts, is forbidden. Nevertheless, Simone has it performed every day in her nightclub. Her employees use their female charms to let the representatives of law enforcement look the other way - and even attend the shows. Then the young ambitious judge Philippe Forrestier decides to bring this to an end. Will Simone manage to twist him round her little finger too? Her boyfriend, Francois, certainly doesn't like to watch her trying.

Play trailer2:25

1 Video

34 Photos

Comedy Musical

In 1896 Paris, a female nightclub proprietor fights against the forces of public morality for the right to feature her performers doing the risqué dance, the Can-Can.In 1896 Paris, a female nightclub proprietor fights against the forces of public morality for the right to feature her performers doing the risqué dance, the Can-Can.In 1896 Paris, a female nightclub proprietor fights against the forces of public morality for the right to feature her performers doing the risqué dance, the Can-Can.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

2.6K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 5 wins & 7 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 2:25

Official Trailer

Photos34

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
It is explained in the film that the can-can was considered a lewd and lascivious dance (in reality often performed without panties).

Goofs
About 34 minutes in, when Philipe tries to close the window in Simone's boudoir, the whole wall shakes as he struggles with the window, indicating that it is a set wall and not a real building.

Quotes
François Durnais: You look like a broken umbrella.

Crazy credits
Opening credits prologue: Montmartre-1896

Connections
Featured in Twentieth Century Fox: The First 50 Years (1997)

Soundtracks
I Love Paris
(uncredited)
Music by Cole Porter
Lyrics by Cole Porter
Sung by chorus over the beginning and end credits

User reviews39

Review

Featured review

6/10

"Can-Can" emerges as a flat soufflé

"Can-Can" is a feeble and obvious attempt to match the wit and high professional gloss of "Gigi." The cast even included Maurice Chevalier, still enjoying the quiet pleasures of old age as a tolerant judge named Paul Barriere, and Louis Jourdan, cast here as an upright young judge named Philippe Forrestier After Judge Forrestier becomes amorously involved with the café owner Simone Pistache (Shirley MacLaine), and legally involved with her shifty lawyer boyfriend (Frank Sinatra), he is no longer the same man

"Can-Can" is a musical film that virtually embodies the reasons for the decline of the genre in the sixties Except for its appropriately gaudy costumes and for the exuberant performance by dancer Juliet Prowse as a cancan girl, the musical is without joy or genuine style under Walter Lang's unfocused direction

The Cole Porter score reveals the composer at his most ersatz Parisian The two of the central roles are grotesquely miscast: Sinatra, who seems to have arrived to Paris by way of New Jersey, creates no discernible or even vaguely likable character in François MacLaine does well in the musical portions, but her Pistache is simply shrill and unappealing Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan work hard at injecting some life into the dull proceedings Chevalier with his trademark shrugged-shoulders, laissez-faire attitude toward life and love, expressed to such songs as "Live and Let Live" and "Just One of Those Things," and Louis Jourdan with the French charm he displayed so prominently in "Gigi."

For all their efforts, however, Can-Can emerges as a flat soufflé