This was Mamoulian's final film and another masterpiece like almost all the others. Here for a change he devotes himself to dancing and singing, this is colourful comedy and very enjoyable as such, making great fun of the cultural clashes between American superficiality and Russian communist orthodoxy. Cyd Charisse is a Russian commissar who is sent from Moscow to lecture three earlier emissaries to Paris who have fallen for the general decadent gaiety. Fred Astaire is the American, a showman who uses a serious Russian composer for common show music in a musical, and the mission of the Moscow emissaries and Cyd Charisse is to save the composer from American vulgarity and get him back to Russia.
It's Cyd Charisse who makes this film, she is overwhelmingly splendid all the way, keeping up her style without compromise, and gradually thawing in Paris, but in the very original way of breaking out into ballet dancing. She is all style, and she never loses ít. Mamoulian must have been aware of the tremendous possibilities of the cultural clashes between serious moral orthodoxy of communist Russia and American vulgar looseness and makes splendid use of the opportunity in one of the finest and most stylish final musicals of the 50s. Needless to say, Cole Porter's music adds to the outstanding high class musical standard.
It's Cyd Charisse who makes this film, she is overwhelmingly splendid all the way, keeping up her style without compromise, and gradually thawing in Paris, but in the very original way of breaking out into ballet dancing. She is all style, and she never loses ít. Mamoulian must have been aware of the tremendous possibilities of the cultural clashes between serious moral orthodoxy of communist Russia and American vulgar looseness and makes splendid use of the opportunity in one of the finest and most stylish final musicals of the 50s. Needless to say, Cole Porter's music adds to the outstanding high class musical standard.