Les Girls (1957)

Don't Believe the Hype

Admirable film.

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

George Cukor directed one of the all-time great musicals in the Best (Judy Garland) version by far of A Star Is Born and Cole Porter was one of the all-time great songwriters so together they should have turned out a masterpiece. Helas! Hard to say what went wrong. None of the Porter Broadway shows that were adapted for the screen really worked and that includes two versions of Anything Goes, Dubarry Was A Lady, Panama Hattie, Let's Face It, Kiss Me Kate, Can Can and Silk Stockings. The latter was released the same year as Les Girls and had they waited for Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse to wind up Silk Stockings, deep- sixed Kelly and Elg Les Girls might have given Porter a more successful swan song - he did, in fact, pen one final score, the made-for-TV musical Aladdin the following year. With only five songs it weighs in with four less than the previous years' masterpiece High Society, written directly for the screen, and even one of those, Ca, C'est L'Amour was a recycling of C'est Magnifique from Can Can. Anything Cole Porter wrote is worth hearing but this remains a disappointment.

There are fabulous talents involved in this film, but the result is not as good as I expected. Cole Porter's songs are surprisingly undistinguished, and there's not quite as much singing and dancing as there could be. The settings and costuming are great however, and keep the eye entertained. Love those 50's wasp waists and bouffant skirts! The screenplay is sharp, the acting good, and the intriguing story keeps bowling along.Predictable it's not. Kay Kendall displays her talent for comedy, but for me the standout is Mitzi Gaynor. She is a snappy little actress and a lithe and fluid dancer. In this vehicle she outclasses Gene Kelly who falls short of his usual charm. Taina Elg (who?)is pretty enough, but to me does not have any charisma. Overall, while witty and entertaining, the story is lacking in warmth and romance. Maybe it's too witty: the stuff about relationships is pretty cynical. To summarize, it falls short on delivering the magic of the great musicals. You won't fall asleep, but you won't be singing or dancing around the living room either. 6 out of 10.

Two ex-members of a female dancing trio, once partnered with a hard-working Lothario, have differing versions of what happened the night someone left the gas on in the girls' Parisian apartment. Handsome Robert Surtees cinematography and a funny performance by Kay Kendall nearly makes this overstretched bauble worth watching. The first two variations on the tale are tolerable, but the third (required to give star Gene Kelly more screen-time) is simply too much. Cole Porter provided the songs, none of which sparkle--and one, "Ladies in Waiting", which is surprisingly tasteless. The production is splashed with color, yet director George Cukor seems to have lost his snap, particularly in the early stages when the story exposition is laughably clumsy. Kelly performs in a much lower key than usual (which is a plus), however the choreography is lazy and fails to show off his dancing talents to an exciting advantage. ** from ****

Cole Porter's final film score and next to last music written for any media is Les Girls. The same team producer Sol Seigal and writer John Patrick who produced and wrote the adaption of The Philadelphi Story for High Society worked with Porter again and this time George Cukor was directing. It's a good film, but I've got the feeling that it could have been a whole lot better. One of the criticisms that Porter used to get annoyed with was the perennial 'it isn't up to Cole Porter's standard' and then you'd look in the score and see a lot of classics. Can-Can is the best example of that. But in the case of Les Girls Porter admitted this to be true. According to the George Eells biography of Porter, he was starting to suffer the decline in health that would eventually end his life in 1964. He did have surgery to bypass an ulcer and was not feeling up to par.Still the numbers are mostly for a vaudeville act, Barry Nichols and Les Girls so they're serviceable to a bright Rashomon like plot. The members of the act are Gene Kelly and the girls are Mitzi Gaynor, Taina Elg, and Kay Kendall. Kay's written a memoir that includes an alleged suicide attempt by Elg and she's suing her in an English court. As we get testimony from Elg, Kendall, and Kelly, they all give out with different versions. It's also clear he had his fling with all of them at one time despite his alleged no fraternization policy.Elg has the best ballad of the score, Ca C'est L'Amour which sounds like something that might have been written for Can-Can and discarded. Cole Porter discards are better than a lot of composer's best efforts. The sparkling Kay Kendall was never shown to better advantage on the screen than with You're Just Too Too in a duet with Kelly. And Cole Porter wickedly satirizes Marlon Brando and The Wild One in Why Am I So Gone About That Gal with Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor.In addition to this being Cole Porter's last film score, this film also marks Gene Kelly's last full blown musical. He did do other musical numbers in films like What A Way To Go and Young Girls From Rochefort and Xanadu, but this was the last musical he did. They were getting way too expensive to make, something Kelly learned from behind the camera when he directed Hello Dolly.Even with a score that Cole Porter himself wasn't thrilled with, Les Girls is still a fresh bit of film making. And since it's original to the screen, the Porter wit is not edited severely. All in all four great musical performers, three of them Les Girls.