French Cancan
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jean Renoir
Written by	Jean Renoir André-Paul Antoine
Produced by	Louis Wipf
Starring	Jean Gabin Françoise Arnoul María Félix
Cinematography	Michel Kelber
Edited by	Borys Lewin
Music by	Georges Van Parys
Distributed by	Gaumont Film Company Criterion Collection
Release date	9 April 1955
Running time	104 minutes
Countries	France Italy
Language	French
Box office	4,075,306 admissions (France) [1]

French Cancan (also known as Only the French Can) is a 1955 French-Italian musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and Francoise Arnoul. Where Renoir's previous film Le Carosse d’or had celebrated the 18th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, this work is a homage to the Parisian café-concert of the 19th century with its popular singers and dancers. Visually, the film evokes the paintings of Edgar Degas and the Impressionists, including his own father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. ^[2] It also marked his return to France and to French cinema after an exile that began in 1940. ^[3]

It was shot at the Joinville Studios in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Max Douy.

Plot

In Paris in the 1890s, Henri Danglard owns a night club where the star turn is a belly dance by his mistress Lola. Going after the show one night to an old-fashioned dance hall in Montmartre, he sees people doing the cancan together and is struck by the suppleness and charm of a young laundry girl called Nini. He persuades her to take dancing lessons for a new venture he is planning. As his club has failed and Lola has left him, his idea is to open another place with a troupe of glamorous girls performing the cancan. Naming it the Moulin Rouge, its opening night is a thunderous success.

Cast

Critical reception

François Truffaut reviewed the film in Arts magazine in May 1955 and called it a milestone in the history of colour of cinema. "Every scene is a cartoon in movement [-] Madame Guibole's dance class reminds us of a Degas sketch." Whilst Truffaut did not consider it as important a film as Rules of the Game or The Golden Coach, he nevertheless praised it as an example of Renoir "as vigorous and youthful as ever." This affirmative response was not shared by Bernard Chardère however, writing in Positif, who criticised the music, the sets, even the final cancan scene. "The phoniness of the rue Lepic, with its vegetable carts and piles of artificial stones is painful to look at. The actors act. The audience gets bored. The dance rehearsals are Degas all right, but the kind that appears on Post Office calendars." ^[7]

The film received the Grand Prix de l'Academie du Cinéma in 1956. ^[8] Roger Ebert added French Cancan to his "Great Movies" list in 2012. ^[9]

References

External links

• French Cancan at IMDb
• French Cancan at AllMovie
• French Cancan an essay by Andrew Sarris at the Criterion Collection