Cole Porter’s LES GIRLS, as the billing has it, less Musical Comedy than Comedy-with-Music, tells its court case in three flashbacks using three different points of view, searching for the truth behind a libelous backstage memoir written by one of the three long-legged gals who once made up ‘Les Girls,’ a touring musical revue led by Gene Kelly. The ‘girls’ are Mitzi Gaynor, Taina Elg & Kay Kendall, and though its structure was lifted from Akira Kurosawa’s ROSHOMON, that classic couldn’t boast songs by Cole Porter or repartee from John Patrick. Thrillingly designed, staged & shot (George Cukor directing, with striking visual assistance from Gene Allen, George Hoyingen-Huene and Orry-Kelly’s Oscar-winning costumes), the superbly caught theatrical milieu and attic apartment the girls share, offer bizarre angles that engage Cukor and cinematographer Robert Surtees to find spirited CinemaScopic solutions. It’s one of those films where the sum is greater than its merely adequate parts: Patrick’s script not as witty as he thinks; Porter in obvious decline (though a fine ballad & a very funny risque song for The Girls). It’s really Kendall who makes (and steals) the film (she stole every film she was in), hitting a highpoint in a drunken Carmen parody.* And if Gaynor wasn’t Cukor’s first choice, at least he was able to tone down her exhausting perkiness.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Though Classic Hollywood musicals were on their way out, a ‘swelegant’ surge of Paris-centric examples were appearing all at once with GIRLS; Stanley Donen’s FUNNY FACE/’57; Rouben Mamoulian’s SILK STOCKINGS/’57 and Vincente Minnelli’s GIGI/’58, all setting new levels of visual sophistication.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Kendall, showing vocal chops to spare as she rips thru Carmen in a drunken state during one of the flashbacks, was needlessly (if nicely) dubbed by Betty Wand. Scheduling problems with recording sessions as her contract allowed her to fly back & forth L.A. to NYC where fiancé Rex Harrison was on-stage nightly in MY FAIR LADY?
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Kendall even more enchanting next year against husband Rex Harrison in THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE/’58. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-reluctant-debutante-1958.html
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