Can-Can | |
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theatrical release poster
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Directed by | Walter Lang |
Produced by |
Jack Cummings Saul Chaplin |
Written by |
Dorothy Kingsley Charles Lederer |
Based on |
Abe Burrows (stage musical) |
Starring |
Frank Sinatra Shirley MacLaine Maurice Chevalier Louis Jourdan |
Music by | Cole Porter |
Cinematography | William H. Daniels |
Edited by | Robert L. Simpson |
Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox |
Release date
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Running time
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131 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $4,995,000 |
Box office | $4.2 million (US/ Canada rentals) |
Can-Can is a 1960 musical film made by Suffolk-Cummings productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Walter Lang, produced by Jack Cummings and Saul Chaplin, from a screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley and Charles Lederer, loosely based on the musical play by Abe Burrows with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, with some songs replaced by songs from earlier Porter musicals. Art direction was by Jack Martin Smith and Lyle R. Wheeler, costume design by Irene Sharaff and dance staging by Hermes Pan. The film was photographed in Todd-AO. It was, after Ben-Hur, the top grossing film of 1960, although it was a box office disappointment failing to make back its production costs.
The film stars Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Maurice Chevalier and Louis Jourdan, and introduced Juliet Prowse in her first film role. Sinatra, who was paid $200,000 along with a percentage of the film's profits, acted in the film under a contractual obligation required by 20th Century Fox after walking off the set of Carousel in 1955.
In the Montmartre district of Paris, a dance known as the can-can, considered lewd, is performed nightly at the Bal du Paradis, a cabaret where Simone Pistache is both a dancer and the proprietor. On a night when her lawyer and lover, Francois Durnais, brings his good friend, Chief Magistrate Paul Barriere, to the club, a raid is staged by police and the performers, including Simone, are placed under arrest.