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Fred Astaire took one of his final musical turns in this delightful 1957 comedy, a cold war update of the classic Ninotchka. Cyd Charisse, having previously wrapped her endless legs around Fred in The Band Wagon, plays the Greta Garbo role: a humorless Soviet functionary who sternly refuses the allure of Paris… for a while, anyway.Like some of the first widescreen musicals, Silk Stockings feels a little slowed down by the horizontal format, but nothing can dim the sparkle of Astaire and Charisse, nor quench the razzmatazz of Janis Paige. Paige and Astaire assess the current state of movies by singing that films today need ''glorious Technicolor, breathtaking CinemaScope, and Stereophonic sound!'' In the hands of Cole Porter, that phrase becomes wonderfully musical and by the way, it's nice to see the composer identified with so many breezy 1930s songs staying au courant in the age of Sputnik and television. |  |
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