Can-Can

Cole Porter's Gay Paree musical about the introduction in Montmartre in 1896 of the notorious Can-Can dance, is brought to the screen, filtered through a Rat Pack sensibility. Shirley MacLaine stars as Simone Pistache, the perky and vivacious owner of a Parisian café, who, aided by her swinging boyfriend François Durnais (Frank Sinatra), is trying to keep her establishment from being closed down by the Paris authorities because of Simone's insistence on treating her patrons to the Can-Can, the salacious dance outlawed by French law. Paul Barrière is a kindly French judge who graciously looked the other way, but another hard-nosed judge, Philippe Forrestier, turns up the heat on Simone to close her café. That is, until Simone turns up the heat on him, and Philippe falls hard for Simone. (Paul Brenner)