Moulin Rouge (1952)

Directed by John Huston. Starring José Ferrer, Colette Marchand, Suzanne Flon, Katherine Kath, Claude Nollier, Lee Montague, Walter Crisham, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Muriel Smith, Mary Claire, Georges Lannes.

Ferrer locates scraps of sad dignity as stunted bohemian painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but otherwise remains indistinctly one-note in his tragically romantic dreams, consistently thwarted by poor self-image. Lush, vibrant trappings for a screen faux-biography, but it’s the colors and costumes and makeup you’re likely to remember more than any character or performance, including a second role inhabited by Ferrer—Touluse-Lautrec’s stern, authoritarian father. Huston’s screenplay (with an assist by Anthony Veiller), from the Pierre La Mure novel, falls into traps of overwritten monologues in between more freewheeling and humorous passages, but his direction is inventive when crowd control is needed. Indeed, the movie never tops the extended opening sequence set at the titular burlesque house, a flurry of bright images and excited sounds among fiery rival performers, aroused revelers, can-can dancers, etc. (Conversely, it was the overblown, assaulting spectacle of the 2001 movie musical of the same name that made that pic such an unmitigated disaster.) Why, though, did Huston and editor Ralph Kemplen decide to give Gabor closeups when she sings—the dubbing is shockingly bad. Marcel Vertès won two Oscars for his costumes and art direction, the latter shared with Paul Sheriff. Horror film buffs may appreciate seeing Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in small roles prior to their rise to stardom in Hammer films.

61/100