To celebrate Cole Porter’s birthday I watched Silk Stockings. The 1957 film is based on the 1955 Broadway musical suggested by Ninotchka. Cole Porter wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway musical and a few new songs for the movie. For a musical there is everything in this film: jazz, ballet, long songs, samba, Broadway and rock and role. It is great to see Peter Lorre sing and dance in a film. The film stars Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse (as Ninotchka) and Janis Page.
Some of the songs, I don’t know all the titles, song lyrics in quotes:
Too Bad We Can’t Go Back to Russia (Samba beat)
“Urge to merge with the splurge of the spring”
Stereophonic Sound - chorus “glorious Technicolor, breathtaking cinemascope and stereophonic sound”
“Hey diddle diddle with middle class kisses”
Look of You - “It’s not a passing fancy or a fancy pass”
Satin & Silk (jazz seduction)
Josephine - “Agitating eyes, titillating thighs, lubricating lips, undulating hips, real cool and low”
Siberia (irony cheery song, with a sad actual meaning)
Red Blues (Broadway style climatic number)
Ritz, roll and rock - “all they do around the clock”
Silk Stockings (ballet)
Fated To Be Mated (movie style dancing)
On the DVD there was a short film Paree, Paree. Staring Bob Hope with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Bob Hope sings You Do Something To Me and the song Primitive Man is featured with a French Apache dance.
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