Moulin Rouge (1952) Reviews

• Huston's "Moulin Rouge" was nominated for seven Oscars and walked away with two trophies...

  Nazi_Fighter_David2008-04-06

  This romanticized treatment of the life of artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is literally one of the most colorful films ever made… All the hues and colors in the palette go whizzing by in the Parisian streets, country homes, and cabarets of the late 19th century… Can-Can girls in reds and blues, against a misty brown-gold backdrop, flourish their silks and feathers in the face and soul of dwarfed painter who could recreate their essence on canvas, yet never possess them physically… It is the tragedy of Lautrec's (Jose Ferrer) life which bounces around the rainbow framework… The cruel prostitute (Colette Marchand) to whom he gave his love and the young woman (Suzanne Flon) who befriended the artist motivate the narrative, from the crippling-fall in the home of his father to the death-fall in the dirty-looking saloon… Brilliant work by Ferrer, fine support by Marchand and Flon, and the gaiety of Zsa Zsa Gabor cap the film…

• Beautiful, engrossing drama

  Oblomov_812000-08-24

  Anyone who does not think that John Huston has a broad range as a film-maker needs to watch this and "The Dead." While he spent much of his career making gritty adventure-dramas like "The Maltese Falcon," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," and "The Man who Would be King," he also took the time to create well-crafted pieces like "Moulin Rouge." Jose Ferrer has an astounding, almost unbelievable, performance as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a painter from late-1800's Paris who was crippled in his childhood by a horse that ran over his legs. He now spends his days in the raunchy restaurant/dance hall populated by artists, dancers, drunks, and vagrants, sketching away at posters and portraits. Ferrer brings out Henri completely, depicting him as a man who tried to run from his problems using his art and his alcohol. The film itself has a tenancy to be a little too flashy and gaudy at moments, but Huston manages to keep most of it grounded in the dramatics of the characters. Collete Marchand is also very noteworthy for her performance as a prostitute that befriends Henri. Marcel Vertes' production and costume design won well-deserved Oscars. A genuinely moving film, a work of art in its own right.

• PROFOUNDLY MOVING and BRILLIANT; Ferrer was never better!

  Kirasjeri2001-06-04

  With the appearance of the 2001 movie entitled "Moulin Rouge" (see review) I went back to the Jose Ferrer version to add a review of it. Note that both films are entirely different in style and purpose; to equate them is to compare apples to pineapples. This version, so well directed by John Huston, is not a wild frenetic musical but a very touching and moving character study of the great artist Henri Toulose-Lautrec, whose legs were badly mishappen and shortened by an accident early in his life leaving him basically a midget. His frustration at his appearance, and unattractiveness to women, forever scarred his short life that was curtailed by drink and other excess. Jose Ferrer was superb as this tortured yet brilliant soul; Ferrer also played expertly Henri's powerful father descended from French nobility. "Moulin Rouge" began with a long scene in the club itself filled with dancing, exciting music, beautiful women, good friends,and lots of drink. The sets and costumes and were colorful and beautiful. After about half an hour we follow Henri home - and we see him, alone, so short and vulnerable, walking all alone through the dark streets of Paris. The contrast was most effective. Such was the REALITY of Henri's life. The remainder of the film focused on his unsatisfactory relationship with a prostitute he befriends, along with flashbacks to his privileged wealthy childhood. Perhaps the most emotional scene was at the end. With Henri dying in his bed his father there tells him that he is the first living artist to be honored by having his work displayed at the Louvre. As he appealed for forgiveness for his previously harsh treatment, saying "I didn't understand", all Henri's old friends from the Moulin Rouge, as spirits (or hallucinations), visited him. Like with the fine movie about Van Gogh, "Lust for Life", this even better movie is not necessarily always true to historical fact, but it is a cinematic classic. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

• John Huston's Greatest

  Hugh-141999-04-10

  This haunting and most beautiful of films is certainly John Huston's most underrated work. Having seen the film many years ago, I was astonished at how well the film has stood the test of time. The opening 20 minute Can-Can sequence is wonderfully vibrant and colourful and brilliantly captures the atmosphere, thus setting the tone for the great drama to follow. This story of the dwarfish artist Toulouse Lautrec is based on a novel by Pierre La Mure and set in 19th Century Montmartre. Jose Ferrer performs one of the greatest roles in cinema so convincingly and poignantly I was completely enthralled by this most moving of biopics. Colette Marchand as the prostitute is outstanding and Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing impress in small roles. Cinematography by Oswald Morris is some of the finest ever and brilliantly captures the atmosphere and the music by Georges Auric will have you whistling for weeks. This masterpiece should be reissued on the Big Screen and I would urge everyone who loves classic cinema to see it. Score: 10/10

• The Most Beautiful Ghost Story Ever Filmed?

  Holdjerhorses2005-08-31

  Certainly one of the most beautiful ghost stories filmed in Technicolor ("The Innocents," with Deborah Kerr, perhaps takes the prize for black and white.) "Moulin Rouge" the film is itself the ghost of Lautrec's life and art. An almost minimalist script (minimalist writing being as daring for mainstream Hollywood in 1952 as the Can-Can was for fin de siecle Paris) supports and moves us through the exhilarating three-dimensional world of Lautrec's paintings come to life. Meticulous production design, set decoration and even costumes were created by Marcel Vertes (whose hands can be seen sketching for Jose Ferrer in closeup). Schiaparelli designed Zsa Zsa Gabor's costumes. Oswald Morris lit and photographed the sumptuous sets. The synthesis of these artists miraculously captures the essence of Lautrec's art -- yet still is but a ghost of his "real" world and life. Each scene plays like one of Lautrec's sketches or paintings: not an extraneous line or element . . . seemingly simple and obvious, yet rich and deep and true. The artful script is credited to Anthony Veiller and John Huston from Pierre La Mure's novel (a ghost of a life in words alone). Collette Marchand as the prostitute, Marie Charlet, with whom Lautrec falls in love, gives one of the most indelible and convincing performances ever captured -- almost as if Huston had found a turn-of-the-century French "child of the gutters" who happened to be a brilliant actress, instead of vice versa. Tempestuous, vulnerable, enchanting, exasperating, transparent -- Marie is a phantom of love; not the real thing. A poor uneducated child adopting the guise of the only kind of "woman" she knows. Ultimately a sham. A pretend woman. Self-destructive and destroying. Offering the only thing she knows: not real love. Jose Ferrer beautifully underplays Lautrec and keeps his inner pain to a barely repressed minimum, except for brief, sardonic, telling outbursts. He is, after all, almost continually anesthetized by cognac and absinthe. Not once, as the artist or the actor, does Ferrer seek our pity or sympathy. His Lautrec is a ghost of a man, haunting the fringes of the demi-monde, then, after his success as an artist, able to connect with others only superficially -- until it's too late and he loses the genuine love of Miriamme (Suzanne Flon) because he can't see it. She too is a kind of ghost. On his deathbed, in Huston's vision, Lautrec is visited by the dance hall ghosts of his beloved Moulin Rouge, the legendary club that still exists in Paris, in a surprisingly moving finale. Zsa Zsa Gabor looks, on first glance, impossibly beautiful. Turns out she's just impossible: she can't act, can't lip-synch, can't simulate dancing, can't even move gracefully. Though carefully costumed, for the most part, the unfortunate "serpentine" gown Schiaparelli designed for Gabor's second number as Jane Avril reveals hips already as wide as a barn. (These used to be called "child-bearing hips." Though Gabor may seem silly as a Hollywood personality, she was smart enough to marry Conrad Hilton and give him a daughter, Francesca, thus assuring her financial well-being in perpetuity. And she and her "franchise," such as it is, have outlived everybody else connected with this production.) Miss Gabor's singing voice is dubbed by Muriel Smith, the first black opera singer to perform Carmen at Covent Garden. She appears in "Moulin Rouge" as the black Can-Can dancer, dancing up a storm and leaping into catfights at the drop of a petticoat. George Auric's atmospheric score is also a triumph of mood and character: what Lautrec might have written himself were he a composer. Nothing, really, is as it appears in "Moulin Rouge." It's not "really" Lautrec's story, but "impressions" of it. The production design, sets and costumes aren't "really" Lautrec in three dimensions, but shadows of his soul and world. Inordinately tall actor Jose Ferrar portrays the 5'1" Lautrec. Hungarian courtesan Zsa Zsa Gabor (birth nose fortunately cosmetically altered while a teenager) portrays French chanteuse Jane Avril -- with vocals provided by a black American opera singer who relocated to London. Some of the accents are real, most are not. Two French bit parts are played by Christopher Lee (uncredited) and Peter Cushing, Britishers who would go on to revolutionize horror movies in the '60's with their Hammer Film shockers. Even artist Marcel Vertes, so responsible for the look of "Moulin Rouge" actually began his career as a forger of Lautrec works. Yet if nothing is "real" here, one finally must ask if the ghosts and demons that haunt us all, to some degree, as they do Lautrec and everyone else in this film, aren't "real" after all.