Synopsis
French Cancan (1955) is Jean Renoir's musical romance, and you can watch it online on iFILM. It paints late-nineteenth-century Paris — the slopes of Montmartre — where an aging showman sets out to revive the wild, half-forgotten cancan.
Jean Gabin is Danglard, a wily impresario who turns ordinary girls into sensations and falls for them just as easily. This time it's Nini, a Montmartre laundress (Françoise Arnoul): for her he writes a whole new revue and builds the Moulin Rouge from the ground up. His former lover won't bow out quietly, and Nini herself is split between the stage and an ordinary life. Watch for Édith Piaf, Patachou and a very young Michel Piccoli in the wings.
Renoir, son of the painter Auguste Renoir, shoots it like canvas come to life — the closing dance is pure colour, motion and music with barely a line of dialogue. It has long sat among the touchstones of French cinema. Stream French Cancan (1955) online on iFILM.
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