Moulin Rouge (1952 film)
Overview
1952 in film
The year 1952 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 10 - Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
directed by John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
, produced by Sir John Woolf and James Woolf of Romulus Films
Sir John Woolf and James Woolf of Romulus Films
Sir John Woolf and James Woolf were two distinguished British film producers. John and James founded the production companies Romulus Films and Remus Films, which were active during the 1950s and 1960s...
and released by United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
. The film is set in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in the late 19th century, following artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
in the city's bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
sub-culture in and around the burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
palace, the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
. The screenplay is by Huston, based on the novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Pierre La Mure
Pierre La Mure
Pierre La Mure was a French author. He wrote the 1950 novel Moulin Rouge about the life of the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This book was the basis of the classic 1952 movie of the same name...
. The cinematography was by Oswald Morris
Oswald Morris
Oswald Norman Morris OBE, DFC, AFC, BSC is a British cinematographer. Known to his colleagues by the nicknames "Os" or "Ossie", Morris' film cinematography career spanned six decades.-Early life and career:...
.
The film stars José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
as Toulouse-Lautrec, with Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...
as Jane Avril
Jane Avril
Jane Avril was a French can-can dancer made famous by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec through his paintings. Extremely thin, 'given to jerky movements and sudden contortions', she was nicknamed La Mélinite, after an explosive. -Biography:...
, Suzanne Flon
Suzanne Flon
Suzanne Flon was a French film actress and comedienne.-Early life:Her father was a railway worker and her mother crafted jewelry....
, Eric Pohlmann
Eric Pohlmann
Eric Pohlmann was an Austrian theatre, film and television character actor.Born Erich Pollak in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, he was a classically trained actor who studied under the renowned director Max Reinhardt...
, Colette Marchand
Colette Marchand
-Biography:Marchand was born in France.Marchand performed as a première ballerina on Broadway: Roland Petit's Les Ballets de Paris and Two on the Aisle ....
, Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
, Michael Balfour, Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
, Katherine Kath as La Goulue
La Goulue
Louise Weber was a French can-can dancer who performed under the stage name of La Goulue...
, Theodore Bikel
Theodore Bikel
Theodore Meir Bikel is a character actor, folk singer and musician. He made his film debut in The African Queen and was nominated for an Academy award for his supporting role as Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones ....
, and Muriel Smith
Muriel Smith (singer)
Muriel Burrell Smith was an American singer. In the 1940s and 1950s, she was a star of musical theater and opera, and was also the off-film ghost singer in several hit movies...
.
In Paris in 1890, as crowds pour into the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge is a cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller, who also owned the Paris Olympia. Close to Montmartre in the Paris district of Pigalle on Boulevard de Clichy in the 18th arrondissement, it is marked by the red windmill on its roof. The closest métro station is Blanche.The Moulin Rouge is...
nightclub, young artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
(José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
) finishes a bottle of cognac and sketches the dancers as they perform.
Unanswered Questions
