Moulin Rouge (1952)

The Other "Moulin Rouge"

Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake

Mention MOULIN ROUGE and most folks will think of Nicole Kidman and the ground-breaking 2001 musical in which she sang and danced to perfection.

However, back in 1952, there was another (non-musical) MOULIN ROUGE, and most people who remember this John Huston-directed classic consider it to be one of the greatest films of that decade.

It also produced a title song that has become a standard.

Huston's film received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It won for Art Direction and Costuming, but lost the top honor, as did HIGH NOON and THE QUIET MAN, to Cecil B. DeMille's THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. [Go figure!]

Visually stunning, MOULIN ROUGE stars Oscar-nominated Jose Ferrer as both famed artist Toulouse-Lautrec and his father.

A dwarf, Lautrec believes that he is too ugly to ever attract a woman, thus he devotes his life to painting and cognac.

A fixture at Paris' infamous turn-off-the-century Moulin Rouge nightclub, he meets and falls in love with a streetwalker (Colette Marchand), who breaks his heart and, later, he is unable to recognize true affection from another woman (Suzanne Flon).

Zsa Zsa Gabor co-stars as a singer at the nightclub who also has romantic problems. Future Hammer horror icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee have brief roles.

MGM/UA Home Entertainment has done a commendable job in transferring this color-rich film onto DVD.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (available December 2008) October 25, 2008

Art; Life; the Gutter & the Chateau

Among the most interesting aspects of this powerful story were the strong, if not subtle, contrasts. To get the niggles out of the way: many features jarred, to an extent: the dubbed singing, the easily detectable fake chin and nose, the completely unconvincing abbreviated legs. However, they didn't actually seem to matter. The story was rather simplistic, but that didn't seem to matter either. Somehow there was a truth to it, which completely escaped the Luhrmann production. Not that that was about Toulouse-Lautrec, anyway. There was an analysis of a spectrum of human reactions to the circumstances into which people happen to be born: as aristocrats who may not work but nevertheless have certain standards of conduct, as cripples who need to compensate, as prudent working women who make a go of it, as stars who can't cope, as alley-cats who sell themselves for their pimps. The performances were all perfectly good, within the constraints of the narrative. It seemed to be sentimental, but it actually wasn't. The dancing was terrific. The atmosphere might have been 50s Hollywood, but it nonetheless felt quite French. Curious final effect: the whole was better than the parts, and it's a definitely a film worth watching more than once. October 19, 2008

Tulouse LaTrec

It's a 50's movie and I get a kick out of the special effects and some of the make up jobs. However, Jose Frerre did the entire movie on his knees to appear small in stature the same as Tulouse so I give him kudos for suffering through all that. Miss Gabor even looked good way back then! June 29, 2008

Vivid Portrait of An Artist

Even in an age when the studios placed restrictions on what would appear on screen director John Huston was a highly individual and uncomprosing auteur. Despite the film's ostensible setting in the gaiety of Paris' Moulin Rouge the film is front-and-center a portrait of a brooding cognac besotted artist Henri de Latrouse-Lautrec(Jose Ferrer). Born of French nobility, Latrouse-Lautrec was left crippled and deformed at an early age by a freak household accident. Embittered, Latrouse-Lautrec felt incapable or unworthy of being loved by a woman. Instead, he channels his passion into his painting with the Paris streets and primarily the notorious Moulin Rouge being his main subject matters. And what a thing of beauty his visions are! Despite salving his pain in alcohol Latrouse-Lautrec was still able to channel his passion into his indelible works of art. Including "Lust for Life", "Moulin Rouge" is probably the best biography of a painter I've ever seen on screen. Jose Ferrer, a lead actor who had the misfortune of being typecast in supporting roles for most of his career, is nothing less than wondrous as Latrouse-Lautrec. He embodies all the conflicts and contradictions of the man with few histrionics. "Moulin Rouge" is a work for the ages. March 31, 2008

GHOSTS APPEAR AND FADE AWAY

One of the best movies of its time is little more now than a "period piece". Indeed, the movie's terrific theme song has stood the test of time much better than the movie. Paris in 1890 is not exactly a "big draw" to today's movie goers.Ferrer, on the other hand, does a masterful job in playing Toulouse-Lautrec, brilliantly portraying the handicapped artist whose sketchings and posters hang today in the Louvre. But, the overall production seems prolonged and repetitious, and the fast paced banter of the actors seems difficult to follow.Since its release in 1952, many other films including "Rainman" and "Forrest Gump" seem also to have pushed director Huston's "masterpiece" aside. Now, however, if Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio would care to try an updated version... October 19, 2007

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