Silk Stockings

Three Russian emissaries – Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff – are despatched from Moscow to stop a composer working for a Hollywood producer . When they too are seduced by the wiles of Paris, a high-ranking commissar, Ninotchka, is sent after them to sort things out. Things turn even more complicated, however, when Ninotchka and Canfield meet and fall in love., When three Soviet agents fail to achieve their mission in the West, a beautiful but serious woman is sent to help and to retrieve the agents, but she soon falls under the spell of decadent Paris, with help from a charming American film producer. A musical remake of Ninotchka. The Cole Porter score includes All of You and Stereophonic Sound., Silk Stockings, a musical version of the 1939 Greta Garbo film Ninotchka, was adapted for the stage by George S. Kaufman, Leueen McGrath (the then-Mrs. Kaufman) and Abe Burrows, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The Broadway production, starring Hildegarde Neff and Don Ameche, ran 478 performances. The 1957 film version cast Fred Astaire as a movie producer and Cyd Charisse as dedicated communist functionary Ninotchka. In the original 1939 film, Ninotchka was sent from Mother Russia to Paris to check up on three commissars, who in turn had been ordered to retrieve a fortune in Czarist jewels. This time the commissar trio, played by Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin and Joseph Buloff, have been dispatched to Paris to reclaim defecting Soviet composer Wim Sonneveld. Since Astaire wants the composer to write the songs for his newest musical, he plies the commissars with wine, women and song, dissuading them from their mission. When Ninotchka shows up to retrieve the errant Russians, Astaire turns on the old charm with her as well. She gradually succumbs to the combined lures of romance and capitalism, but returns to Russia when she believes that Astaire has thrown her over for film-star Janis Paige (delivering a hilarious take-off of swimming star Esther Williams). But Astaire convinces her that he truly loves her, and all is well. Most of the Cold-War comedy in the Broadway production of Silk Stockings remains intact in the movie version (Soviet official George Tobias, seeking information on his predecessor, looks up the man’s record in “Who’s Still Who”). Also surviving virtually untouched is the Cole Porter score, including “All Of You,” “A Chemical Reaction,” “Without Love,” “Satin and Silk,” “The Red Blues,” “Stereophonic Sound,” and the rollicking “Siberia” (which offers the spectacle of a singing, dancing Peter Lorre!) Watch for Fred Astaire’s future TV-special partner Barrie Chase as one of the dancers., A straitlaced Soviet agent is seduced by the romantic allure of Paris in Silk Stockings (1957), starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse., Musical remake of the 1939 comedy “Ninotchka” features a tuneful Cole Porter soundtrack and tells the tale of a stern Russian emissary sent to Paris on business but discovering the pleasures of capitalism and romance with a movie producer., Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire dance and sing to a classic Cole Porter score in this musical remake of Greta Garbo’s ‘Ninotchka’.