Silk Stockings

The last completed film of one of the cinema's great stylists and camera choreographers. Sniffily treated at the time (and since) by critics nursing over-fond memories of Garbo and Lubitsch, this is in fact a dazzling musical version of Ninotchka, with Charisse and Astaire at the top of their dancing form as the Soviet commissar and the decadent American who reconciles her to capitalism in a string of superb Cole Porter numbers. Memorabilia include 'Stereophonic Sound' (a witty dig at widescreen movies), 'The Ritz Roll'n' Rock' (a terrific top hat, white tie and cane solo for Astaire), and 'Silk Stockings' itself, a dance for Charisse reminiscent of the bedroom-stroking scene in Queen Christina. Irresistible.