Jean Renoir

French Cancan

French Cancan

Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star. This celebration of life, art and the City of Light (with a cameo by Edith Piaf) is a Technicolor tour de force by a master of modern cinema.

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Film Info

  • France
  • 1955
  • 105 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • French
  • Spine #243

Special Features

  • High-definition digital transfer
  • Introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
  • Jean Renoir parle de son art: part two of Jacques Rivette's three-part interview with Renoir
  • Interview with set designer Max Douy
  • Collection of rare production stills
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: an original essay by film critic Andrew Sarris

Available In

Collector's Set

Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir

Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir

DVD Box Set

3 Discs

$63.96

Special Features

  • High-definition digital transfer
  • Introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
  • Jean Renoir parle de son art: part two of Jacques Rivette's three-part interview with Renoir
  • Interview with set designer Max Douy
  • Collection of rare production stills
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: an original essay by film critic Andrew Sarris
French Cancan
Cast
Jean Gabin
Henri Danglard
Françoise Arnoul
Nini
María Félix
Lola de Castro
Anna Amendola
Arlette Vibert
Jean-Roger Caussimon
Baron Walter
Dora Doll
La Génisse
Giani Esposito
Prince Alexandre
Gaston Gabaroche
Oscar
Jacques Jouanneau
Bidon
Jean Parédès
Tailor
Franco Pastorino
Paulo
Michèle Philippe
Eleonore
Michel Piccoli
Captain Valorgueil
Albert Rémy
Barjolin
France Roche
Béatrix
Jean-Marc Tennberg
Savate
Valentine Tessier
Madame Olympe
Philippe Clay
Casimir
Édith Piaf
Eugénie Buffet
Patachou
Yvette Guilbert
Cora Vaucaire
Esther Georges
André Claveau
Paul Delmet
Credits
Director
Jean Renoir
Producer
Louis Wipf
Screenplay
Jean Renoir
Cinematography
Michel Kelber
Editing
Borys Lewin
Set designer
Max Douy
Set decoration
Jean André
Set decoration
Jacques Douy
Costume designer
Rosine Delamare
Sound recordist
Antoine Petitjean
Original music by
Georges van Parys

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Jean Renoir

Writer, Director

Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir

The son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir was also a master of his medium: cinema. After making his mark in the early thirties with two very different films, the anarchic send-up of the bourgeoisie Boudu Saved from Drowning and the popular-front Gorky adaptation The Lower Depths, Renoir closed out the decade with two critical humanistic studies of French society that routinely turn up on lists of the greatest films ever made: Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game (the former was celebrated in its time, but the latter was trashed by critics and audiences—until history provided vindication). After a brief, unfulfilling Hollywood stint during World War II, Renoir traveled to India to make his first Technicolor film, The River, and then returned to Europe in the early fifties to direct three visually dazzling explorations of theater, The Golden Coach, French Cancan, and Elena and Her Men. Renoir persisted in his cinematic pursuits until the late sixties, when, after the completion of The Little Theater of Jean Renoir, a collection of three short films, he decided to dedicate himself solely to writing, leaving the future of the medium to those who looked to him in reverence.

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