Silk Stockings (1957) on Netflix
In Paris, the producer Steve Canfield wants the Russian composer Peter Ilyitch Boroff to write the score of his next picture. Moscow sends its agent Ninotchka Yoschenko to bring Boroff home.
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Trailer
Plot summary
Three Soviet commissars, Brankov, Bibinski and Ivanov, come to Paris to escort the composer Peter Ilyitch Boroff home, but the American producer Steve Canfield wants Boroff to write the score for his next picture. Steve contests Boroff's citizenship with an affidavit that disputes his parentage and must be settled in court, and persuades the commissars that the collaboration will bring them promotions in Moscow. In Moscow, Vassili Markovitch, the new commissar of art, sends the agent Ninotchka Yoschenko to Paris to retrieve Boroff and the commissars. She finds them in the hotel lobby, and upstairs Steve presents the affidavit and tries to charm her with the city. Ninotchka insists that bourgeois Paris will not persuade her. That night Peggy Dayton, a Hollywood actress, arrives at the hotel, where reporters ask about her first serious role.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Silk Stockings (1957)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Fred Astaire's number "The Ritz Roll and Rock" is a parody of rock and roll, and it ends with him symbolically smashing his top hat, one of his trademarks, signaling his retirement from movie musicals, which he announced after the film's release.
- Under her MGM contract, Cyd Charisse was allowed to choose between starring with Gene Kelly in Les Girls (1957) or with Fred Astaire in Silk Stockings; she declared no contest and chose Astaire.
- Producer Arthur Freed had promised Ann Miller the role of Peggy Dayton, which she had sought on Broadway; she found out he had already cast Janis Paige only when she arrived at MGM for a costume test.
- Fred Astaire asked Cole Porter to compose a rock and roll number meant to prove he was still in touch with contemporary music; Porter listened to the appropriate records and returned with "The Ritz Roll and Rock."
- Fred Astaire was ambivalent about accepting the lead in Silk Stockings because he felt too old; he agreed only after director Rouben Mamoulian met him for lunch and described his ideas for the film.
- Silk Stockings went through three screenwriters: Leonard Spigelgass was taken off the project, Harry Kurnitz's drafts were also unsatisfactory, and Leonard Gershe completed the script one month before filming.
- Before Fred Astaire was cast opposite Cyd Charisse in Silk Stockings, Bing Crosby and Howard Keel had been considered for the male lead.
