Mardi Gras ** (1958, Pat Boone, Christine Carère, Tommy Sands, Sheree North, Gary Crosby, Fred Clark, Dick Sargent) – Classic Movie Review 10,810

Originally announced as the film’s stars, Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter only make cameo appearances as themselves in the 1958 New Orleans-set American musical comedy film Mardi Gras directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Pat Boone and Christine Carère, and based on an original story by Curtis Harrington.

Boone plays Paul Newell, a Virginia military school cadet who wins a date in a raffle with French movie goddess Michelle Marton (Carère), queen of the Mardi Gras parade. Then they fall in love, but complications arrive when Michelle’s film studio wants to capitalise on it for publicity.

Boone and Carère are appealing in this gently pleasant old-time entertainment, with bubbly performances, crafted handling and pretty settings.

Composer Lionel Newman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score (Scoring of a Musical Picture).

Shot on location in New Orleans, but also in the studio at 20th Century Fox Studios, 10201 Pico Blvd, Century City, Los Angeles, in CinemaScope and Deluxe colour, it is director Goulding’s final film.

Sheree North also stars as Eadie West but it was her final film with 20th Century Fox, who had signed her in 1954 to groom her as a replacement for Marilyn Monroe. But now North was released from her contract as the studio seemed to have lost interest in her in 1956 after they signed Jayne Mansfield to a six-year contract.

Producer Jerry Wald wanted Gene Kelly to direct but he was too expensive, so he picked Edmund Goulding, whose career was in decline and was cheap, and also Wald had admired his old films. Wald had to arrange for cooperation from the city of New Orleans and the Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia. He also had to deal with Universal who had already registered the title. Wald arranged for second unit filming at the Virginia Military Institute even before he hired a director.

Christine Carère’s singing voice was dubbed by Lilyan Chauvin and Sheree North’s singing voice was dubbed by Eileen Wilson.

The gorilla was played by leading Hollywood gorilla performers Charles Gemora in his last performance, thereafter working in the makeup department.

It is featured in The Shape of Water (2017).

Also in the cast are Tommy Sands, Gary Crosby, Fred Clark, Dick Sargent, Barrie Chase, Jennifer West, Geraldine Wall, King Calder, Robert Burton, Earle Hodgins, Alfred Tonkel and Paul E Johnson.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,810

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com