Forget Joseph McCarthy—the biggest threat to world communism in the 1950s was Fred Astaire. In the MGM musical “Silk Stockings,” all Astaire had to do was throw a few sexy French ladies at a group of Russian commisars or perform a dance number for Soviet envoy Cyd Charisse and they were putty in his capitalistic hands. The film was released just a few weeks after McCarthy’s death from alcoholism in 1957, and it evoked a kinder, gentler Cold War in which the Soviets were either lovable buffoons or gorgeous dames who only needed the love of an American man to set them on the right path.
The film was was a remake of the 1939 Ernst Lubitsch classic “Ninotchka” starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. That was Garbo’s first comedy (“Garbo Laughs!” screamed the posters) and for my money, her best work. While still presenting a very pro-American viewpoint, “Ninotchka” poked equal fun at some of the capitalistic excesses of western culture. Garbo’s stern character, wearing no makeup in the early scenes (as if she needed any) believed in the communist ideal and was repulsed by Douglas’s cavalier ways with women:
Ninotchka: We don’t have men like you in my country.
Leon: Thank you.
Ninotchka: That is why I believe in the future of my country.
Ninotchka: Must you flirt?
Leon: Well, I don’t have to, but I find it natural.
Ninotchka: Suppress it.
Garbo’s comic timing and delivery were superb. Cyd Charisse must have been quaking in her toe shoes when she was cast in the role for the remake. One unfortunate decision that the producer of “Silk Stockings” made was to recreate many of Garbo’s scenes word-for-word, rubbing our faces in the fact that Charisse, while arguably the best dancer MGM ever produced, was no Garbo. Unlike the more complex view of communist ideology presented in the 1939 film, in 1957 Soviets were seen as unwilling prisoners who would do anything to escape their country. Ninotchka was the only one who seemed serious about her mission (to bring back a famous composer that Fred Astaire’s character hired to score a film he was producing in Paris). But throw a camisole and some silk stockings her way and even Cyd wasted no time defecting to the glories of the City of Lights. The Cole Porter score included classics like “The Red Blues” and “Siberia” in which the visiting commisars cynically imagine their future imprisonment:
When we get to sweet Siberia
Far from Bolshevik hysteria
When it’s cocktail time, twill be so nice
Just to know you’ll not have to phone for ice.
As Fred tries to seduce her, Cyd explains her Soviet understanding of love and romance:
When the electromagnetic of the he-male
Meets the electromagnetic of the female
If right away she should say this is the male,
It’s a chemical reaction, that’s all.
And though you Fascists may answer with hisses
The same applies when it’s mister and misses
Hey diddle diddle with middle class kisses
It’s a chemical reaction, that’s all.
Oy. But who cares about the film’s absurd politics or lyrics when you have Astaire and Charisse doing some of the best dancing ever put on film? Throw in Janis Paige’s hysterical parody of Esther Williams and you have what I call one of the best musicals ever made. The last time I saw “Silk Stockings” on the big screen was in Paris in December 1978. I was attending the Sorbonne for my junior year of college and had decided to visit the Soviet Union over Christmas break with a French contingent and a few American students from my program. The night before our flight to Moscow, we went to see this movie at a theatre on the Left Bank that only screened old American musicals. It was a perfect prelude to our trip since all the action took place in Paris and Russia (by way of MGM studios in Culver City). It shocks me how few details of my college years I remember today, but this morning I found a letter that I wrote to my mother during the trip and must have retrieved after she died. I was fascinated to read the ramblings of my 19-year-old self. Who was that guy and why can’t I remember most of this? It’s not like I was using any (heavy) drugs back then. Here are a few excerpts from the letter:
December 27—Hi there, or should I say Zdravstvuite! We land in Moscow in an hour. This Aeroflot plane is unreal. The stewardesses just spilled a whole cup of boiling coffee on the woman in front of us and then they broke into fits of hysterical laughter instead of apologizing. I think we’re flying over Poland now and it looks like a frozen wasteland. They just told us the temperature in Moscow is twenty below zero. Oy. Everyone on the plane is drinking vodka, I think they’re all bombed.
December 28—We’re finally in our hotel after spending a miserable night at the airport. First they wanted to put 11 of us in one room but they finally found more space. At one point some tiny Russian woman waltzed into our room (we hadn’t locked the door) and after about 10 minutes of sign language we realized she wanted to buy American cigarettes. The Russians seem very nice but I’ve never seen people stare and laugh so much. There’s only one station on the radio. The hotel people took our passports.
December 29—We missed the tour bus this morning so a group of us decided to wander around on our own. We hiked in 30 below zero weather to the metro station and then drew attention to ourselves by running around for half an hour trying to figure out how it worked. We kept pointing to pictures of Red Square. Finally we just hopped on the metro and hoped for the best. The Moscow subways are amazing, there are chandeliers and carpets in the station and it’s so far underground you have to go down on the escalator for ages. We walked around the Kremlin and went to GUM, the world’s largest department store (where people wait in line for hours to buy NOTHING). Several Russkies approached us to buy our American stuff. My friend Kathy took off her jeans right there in the store (under her long coat) and traded them for a fur hat. I was waiting for us all to be dragged away by the KGB.
December 30—It’s after midnight and we’re on this tiny little plane winging our way to Leningrad (at the last minute we switched from train to plane because the train tracks were frozen). The way this rickety plane sounds I see my life flashing before my eyes. All I can say is that I thank God I wasn’t born in the Soviet Union but at the same time every preconception I had about Russia has drastically changed.
December 31—The past 14 hours have been HELL. We finally landed in Leningrad at 1 am and, after endless waiting, were put on these huge blocks of ice once known as buses and driven to a different airport where we were dumped. Everyone was tired and freezing and starving and we had to stand there for hours waiting for a bus to take us to the hotel but there were none. Every time our guide called the travel agency they were told the buses were there already. So we spent the whole night in the airport with occasional emotional breakdowns from various Frogs and a little after 5 am the bus finally arrived. It was so crowded we had to stand smashed into each other like we were on a boxcar to Auschwitz. We finally got to our rooms and found out that we had NO heat and NO hot water. I only slept for four hours (in all my clothes) and a glass of water I had placed on the nightstand was frozen when I woke up! I really don’t understand how this country manages to survive. The communist ideal of a non-consumer society is the biggest joke of all—the Russians will stand in a line for days waiting for junk and pay foreigners up to 250 rubles ($200) for their jeans or other crap. Incredible. Every Russian we’ve spoken to would kill to go to the U.S. for all they criticize it. But they’re not allowed to leave the Soviet Union.
January 1—Just back from eating in a Georgian restaurant. I seriously don’t see how anyone could live in this sad joke of a country. Nothing works. On the other hand, Leningrad is the most beautiful city in the world, I think prettier than Paris. Next to Leningrad, Moscow is the total pits. Last night we went to a New Year’s Eve party at the hotel with about 800 people—Russian, French, German, Dutch, and Polish. I’ve never had so much fun—all the tables were singing songs from their country and then another country would stand up and belt out something to try to overpower the others, etc. Our French group went wild and we even got the Russians to sing along with some French songs. It was a total free-for-all at midnight with everyone kissing and dancing and singing along with the fantastic orchestra. The only damper came when Kathy and Andy (another American from my group) got totally sick from drinking a million vodka shots and we had to drag them up to their rooms. Oy, that’s a whole other story. I had to get two huge Polish guys to help me with Andy and I had to hold his head over a garbage can every step of the way as he puked his guts out. I went back downstairs and stayed until after 4. I was feeling no pain myself but the vomiting sobered me up. These Russians can drink even the Frogs under the table, it’s unreal. I would love to come back to Russia one day when it’s warmer…
January 2—This country is insane and the tour guides refuse to tell us anything (I keep asking about the Jews and they just ignore me) but every regular Russian we meet and talk to on the streets is so nice. Tonight Kathy and I got tickets to the circus. We were the only ones in our group going so we went to the center of town and didn’t have the slightest idea where to go. It was around 25 below zero out, totally unbearable, and we were dying so I stopped some lady in the street and showed her our tickets. She took us by the hand and walked around 6 blocks out of her way to bring us to the trolley that would take us to the circus. Before she left she kept pointing to me and saying, ‘Nose! Rub!” because she saw that my nose was starting to get frostbite since my scarf kept sliding down. I LOVED that woman, and most people we met were like that. The circus, by the way, was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was around 3 hours long and started with some Communist League singing their chants and guys on motorcycles with these huge Russian flags. There was none of the Ringling Brothers Razzle-Dazzle Extravaganza bullshit, just pure talent and entertainment and never a dull moment. Kathy and I both had 4 ice cream cones each. It’s the national snack—in every store, on every street corner. When I first saw people eating ice cream in the sub-sub-sub-zero temperatures I couldn’t believe it but I suppose it makes sense—the vendors don’t need to drag around any freezer to store their ice cream. They only have two flavors though—typical of Russia.
January 3—One thing that really strikes us Westerners here is that publicity of any kind does not exist. No billboards (except political ones), no commercials, no ads. And did you know that there are no feminine hygiene products in the Soviet Union? At least not the ones that the women in my group are used to. I can’t imagine why they don’t have them, all the Frog women were appalled. Apparently the Russians just use tissues and rags and stuff making the public bathrooms pretty disgusting. This huge Cuban group came to our hotel last night and today there was a very fun Cuban-Soviet Relations Party that we crashed—it looked like Ricky Ricardo at the Tropicana. We are still being approached by Russians constantly to buy stuff off of us, they will buy ANYTHING. The only transaction I made was trading my ski gloves for this Russian guy’s leather gloves. I could’ve gotten way more but I thought they’d do this poor Slav a lot more good since he’s stuck here (and now my hands are freezing!). Of course this “poor Slav” had on jeans from Italy and boots from Poland, all obtained the same way. They are crazy for jeans here, why don’t the Russian factories just make their own? All the Russians we met seem to have huge wads of rubles but for all practical purposes it’s like having wads of Confederate dollars—worthless! And there is nothing but junk in the stores. The only nice stores in Russia are called Beriozhkas where you can only spend foreign currency, not rubles.
January 4—We’re back in Paris. Long live capitalism!
I went on at length about the friendships I formed with the French people in my group (nice that I refer to them as "Frogs," huh?) and yet today I can’t remember a single person’s name or face. All I remember of the New Years party is dragging that American guy up to the room and helping him not to choke on his own vomit. He was the president of our group that year and not at all a party animal—see what a little Russian vodka will do? I’ve never spoken to him since but today he is a well known NPR commentator and I can't help but smirk every time I hear his name on the radio. I do remember the kindness of the Russian people, the woman who saved my nose, and how every interaction we had with government officials was fraught with incompetence, corruption, and lies. In a million years I never would have dreamed that the Soviet Union would cease to exist a decade later. Things don't seem to be going too well in Russia these days despite the early promise of the post-Soviet period. Corruption still reigns supreme and this morning I read another article about the country's shady dealings with Iran. At least Russian officials condemned the insane statements made this week by the Iranian president who called the Holocaust a myth. "We view attempts to review well known historical facts of the Second World War as unacceptable," Russia's foreign ministry said. Um, yeah, like the fact that your country alone lost 20 million people during the war?
It embarrasses me to read in that letter how grateful I was to return to the pleasures of Paris, as if I had just come from years of imprisonment in the Gulag instead of a fairly cushy week-long vacation. I remember belting out another “Silk Stockings” tune as our plane touched down at Charles De Gaulle Airport.
Too bad we can’t go back to Moscow
No wonder we frown
Too bad we’ve got to consent
To stay in this decadent town. Ai! Ai! Ai!
Too bad we can’t go back to Moscow
Do pity us, do
Instead of counting chickens on each farm everywhere
In case a party member has a chicken to spare
You’ll see us counting chickens at the Folies-Bergere
Too bad! Too bad! Too good to be true! Da! Da! Da!
I think your letters are fascinating. The circus, the carpets in the subway, the frozen glass of water - what great details! You shouldn't be embarrassed. You were a great writer even at nineteen.
I've got to rent Silk Stockings now - I LOVE Cyd Charisse but haven't seen that film. I had no idea it was a remake of Ninotchka!
Posted by: Shannon | December 18, 2005 at 08:25 AM
Hi Danny...
I left a comment a day or two ago....(blog time is not easy to keep up with...) but it didn't get registered, I see....Well, I will try to tell you what I said, now...
It was that, I thought you probably knew this, but, the movie "Silk Stockings was really based on the Broadway Musical "Silk Stockings"...which was of course baed on Ninotchka, 1954-55...with Don Ameche & Hildegarde Neff, (sometimes known as Kneff..Who were both absolutely wonderful!!!) and the most famous song from the Broadway show was "ALL OF YOU"...('I like the looks of you, the lure of you...')
And Gretchen Wyler was in it, too and that is the show that made her a Household Broadway name...I don't remember the movie all that well, to be honest with you so I don't recall if her song, "Sterephonic Sound" was in the film...
Anyway...of course the film was then tailored to the talents of the wonderful Mr. Astaire...and, the rest, as they say, is history...
I LOVE your letters, Danny...it is wonderful that your mother saved them and that you have them now...such a truly wonderful rememberence of a rare and unusual trip...a great thing for Leah to have, too....That was a historic time in Russia's history and it's terrific that you documented your personal experiences in these great great letters...and now have shared some of them with all of us. Kudo's to you, my dear Danny.
Posted by: OldOldLady Of The Hills | December 18, 2005 at 10:41 AM
Great stuff, Danny. And just imagine all those millions of provincial Russians who for centuries have dreamt of Moscow, as in Chekhov's THREE SISTERS, as a haven of glamor and sophistication.
Posted by: Richard Lawrence Cohen | December 19, 2005 at 03:24 PM
OMG, I haven't thought about Cyd Charisse in so long. As a teen in the 50s I was totally in love with her. That must have been my first realization that I was growing up to be a "leg man". She exuded this quiet, confident sensuality that is so rare today, if it exists at all. I'm getting all sweaty behind the ears just thinking about her...
Posted by: Winston | December 19, 2005 at 08:09 PM
Good taste, Winston. Cyd Charisse certainly had the best gams in Hollywood. Remember that shot in "Singin' in the Rain" that is the close-up of her extended leg with Gene Kelly's hat on the end of her foot? Surely one of the sexiest shots in cinematic history.
I've heard the score to the play version of "Silk Stockings," Naomi, but the movie is way different—you need to give it another go. Yes, Janis Paige sings "Stereophic Sound" and she's brilliant in the part of Peggy Dayton, the waterlogged actress being pursued in the film by Peter Lorre of all people.
Kendall is still mad at me for saying that Cyd Charisse "is no Garbo" (these are the kinds of things we fight about in our marriage—I guess it could be worse!) but I think Cyd herself would admit that readily. Who is? Doesn't mean I don't love everything's she's done. While no one could touch her on the dance floor, MGM always dubbed Cyd's singing voice. On the recent rerelease of the "Silk Stockings" CD, they include Cyd singing some of the songs herself (as she'd hoped to do for the film) and I thought her voice was lovely, they should have kept it in. (See how nice I am, Kendall? Will you forgive me now? Kendall cares more about the feelings of old movie stars than she does her own.)
What I really love about Cyd Charisse is how sweet she is to her fans. She even says in her book (the one she wrote with hubby Tony Martin) that if you ever see her out and about or in a restaurant to please come up to her and say hi. How many celebrities today would make that offer?
Posted by: Danny | December 19, 2005 at 08:52 PM