Word: les
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...first play, Escurial, by the modern French playwright Michel de Ghelderode, is by far the better performed of the double bill, the other half of which is a Moliere farce, Les Precieuses Ridicules. Ghelderode's play is bitter, ambiguous at times to the point of obscurity, but a fearsome dramatic tension is maintained for the very reason that one is unsure of the details of the situation. It involves a pseudo-farcical biplay between a king waiting for the dying of his wife and his all-too-knowing clown, leading to a frightening and tragic revelation...
...Les Girls (MGM) will unquestionably be remembered by millions as La Girl, and Kay Kendall is her name. Up till now she has been famous only as that girl who blew the trumpet in Genevieve and in real life got married to Rex Harrison (TIME, July 1); but with the release of this picture she stands up on her own true feats to be counted as a major star. She is probably the most beautiful and deft comedienne the British have produced since the late Gertrude Lawrence...
Quite apart from Kay Kendall, Les Girls is a fine musical comedy-easily the best that Hollywood has put together since An American in Paris and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (also M-G-M productions). The picture has only a second-drawer score by Cole Porter, but Director George Cukor has shrewdly managed to make the least of it, and to make the most of a marvelous run of creative luck. Gene Kelly dances less than usual, and rather better. Mitzi Gaynor, whose face most Hollywood cameramen have in the past been careful to undertook, is revealed to have...
Quickly digesting the platefuls of sweet reviews of Les Girls, Kay Kendall wasted no time in explaining where she fits and with whom. "Women should be a tiny, tiny bit inferior to their husbands," says she. "I don't want to do anything but be with Rex." Still under contract to J. Arthur Rank, for whom she will do three more pictures, Kay is in no particular hurry to go back to Hollywood, is currently letting her hazel eyes scan a pile of play scripts, hoping to discover something that suits her, "so I can keep the same hours...
After her trumpeted performance in Genevieve (she was generally considered funnier than the star of the show-an old car), Kay's beguiling beauty and down-to-earth sophistication pushed her to movie stardom. She was paid $100,000 for Les Girls...