Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge is a 1952 British historical romantic drama film directed by John Huston from a screenplay he co-wrote with Anthony Veiller, based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Pierre La Mure, and produced by John and James Woolf. The film follows artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 19th-century Paris's bohemian subculture in and around the Moulin Rouge, a burlesque palace. The film was screened at the 14th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Lion. The film stars José Ferrer (Toulouse-Lautrec), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Jane Avril), Suzanne Flon, Eric Pohlmann, Colette Marchand, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Katherine Kath, Theodore Bikel, and Muriel Smith. Plot In 1890 Paris, crowds pour into the Moulin Rouge nightclub as artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec finishes a bottle of cognac while sketching the club's dancers. The club's regulars arrive: singer Jane Avril teases Henri charmingly, dancers La Goulue and Aicha fight, and owner Maurice Joyant offers Henri free drinks for a month in exchange for painting a promotional poster. At closing time, Henri waits for the crowds to disperse before standing to reveal his four-foot six-inch stature. A flashback reveals that, as a boy, Henri fell down a flight of stairs and injured his legs, which never healed properly due to a genetic disorder (his aristocrat parents were first cousins), leading him to devote himself to art. Walking home to his Montmartre apartment, he meets street walker Marie Charlet and helps her escape police apprehension. Henri is impressed that Marie remarks on his disability without judgment, and he lets her to stay with him. Gradually, he realizes poverty has made Marie cruel but has also rendered her free of society's hypocrisy. He dotes on her, but Marie takes advantage of him; one night, after staying out all evening, Henri waits for her return and angrily tells her to leave, and though they make up, Henri remains distrustful of Marie. When Marie insults the portrait Henri has made of her, he throws her out and then sinks into alcoholism so deeply that his landlady notifies his mother, who suggests he find Marie to dispel his depression. Henri finds Marie at a café, drunk and distraught. Marie reveals that she stayed with Henri merely to save money for her boyfriend, who has now left her. Henri returns to his apartment bent on suicide, turning on the gas. Waiting to asphyxiate, he is suddenly inspired to finish the Moulin Rouge poster for Maurice.