Featured Audience Ratings

• jay n

  
  Technicolor is a wonderful way to highlight Toulouse-Lautrec's work which the film does well and Zsa Zsa is fun in what is probably her best role. However Huston's pacing is slow and Ferrer gives a self important, dull performance.

• AJ V

  
  I'll admit I like the new Moulin Rouge movie better than this one. This movie is sort of a historical drama, but I'm not sure how true it is to history, it's a strange movie with strange characters. I didn't really care for it, but it's not that bad either.

• Luke B

  
  A wonderful companion piece to the more recent version and completely opposite in terms of tone. Ferrer is fantastic as Lautrec and the effects used to give the impression of him being short are faultless over 50 years on. The art direction and costume design were both worthy of their… More
  A wonderful companion piece to the more recent version and completely opposite in terms of tone. Ferrer is fantastic as Lautrec and the effects used to give the impression of him being short are faultless over 50 years on. The art direction and costume design were both worthy of their Oscar wins. The plot and pacing however are often uneven and repetitive as Lautrec meets new women who essentially treat him the same way. The first relationship became annoying with how every scene was simply arguing. For the most part though it is a haunting anti-romance with enough discussion points for any artist.

• Cindy I

  
  Excellent biopic of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, the turn of the century painter whose legs were deformed by a childhood accident, leaving him essentially a dwarf. Jose Ferrer does a great job in conveying the frustration and pain -- both physical and emotional -- of someone in his… More
  Excellent biopic of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, the turn of the century painter whose legs were deformed by a childhood accident, leaving him essentially a dwarf. Jose Ferrer does a great job in conveying the frustration and pain -- both physical and emotional -- of someone in his condition. The scenes in the Moulin Rouge club is visually exciting, making you understand why he wanted to spend so much time there. Anyone with any knowledge of Lautrec and his art will recognize the inspirations of his paintings. But you don't have to know anything about him at all. It's interesting on its own. Keep an eye out -- not too difficult -- for Zsa Zsa Gabor in an early role as a performer at the club. This film is completely different and MUCH better than that musical tripe starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan MacGregor.

• Michael G

  
  Eye candy. Otherwise singing people freak me out.

• Antony S

  
  Showered with awards, Huston's Moulin Rouge is a gem. Unlike the Luhrmann version, Huston's story is centred around the diminutive Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a would-be romantic figure made increasingly bitter by virtue of his stunted legs. Due to such impairment, the… More
  Showered with awards, Huston's Moulin Rouge is a gem. Unlike the Luhrmann version, Huston's story is centred around the diminutive Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a would-be romantic figure made increasingly bitter by virtue of his stunted legs. Due to such impairment, the cultured and gentlemantly Henri berates himself and expects nothing good to come of his existence (in one scene, he even compares himself to an ape a lady may keep close proximinity with in order to appear more attractive). For the role, Ferrer had to stand and walk on his knees to convince us that his legs were only that of a child, the incedent recalled in an a painful flashback, one of many that illustrate Henri's demons. His tragedy is highlighted by his paintings that made him rich and famous, but also highlighted his outsider nature (one is that of himself regarding a lady in a state of undress, which is remarked with revulsion by one onlooker, claiming it to be pro-voyeurism). Expertly acted and directed, this is definately worth seeing, provided one is capable of enduring such woe. It's highly quotable, too! "Love is a state of confusion in which the victim can not distinguish between spiritual aspiration, carnal desire, and pride of ownership."

• Walter M

  
  [font=Century Gothic][color=darkorange]In "Moulin Rouge"(1952, no relation to the awful 2001 movie of the same title), Jose Ferrer stars as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a diminutive painter who was crippled by a childhood accident. He lived in Paris towards the end of the… More
  [font=Century Gothic][color=darkorange]In "Moulin Rouge"(1952, no relation to the awful 2001 movie of the same title), Jose Ferrer stars as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a diminutive painter who was crippled by a childhood accident. He lived in Paris towards the end of the 19th century and captured life going on around him. It is an awesome looking movie and Jose Ferrer is fine in a double role(and Zsa Zsa Gabor is the life of the party) but the movie spends more time on a couple of forgettable romantic subplots, than on Toulouse-Latrec's painting or that much time in the title establishment at all.[/color][/font]

• Duncan R

  
  It's beautifully written, but the acting is pretty dated. Suzanne Flon was the best performer in the entire movie, but sadly, her role's a minuscule one. Jose Ferrier's performance as tortured artist Toulouse-Lautrec is one that suffers from what I like to call… More
  It's beautifully written, but the acting is pretty dated. Suzanne Flon was the best performer in the entire movie, but sadly, her role's a minuscule one. Jose Ferrier's performance as tortured artist Toulouse-Lautrec is one that suffers from what I like to call "James Cagney syndrome". Ferrier's facial expressions speak volumes, but his spoken delivery of his lines just fall flat. Everyone else's performance in this movie is, at least by today's standards, amateurish at best. Many of the supporting cast tend to lose their lines behind rapid-fire, over-the-top fake French accents. A shame, considering a lot of the dialogue is wonderful. As for the cinematography (which helped earn this flick an Oscar according to the DVD packaging), it's pretty I guess. But it lacks the same vivacious energy of both Lautrec's paintings (which it supposedly is trying to emulate), and the Baz Luhrmann jukebox musical of the same name. On the plus side, the story being told here is a good one. Even if he's being portrayed in a way I don't particularly enjoy, seeing the loves, the losses, and the life of Toulouse-Lautrec is enthralling. And the ending, in particular, was pretty damn moving. In a nutshell, I liked it. I had my share of problems with it, but I still liked it.

• Cinema F

  
  The music, the characters, the directing--you can't help but admire this film for getting so many things right.

• MJS M

  
  This is not the 2001 Baz Luhrmann movie, but the 1952 film from the great John Huston. The Luhrmann film was not really a remake of this, both movies take place in turn or the century Paris and feature scenes in the Moulin Rouge cabaret (which was a real place), but the similarities… More
  This is not the 2001 Baz Luhrmann movie, but the 1952 film from the great John Huston. The Luhrmann film was not really a remake of this, both movies take place in turn or the century Paris and feature scenes in the Moulin Rouge cabaret (which was a real place), but the similarities end there. This movie is more about the life of a real painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who?s played convincingly by Jose Ferrer. The story isn?t overly interesting and it falls into a lot of the usual biopic pitfalls, but it makes up for it with its technical/production attributes. The film is notable for being one of the first color films to deliberately de-saturate the bright Technicolor of the era, resulting in a more natural palate.

• Ira Z

  
  Cool movie. Though the whole love triangle angle of the movie was effectively translated on screen. On the other hand, the whole movie was visually breath taking. Love the whole carnival effect of it.

• Miriam K

  
  Utterly Horrible!

Read all 12 featured audience ratings