As in a boit de nuit, tables are set in the pit with candles, glasses, and wine buckets that waiters run in to fill with champagne for "front row" theater-goers. An actor-producer appears and gets the audience to go along with chorus-dancers in singing "C'est Vrai," and the red velvet curtain parts to reveal arches and stairway. Chorus girls are rehearsing when joined by an attractive girl carrying (to sell?) flowers, who's chosen on the spot to join them. (She'll eventually be second lead singer and, at very end, more important still. Besides, her voice proves to be the best of show.) Enter Mistinguett in huge pink powder-puff hoop skirt, soon to be discarded to show her famous legs. They, elaborate costumes, and the showwomanship of Mistinguett's portrayer, Lillian Montevecchi (a legend of her own in the making), constitute a show meant to do little more than please audiences. And that it does, especially the carte vermeille seniors nostalgic about the queen who reigned in musical halls during their youth.
Plot, here, is an excuse for recreating musical numbers (e.g., "La Cucuracha") from the star's various vehicles, also giving a chance to shine to her maid (who used to be in musicals), the new girl, and the male singer. (No, not a Chevalier clone; Maurice is present only in a prominent photo in Mistinguett's dressing room. Montevecchi sings "Mon Homme" to it and all but brings down the house.) The idea is that Mistinguett will appear, after a long absence from the stage, in a new revue (like this one). To get publicity, she will become engaged to a muscular young Jack Marchand but for financial reasons play up to a backer as well. Montevecchi's best love scene, however, is with the crowd watching her. When she works the audience singing "I'm Looking for a Millionaire," all the men seem willing to try to qualify. (The night I attend one spontaneously gives her 100 francs.)
Of course, there are complications in the love story both in and out of Mistinguette's "last revue." Not to worry. One elaborately sequinned, furred, beaded, and feathered costume after another, Montevecchi and Mistinguett's fame grow. Would that the underpinnings of this musical, from plot to the quality of the songs, were more substantial. Without a star of Montevecchi's reputation and cast of quality singers (here, all the women), the show would be pretty nude.
