The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 404

BY PHILIP K. SCHEUER Yet Not Too Hiffliliro $pck Tights' Artistic, fc 1 can-can. Hans Van Manen plays hef husband and Petit thi dashing young man who takes place as the husband's portrait takej ITS place Vhh. those of her other lat (or ex) husbands on the Eizet's opera score is re-arranged but exciting as ever in "Carmen," thaj piece de resistance-! It is danced S3 hard and well that the sweat showif as Don Jose meets and falls for th Spanish cigarette girl, wins her al thaf price of his honor, loses her to th toreador and, in his jealousy, killi her. i i Spellbinding Sensuality 1 Peaks of virtuosity are reached la Petit's love scene (added) vnth that tempting jeanmaire in Carmen's bed 'room-spellbinding in its Latin sen suality and in Petit's climactic ritual of hate to a throbbing drum.

The pali. are tops in Terps here and they ara( matched in a short but stunning tunji by Henning Kronstam as the triumphant toreador. Even spectators who' wouldn't presume to master anything more intricate than the twist will have no difficulty in 'getting this "Carmen's" message! "Black Tights" was filmed entirely, in Paris. It was produced by the latcp Joseph Kaufman in association witH Simon Schiffrin and is being release! here by Magna. i A 4 i Los Angeles is no stranger to the ballets of Roland Petit; he has danced here with his premiere danseuse, Zizi1 Jeanmaire, who is also his wife.

And Jeanmaire appeared in the Hollywood movies, "Hans ClirLstian Andersen" and "Anything Goes." Soon they will be back in a motion picture of their own, "Black Tights." It will present a challenge, box-office-wise, as screen ballet always does: Gene Kelly's "Invitation to the Dance," in 1957, was hardly a success and the full-length classics the Rus-slans have sent us, from Tschaikow-sky to Prokofieff, have attracted only specialized audiences. A Potential Handicap "Black Tights" is different. It has the precedence of "West Side Story" behind it, and could do as much to popularize Frenjch ballet as "West Side" did for American. For "Black Tights" is artistic without being forbiddingly highbrow. It still, however, must override a potential handicap as far as American filmgoers are concerned: it tells not one but four sto-ries.

To soften us up, to brake the bumpy gap between one and another, the picture has enlisted the suave sendees of that bona fide boulevar- dier, Monsieur Maurice Chevalier. Jaunty as springtime and as engagingly confidential as ever, M. Chevalier introduces and explains, or explains away, each of the four chos-' en by M. Petit for choreographing: Diamond Cruncher," "Cyrano de Bergerac," "A Merry Mourning" and "Carmen." These are alternately comic and serious; "Cyrano" and "Carmen" are, of course, the tragic 4 ones. All of them have been directed by Terence Young and, to be sure, Petit in wide-screen Technirama and Technicolor that is visually dazzling.

Young has kept the camera cinematic to a remarkable degree, with movement both of the frame and within the frame; the color sets, decor, cos-j ftumes is often breathtaking and the music caressing or stirring. Petit himself three of the danc-f ing leads with as many talented partly hers Jeanmaire, Cyd Charisse and i Moira Shearer. "Carmen," No. 4, is the real show-f stopper. But to take them in their order: Principals in "The Diamond I Cruncher'" are Jeanmaire and Dirk Sanders as Pierrot.

In this fantasy I arrives by taxi to deliver a banquette, or fancy sofa, to a small bistro. When it wont fit into the small fcafe bar, a hole is broken in the irw ZIZI JEANMAIRE IN "CARMEN" SEQUENCE IN FILM "BLACK TIGHTS I 4BLACK TIGHTS' BALLETS. .1 "THE DIAMOND CRUNCHER" (La Croqueuse de Diamants) 1 Th Diamond Cruncher ZIZI JEANMAIRl Piarrot DIRK SANDERS 0 BERGERAC" 'MOIRA SHEARER Cyrans' ROLAND PETIT GEORGE REICH wall to make room. This sets a series of strange events in motion; behind the wall is a hideout for thieves and pickpockets, and Pierrot finds himself there with the lady leader, Jeanmaire. Like most ladies this one dotes on diamonds.

But with a difference; she eats them. She and Pierrot dance a joyous dance of mutual discovery and thereafter, presumably, he persuades her to dine on more mundane and less rich fare, like cabbage! Jeanmaire and the chorus engage in a bit of singing here, but it doesn't amount to much and is carelessly dubbed any-way. Faithful to the Play "The Diamond Cruncher" is a Petit "original and makes for a fair opener. Rostand's is faithful to the play Petit as the long-nosed poet to whom a rose by any other name smells even sweeter, the British Miss Shearer as Roxane and George Reich as her young admirer Christian. Here swordsmen as well as swords dance in the light; the camera also makes effective vertical use of things falling, like war pennants and autumn leaves.

And it is actually possible to feel sad for Cyrano and the lovely, if not too bright, Roxane. There is dueling also in "A Merry Mourning," a peculiarly Parisian divertissement complete with can-can and music unashamedly designed by Maurice Thiriet after Offenbach. Chevalier gives lis the moral: "Monsieur, should j'ou one day stroll the Champs.Elysecs with a beauty who need not necessarily be your wife and In a shop window she sees a black dress, you are warned: Black is a' beautiful color for a beautiful woman but it is also worn for mourning Cyd CharisseVlegs, always decorative, prove themselves capable of swinging from sexy wait to sexier c. "yj. V.a "A'MERRY MOURNING" (Deuil en 24 Heures) Th Widow CYD CHARISSI Tnd YoongJMon' ROLAND PETIT The Husband HANS VAN MANEN 'K v- "CARMEN Is I vis CarmM JEANMAIRE I Dolose ipgntrlcg'Ctmt calendar, Sunday, march mi A.