Silk Stockings is a 1957 MGM musical film remake of Ninotchka. It was directed by Rouben Mamoulian and starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. The supporting cast included Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, Jules Munshin, and George Tobias repeating his Broadway role.

It received Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Film and Best Actress (Charisse) in the Comedy/Musical category.

The score was embellished with the song "The Ritz Roll and Rock," a parody of the then-emerging rock and roll genre. The number ends with Astaire symbolically smashing his top hat, considered one of his trademarks, signaling his retirement from movie musicals, which he announced following the film's release.

A brash American movie producer, Steve Canfield (Fred Astaire), wants Russian composer Peter Illyich Boroff (Wim Sonneveld) to write music for his next picture, which is being made in Paris. But when the composer expresses his wish to stay in Paris, three comically bumbling operatives, Comrades Brankov (Peter Lorre), Bibinski (Jules Munshin) and Ivanov (Joseph Buloff), are sent from Moscow to take Boroff back.

Silk Stockings is a musical with a book by George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath, and Abe Burrows and music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

Hildegarde Knef (German spelling) gives a vivid backstage account of the casting, rehearsals, tryouts and Broadway opening of Silk Stockings in her autobiography The Gift Horse: Report on a Life (McGraw Hill, 1971) pages 281 through 342.

The musical is loosely based on the Melchior Lengyel story Ninotchka and the 1939 film adaptation it inspired. It ran on Broadway in 1955. This was the last musical that Porter wrote for the stage.

During the "severely troubled tryout" George S. Kaufman and his wife Leueen MacGrath were replaced by Abe Burrows. (According to Cecil Michener Smith and Glenn Litton, Kaufman became angry and quit.) Burrows re-wrote most of the book. The producer Cy Feuer took over the direction from Kaufman. The three leads had not previously performed in a Broadway musical comedy: Hildegarde Neff was a German film and stage actress, Don Ameche had never sung, and Gretchen Wyler was making her Broadway debut. "All three triumphed."

Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films.

Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that "the history of dance on film begins with Astaire". Beyond film and television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged his importance and influence.

Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Johanna "Ann" (née Geilus) and Frederic "Fritz" Austerlitz (born September 8, 1868, as Friedrich Emanuel Austerlitz). Astaire's mother was born in the United States to Lutheran German immigrants from East Prussia and Alsace, while Astaire's father was born in Linz, Austria, to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism.

Cyd Charisse (March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American actress and dancer.

After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually focused on her abilities as a dancer, and she was paired with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly; her films include Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957). She stopped dancing in films in the late 1950s, but continued acting in film and television, and in 1992 made her Broadway debut.

In her later years, she discussed the history of the Hollywood musical in documentaries, and participated in That's Entertainment! III in 1994. She was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 2006.

Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname "Sid" was taken from a sibling trying to say "Sis". (It was later spelled "Cyd" at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as "Felia Siderova" and, later, "Maria Istomina".

Sherlock Holmes ( /ˈʃɜrlɒk ˈhoʊmz/) is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to adopt almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases.

Holmes, who first appeared in publication in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories. The first novel, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887 and the second, The Sign of the Four, in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the first series of short stories in Strand Magazine, beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia in 1891; further series of short stories and two novels published in serial form appeared between then and 1927. The stories cover a period from around 1880 up to 1914.

All but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Holmes himself ("The Blanched Soldier" and "The Lion's Mane") and two others are written in the third person ("The Mazarin Stone" and "His Last Bow"). In two stories ("The Musgrave Ritual" and "The Gloria Scott"), Holmes tells Watson the main story from his memories, while Watson becomes the narrator of the frame story. The first and fourth novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear, each include a long interval of omniscient narration recounting events unknown to either Holmes or Watson.