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Paris: Top 5 cabarets of your favorite movies and series
Paris and its cabarets
Paris fascinates by its cabarets full of frou-frous, rhinestones, sequins but also by its hallucinating shows. Discover five cabarets immortalized in your favorite movies and series in this selection, from our Paris guide of 1000 cult places from movies, series, music, comics and novels.
1. The Moulin Rouge, the cabaret par excellence
In Moulin Rouge, which won numerous awards, including two Oscars and three Golden Globes in 2002, this feature-length film is inspired by Alexandre Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias and tells the love story between Satine, the cabaret revue leader (Nicole Kidman), and the poet Christian (Ewan McGregor).
Feathers, sequins and rhinestones, champagne too, and above all a frenzied dance, the French Cancan. Founded in 1889 by Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler, then owners of the Olympia, immortalized by Toulouse-Lautrec and popularized by La Goulue and Mistinguett, the Moulin-Rouge is one of the most famous cabarets in the world, testimony to a Belle époque where everything was carefree and joie de vivre. His magazine “Féerie” brings together a troupe of 80 artists, including the 60 Doriss Girls recruited from all over the world. That’s Paris!
Address : 82 Bd de Clichy, 75018 Paris
2. Crazy Horse
In Mafiosa, warned by his lawyer (Christophe Brault) about his relationship with Sandra Paoli, Enzo (Stefano Accorsi) fights with the latter in this extremely well-known cabaret.
There was Lova Moore or Polly Underground, there’s Ero Tikka, Mina Velours or Lolly Pop today. Their measurements have remained the same: between 1.68 and 1.73 m, 21 cm between the breasts and 13 cm between the navel and the pubis. The dancers of the Crazy Horse, named after a Sioux chef, made the fame of the striptease cabaret created in 1951 by Alain Bernardin. The shows are now also open to guest-stars: Dita von Teese, Arielle Dombasle, Pamela Anderson, Clotilde Courau or Conchita Wurst. Never razor.
Address : 12 Av. George V, 75008 Paris
3. Bobino
Before going to perform in this room, Édith Piaf (Marion Cotillard) let a young soldier, Michel Emer (Aubert Fenoy), sing a song he had composed for her. It is L’accordéoniste which will be one of his greatest hits. First a guinguette from 1873, then a café-concert and concert hall, the establishment closed its doors in 1984 and was razed to the ground the following year. A new version opened at the same location in 1991 but failed to gather a large audience and the adventure ended in 2009. The following year, major work was carried out to increase the capacity of the venue to 900 spectators.
Read more4. Folies Pigalle
In Pigalle, at night, if in the series the establishment appears to be a strip club, it is actually one of the few nightclubs in the capital to be open from midnight to noon. It is in this one that the series opens, when Thomas (Jalil Lespert), meets by chance his sister, Emma (Armelle Deutsch). This one is the star of the club and is in the middle of a stripping act.
The Folies Pigalle has a makeover in 2017. This former Italian-style theatre, converted into a cinema and then a cabaret, has been a nightclub since 1991, renowned for its eccentric clientele and its delirious afters. The programming is resolutely techno.
Address : 11 Pl. Jean Baptiste Pigalle, 75009 Paris
5. Au lapin agile, one of the oldest cabarets
In A Very Long Engagement, Elodie (Jodie Foster), accompanied by her children and husband, travels by cart down the rue des Saules, along the vineyards and arrives at the Lapin Agile, a cabaret popular with many artists such as Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob and Roland Dorgelès.
Time has stopped at the Lapin Agile, where the room, with its piano and benches, has not changed for a century. Attended by Picasso – who paid for one of his meals with his Harlequin au verre, a painting bought in 1989 by the Metropolitan Museum of New York -, Maupassant and Apollinaire, saved by Aristide Bruant in 1913, the doyen of Montmartre’s cabarets owes its name to the painter André Gill, author of the famous rabbit jumping from the pan. Young talents continue to perform where Brassens first sang.
Address : 22 Rue des Saules, 75018 Paris
The Fantrippers Buying Board
The Paris guide to the 1000 cult places of films, series, music, comics and novels
The coolest guide in Paris!
The café of Amélie, the mansion of Untouchables, the jazz club of the finale of La La Land, the Hôtel du Nord of the mythical replica of Arletty “Atmosphere”, the cinema of A bout de souffle, the restaurant of Ratatouille, the quays of the Seine of Midnight in Paris, the secret places of the Da Vinci Code, the grocery store of January in La Traversée de Paris , the Bridge of Inception and Peur sur la ville, the addresses of the spectacular scenes of Mission Impossible 6, but also series Call my agent, Gears, Le Bureau des légendes, Sense8, Sex and The City, Gossip Girl…
Etienne Daho’s Café de Flore, Jay-Z and Kanye West’s hotel in Nas in Paris, Serge Gainsbourg’s Poinçonneur des Lilas metro station, Serge Reggiani and Marc Lavoine’s Mirabeau Bridge, Mc Solaar’s Lyon station…
The places evoked in the comics Adèle Blanc-Sec, Largo Winch, Blake and Mortimer, Michel Vaillant…
But also in the novels of Ernest Hemingway, Victor Hugo, Leo Malet, Daniel Pennac, Marc Levy, Guillaume Musso… you’ll find all the must-see places of Parisian Pop Culture in this new guide.
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By Damien Duarte
Passionné par la culture pop depuis son enfance, ses références vont de Donald Duck à Batman en passant par Marty McFly. Fantripper dans l'âme, voyager sur les traces de Ghostbusters, James Bond ou des héros de romans comme Cotton Malone fait partie d'un séjour idéal et réussi !