In this, Mamoulian’s final film and his most nuanced work on the power of seduction, a famous Russian composer in Paris, courted by a Hollywood producer (Fred Astaire as Steve) to write music for his upcoming production of War and Peace, defects to the West. Three commissars are sent to take him back to Moscow. Lured by the charms of Paris, they fail. It is then that a female envoy (Cyd Charisse) is sent to save the face of communism. This is not just a musical remake of Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka with songs by Cole Porter – it’s a terrific film in its own right, with Mamoulian putting the emphasis on themes drastically different from the original.
Next to Two Weeks in Another Town by Vincente Minnelli, Silk Stockings is a great work of self-reflective cinema that contemplates the demise of a Hollywood now at the mercy of cheaper labour in European film studios. The self-reflective mode (manifested in songs) in combination with the film-within-film narrative (a musical about making a musical) allows Mamoulian to directly and freely comment on the state of American cinema in the late 1950s.
Mamoulian shows two types of seduction at work: one material (ephemeral, vulgar, capitalistic) and the other sensual (personal and transformative). His critique of material  seduction  is  both a satire on how Soviet communism removes desire from life and perhaps an even better satire on the shallowness of Hollywood, through the relentless caricature of an Esther-Williams-type of movie star, played by Janis Paige.
All values are in rapid downfall. While Mamoulian looks at the changing world with some disdain he still acknowledges the beauty of desire through touch, costume and memories. When Ninotchka is finally beguiled by the charms of the West she drifts into a lush solo dance. It is now her turn to seduce someone: the viewer. This is an exquisite scene as we, the audience, are given the chance to see her transformation even before Steve does. This is one of those rare moments in which Mamoulian is directly speaking to us. In an otherwise sardonic film about an industry that has become increasingly gimmicky and devoid of true meaning, Mamoulian invites us to the last dance.

Ehsan Khoshbakht

Silk Stockings is a hymn to artifice, to costumes, clothing, silk stockings, feminine lingerie and Hollywood glamour. This cinema satire has the same effect as films such as The Bad and the Beautiful or Sunset Blvd., where demystification goes hand in hand with celebration. The critique in this film, however, may have a more personal slant. In a well-known number, Fred Astaire and Janis Paige sing a song listing screen measurements and colour printing processes. Parodying the difficulties of wide screen production, they mime a love scene where they try to reach each other across the expanse of the screen scope. A more expressive, deeper “and stereophonic sound” accompanies the chorus. A brilliant number that perhaps reveals the filmmaker’s opinion of CinemaScope, a format he did not like at all. […] Silk Stockings closes his film career, reaffirming his concept of the musical and his love of show business.
Pierre Berthomieu, Rouben Mamoulian. La galerie des doubles, Liège 1995

Stereophonic sound, by Cole Porter
 Stevie Canfield and Peggy Dayton:
“Today to get the public to attend a picture show, / It’s not enough to advertise a famous star they know. / If you want to get the crowds to come around / You’ve gotta have glorious Technicolor, / Breathtaking Cinemascope and /Stereophonic sound. If Zanuck’s latest picture were the good old-fashioned kind, / There’d be no one in front to look at Marilyn’s behind. / If you want to hear applauding hands resound / You’ve gotta have glorious Technicolor, / Breathtaking Cinemascope and / Stereophonic sound.
The customers don’t like to see / The groom embrace the bride / Unless her lips are scarlet. / And her bosom’s five feet wide. / You’ve gotta have glorious Technicolor, / Breathtaking Cinemascope or / Cinerama, VistaVision, Superscope or / Todd-A-O and / Stereophonic sound, / And Stereophonic sound […]”.