Limbo sets, cheap costumes, Kálmán's brilliant orchestrations replaced by arrangements suggestive of Las Vegas in the 60s (or, occasionally, the Benny Hill Show), and excruciatingly bad sound, with dialog scenes that seem to have no room tone at all (I half suspect the whole thing was shot MOS and then looped—or dubbed—in a dead room), contrasted with musical numbers that all seem to have been taped in a hockey arena with the microphones ten feet away from the singers.
I might add that Mister X's world-famous circus routine is mostly a perfectly ordinary trapeze act, but with a grand finalé that is physically impossible.
At least the ingénue is cute.
If you don't mind it being completely in Russian, the 1982 version is far superior—if you can find it.
