NFR Project: 'An American in Paris' (1951)

 

NFR Project: “An American in Paris”

Dir: Vincente Minelli

Scr: Alan Jay Lerner

Pho: Alfred Gilks, John Alton

Ed: Adrienne Fazan

Premiere: Oct. 4, 1951

113 min.

Was this picture really better than A Place in the Sun? A Streetcar Named Desire? Academy voters thought so, for they awarded this film with Best Picture in 1952, as well as with Oscars for best screenplay, score, cinematography, art direction, and set design. It even won a special Oscar for its choreography.

However, this film won plaudits on the strength of its final, 17-minute dance sequence, one of the most elaborate and expensive in MGM history. That consummate musical director Vincente Minnelli was at the helm, and his finishing extravaganza in this film is rightly considered his signature film creation.

The film is really more of a tone poem than a story. It takes place (natch) in Paris, where Gene Kelly plays Jerry Mulligan, an aspiring ex-G.I. who seeks fame and fortune as a painter. (Don’t look at his work too closely – it’s not that good.) He lives cheaply in a garret, next to his pal, aspiring composer Adam (Oscar Levant, playing his usual acerbic-friend role). Jerry captures the attention of rich cultural maven Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), who wants to sponsor him as a patron – and to get in his pants as well.

However, Jerry sees a young girl, Lise (Leslie Caron), in a café and falls for her immediately. Through persistence, he captures her heart. She, however, is engaged to the older musical star Henri (Georges Guetary). Can the two find happiness together? The script is gossamer-thin, and the ending is a foregone conclusion. What animates the story are the musical sequences imbedded within it, featuring the music of George and Ira Gershwin.

The initial dance numbers are very small-scale and informal, not requiring agreat deal of directorial thought. Gene taps for children and for his pal. Levant gets a bravura showpiece of him performing the final movement of Gershwin’s Concerto in F – in which he plays not only the piano but the conductor, violinists, and the appreciative audience as well. Kelly and Caron have a tender pas de deux by the banks of the Seine.

The final sequence is the highlight of the film. Set to Gershwin’s “An American in Paris,” the extended ballet features Kelly and Caron cavorting among a crowd of elaborately dressed dancers who move through sets designed after the paintings of French artists such as Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. Explosively vibrant, the exuberant passage sums up the themes of the film, focusing on Kelly’s yearnings for Caron.

Gene Kelly’s inimitable dancing takes the spotlight, of course; Caron’s ballet training makes her an ideal partner. The massive resources of major film studios made such a film possible.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Day the Earth Stood Still.