American in Paris by WARNER HOME VIDEO, Vincente Minnelli, Gene Kelly

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Overview

Gene Kelly does his patented Pal Joey bit as Jerry Mulligan, an opportunistic American painter living in Paris' "starving artists" colony. He is discovered by wealthy Milo Roberts Nina Foch, who becomes Jerry's patroness in more ways than one. Meanwhile, Jerry plays hookey on this setup by romancing waif-like Lise Bouvier Leslie Caron--who, unbeknownst to him, is the object of the affections of his close friend Henri Georges Guetary, a popular nightclub performer the film was supposed to make Guetary into "the New Chevalier." It didn't. The thinnish plot is held together by the superlative production numbers and by the recycling of several vintage George Gershwin tunes, including "I Got Rhythm," "S'wonderful," and "Our Love is Here to Stay." Highlights include Guetary's rendition of "Stairway to Paradise"; Oscar Levant's fantasy of conducting and performing Gershwin's "Concerto in F" Levant also appears as every member of the orchestra; and the closing 17-minute "American in Paris" ballet, in which Kelly and Caron dance before lavish backgrounds based on the works of famed French artists.

Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder

Vincente Minnelli's An American in Paris set a new standard for the subgenre known as the "songbook" musical. Since the dawn of sound, producers had been attracted to films built around the published output of composers as different as Johann Strauss (The Great Waltz, Waltzes From Vienna), Jerome Kern (Till the Clouds Roll By), Cole Porter (Night and Day), and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart (Words and Music). Mostly, the material was strung together, sometimes hooked around a fanciful pseudo-biography of the composer in question, and audiences grinned and bore the plot elements while delighting to the music. An American in Paris was freed of any need to embrace composer George Gershwin as an onscreen figure by virtue of the 1945 screen biography Rhapsody in Blue, in which Robert Alda had portrayed the composer. Rather, Minnelli, Gene Kelly, and screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner simply used the title and the substance of the title work as a jumping-off point for a screen fantasy that happened to utilize much of the major Gershwin song catalog (indeed, the 1992 laserdisc edition, with the unmixed music tracks on the alternate soundtrack, reveals dozens of Gershwin tunes buried in the underscore). Some of the inspiration for the film's 16-minute ballet finale came from the Red Shoes ballet sequence from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 The Red Shoes, while the presence of Leslie Caron, although logical to the plot, originated with some studio executive's notion that the Powell-Pressburger movie had been a hit "because the girl was 'foreign'." Whatever its inspirations and imitations, An American in Paris won seven Academy Awards and box-office success. The overall film (especially the non-musical elements) hasn't worn quite so well over the years, but it was a vital piece of cinema in its time, stretching the envelope of the level of sophistication that a major studio would pursue, and ripping that envelope to shreds with the climactic ballet sequence, which became the model for still more daring sequences in such Hollywood films as Singin' in the Rain and The Band Wagon and such European imitators as Black Tights and Kelly's own dance extravaganza, Invitation to the Dance.

Product Details

Release Date: 5/2/2000
UPC: 012569506930
Original Release: 1951

Rating:

Source: WARNER HOME VIDEO
Format: VHS

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gene Kelly	Jerry Mulligan
Leslie Caron	Lise Bouvier
Oscar Levant	Adam Cook
Georges Guétary	Henri Baurel
Nina Foch	Milo Roberts
Eugene Borden	George Mattieu
Martha Bamattre	Mathilde Mattieu
Mary Young	Old Woman Dancer
Madge Blake	Edna Mae Bestram (customer)
Nan Boardman	Maid
Andre Charisse	Dancing Partner
Ann Codee	Therese
George Davis	Francois
Art Dupuis	Driver
John Eldredge	Jack Jansen
Mary Jones	Old Lady Dancer
Jeanne Lafayette	Nun
Paul Maxey	John McDowd
Greg McClure	Artist
Noel Neill	American Girl
Anna Q. Nilsson	Kay Jansen
Alfred Paix	Postman
Don Quinn	Honeymooner
Alex Romero
Hayden Rorke	Tommy Baldwin
Dick Wessel	Ben Macrow

Technical Credits

Vincente Minnelli	Director
John Alton	Cinematographer, Consultant/advisor
Preston Ames	Art Director
Saul Chaplin	Musical Direction/Supervision
Adrienne Fazan	Editor
Arthur Freed	Producer
Ira Gershwin	Songwriter
Cedric Gibbons	Art Director
Alfred Gilks	Cinematographer
Johnny Green	Musical Direction/Supervision
Gene Kelly	Choreography
Alan Jay Lerner	Original Story, Screenwriter
Warren Newcombe	Special Effects
Orry-Kelly	Costumes/Costume Designer
Walter Plunkett	Costumes/Costume Designer
Irene Sharaff	Costumes/Costume Designer
Edwin B. Willis	Set Decoration/Design

Customer Reviews

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More About This Product

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All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder

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An American in Paris

Overview

All Available Formats & Editions

More About This Product

Overview

Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder

Product Details

Related Categories

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Technical Credits

Customer Reviews

5 Star

4 Star

3 Star

2 Star

1 Star

Your Rating:

Your Recommendations:

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

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