An American in Paris (1951)

Truly Dreadful Film

Really Surprised!

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Another Oscar BEST PICTURE winner confected by Vincente Minnelli, the maker of GIGI (1958), comes a cropper as a fusty pomp through the test of time, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, a studio-bound pageant jovially trades on Gene Kelly's terpsichorean aptitude, Oscar Levant's pianistic virtuosity and Georges Guétary's mellow tenor, also introducing a barely 20-year-old Leslie Caron, who fares way better on pointe than acting love-torn between two men. The titular American is Jerry Mulligan (Kelly), an undiscovered painter trying his luck in Paris, who gets the patronage from a wealthy socialite Milo Roberts (Foch), but falls head over heels for an ingénue Lise Bouvier (Caron), who in truth is the girlfriend of a French cabaret singer Henri Baurel (Guétary), yet, Henri and Jerry have a common friend, the struggling concert pianist Adam Cook (Levant). Alan Jay Lerner's Oscar-winning script doesn't even try to juice up the love triangle, nor does it disperses comic relief whenever it sees fit, one glaring missing opportunity is when the three male friends share the same scene with Adam in the knowing that the other two are falling in love with the same girl, what does he do? Nothing but hangdog insouciance. More problematically is its salient demerit of flagrant misogyny and male's wish-fulfillment, earlier on, Jerry haughtily berates a young female student (Neill) who tries to assess his works, utterly dismisses her opinion as inconsequential, and when Milo comes to the picture, Foch was only 27-year-old then, but what the picture depicts her makes her look like a lonely, minted cougar salivating over Jerry with every step and gaze, later after being patronized with a kiss from her disillusion-stuck beau, she has to stomach a supercilious sideswipe from a floppy Adam and only thanks to Foch's majestic composure, the character narrowly escapes from being a total laughing stock, plus Jerry's rapturous infatuation with a mousy Caron over an apparently poised Milo makes it distastefully difficult to suspend our disbelief, and writs large Hollywood's morbid obsession with young girls. Fanfare reaches its apex in the climatic "The American in Paris Ballet", a 17 minute seamlessly choreographed sequence is spectacular with a capital S, yet, everything impresses for the eyes/ears only, a meretricious pomp punches far above its weight, and very likely, ranks in the lowest rung among the prestigious Oscar BEST PICTURE clique.

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. The long ballet is spectacular. Caron is quite young, and Kelly is long in the tooth and biologically old enough to be her father. This is her first film, I am told, and he is at the peak of his career. They pull off the ballet splendidly, however. Georges Guetary ALSO looks old for Caron in this film.Two old geezers competing for the hand of such a young, delicate flower? The creep factor enters in, here. As usual, Oscar Levant has no romantic inclinations, here. He is married to himself, his obnoxious cigarette and his mistress of a piano. I know! All of the young, hot Parisian men got killed in the war, or something like that. Kelly was born in 1912, and Caron in 1931. This makes him 19 years older than Caron. He wasn't such a veteran as he is made out to be, however, since his first film, I am told, was For Me and My Gal in support of hot-at-the-time Judy Garland in 1942 -- only nine years earlier. Previously, Kelly had been on stage in Pal Joey.Jack (Jacques?) Bouvier? Wasn't that the name of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis' father? Yes, Jackie's father was Black Jack Bouvier. The long ballet: I still like better the long ballet in The Red Shoes. It is very exotic and intriguing. Mayhap An American in Paris somehow copied some of that? Red Shoes was ALSO the film debut of ANOTHER young en-pointe female ballet dancer named Moira Shearer, I am told. I like Georges Guetary and Oscar Levant in this film, plus the older women dancers and older gentleman in the cafe near the beginning of this film. I like the colors and fashions in this film. I like all of the dancing policemen. Pirates of Penzance, anyone?I am a degreed historian, dancer, actress, singer, makeup artist, film critic and movie reviewer. My favorite films are always song and dance musicals.

This movie is made well but its really aging bad. It has random stupid dance numbers (one with Lise dancing in different costumers) and its honestly a big insult to see such a waste of talent (Gene Kelly). He is the highlight but take him out and the movies bad. Not a good movie. Made OK and Gene Kelly is enjoyable. Also they start with narration because they cant figure out how to show us stuff.

It's ironic that "An American in Paris" features US citizens speaking glowingly of France. Half a century later Donald Rumsfeld called it Old Europe when Jacques Chirac refused to help the US invade Iraq. Of course, France wasn't without its own misdeeds. Anyone who's studied a little history knows that the French were merciless to the Algerians, and tortured Algerian prisoners during Algeria's war for independence.But anyway, the movie is unpleasant to watch, knowing that Gene Kelly was twice Leslie Caron's age. Seriously, their relationship comes across as statutory rape. If you've read my reviews of musicals, then you probably know that I watch them for the purpose of heckling them like Mike, Servo and Crow do to the crummy movies that Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank send them on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Most of my comments during "AAiP" are not ones that I'll be allowed to repeat in this review. I will, however, say that the 16-minute dance sequence at the end looks like something that they came up with after eating too much sugar. A lot of people would probably call it an acid trip.One thing that I noticed was the appearance of Hayden Rorke, best known as Dr. Bellows on "I Dream of Jeannie". My satirical explanation of his appearance here is that Jeannie accidentally blinked him to Paris, and so he calls his wife and says "Amanda, Maj. Nelson has somehow sent me to Paris! There's bound to be a conspiracy at work here!", causing mass hysteria in Coco Beach, leading to an accidental launch of a rocket. Oh Jeannie, will you ever learn? Long story short, this is not a movie that I can take seriously, and it didn't deserve Best Picture in a year that gave us "A Streetcar Named Desire".