Glorious Technicolor (An American In Paris (DVD))

Member Name: Celandine

Product:	An American In Paris (DVD)
Date:	01/08/01 (128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: All-singing, All-dancing, Musical Spectacle

Disadvantages: All-singing, All-dancing, Musical spectacle

"The Greatest Dance experience ever on Screen". This is how MGM presented "An American in Paris" when it was first released in 1951. Unsurprisingly, it's filmed in Glorious Technicolour, although we're past the stage of the really Glorious Technicolor of, say, "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", where the overall skintone seems to be a fuzzy bright orange.

Gene Kelly's skintone in "An American in Paris" has a Healthy Glow, but it isn't neon. And I'm doing the film a bit of a disservice, because one of it's really good points is its use of colour. There's a lot of singing, dancing, and ballerinas in frilly frocks everywhere, you see, which means a lot of colourful costumes, and it's all done very well indeed, but more on that later.

If you don't already know, which is unlikely, Kelly's co-star is Leslie Caron, in her first film role (she's an "Exotic Parisian Discovery", you know). She is French, which is good, since the film is set in Paris, if you hadn't already guessed, and she's a dancer, which is also good, since her acting talents don't really, err, surface during the film. Gene Kelly does happy, sad, and dances really well, and Leslie Caron does happy, sad, and dances really well, too.

There's more. Georges Guetary (a French singer, and star of Musical Theatre) sings really well, and his character, luckily, is a star of Musical Theatre. He does happy and sad, too, but with a slightly thicker French accent than Leslie Caron. Oscar Levant plays piano beautifully, and does a sort of intermediate slightly grumpy look. The music is Gershwin, and it's, just, well, very good indeed.

I think I've sort of given you the idea so far. There is a plot here, but the plot is pretty much a vehicle for the star (Kelly), the dancing (Kelly and Caron), the theatrical set-pieces (Guetary), and the music (Levant). Acting is provid
ed by Nina Foch, who does it rather well, given the circumstances, and she doesn't sing or dance at all, so she was on a losing wicket at the start, really. In the credits, all they can find to tell you is to "Marvel at her Beauty". I suppose they couldn't really say "She acts, you know".

Having pretty much told you its limitations, although I haven't touched on Kelly's costumes yet, I'd better point out the the film is really very good. It's dated, of course, and it's thin on plot, but that doesn't really matter when the dancing, and the music, and the choreography work so well. Right at the very end of the film is a 16 minute ballet, for which Kelly won a special Oscar, and, strange though it seems, since 16 minutes is a very long time when you're getting used to lightweight musical snippets repeated every 5 minutes, this works.

The ballet itself is full of colour, movement, shape, and multitudes of sets, with lots of ballerinas, and different characters all twirling and swirling around rather cleverly. I don't know a blind thing about dance, but it certainly looks good, and, although it isn't really my sort of thing, I enjoyed it. My favorite dance bit probably has more to do with theatre and costume, but I'd better explain some of the plot before I launch into all that.

Right. Kelly is an American art student in Paris. Yes, I know, but lets just suspend our disbelief a bit, which is hard, and rendered harder since the good costume mistress at MGM clearly thought that art students in Paris wore pristine white flannel trousers and little sailor hats, and the good set builders decided that although they lived in tatty (scenic) bedsits, they also had little devices that folded up beds and automatically produced tables and chairs from cupboards. Never mind. Disbelief firmly suspended, we realise that he lives above Levant (a struggling pianist), who is best friends with Gue
tary ( now famous, but getting on a bit).

Guetary drops in to the local cafe to have a chat with Levant, and meets Kelly. There's a very clever dancing and musical sequence ( sometimes the dancing really works, even looking at the film with modern eyes) and then we realise that Guetary is telling Levant all about the woman he loves. This, of course, is the "exotic discovery", Caron, and is the cue for a little split-screen depictation of her multi-faceted personality, all shown through little dances. This, although probably the height of sophistication in 1951, looks a little silly, now, and the film itself is a bit like that.

"An American in Paris has great bits, but can be wince-makingly dated. I had to close my eyes during the musical number with Kelly and the (all american) 'parisian' street urchins, because otherwise I'd have laughed too much. And laughing too much can't be a bad thing anyway, even if it was for the wrong reasons.

Anyway, Kelly then takes himself, beautifully pressed trousers and all, off to Montmartres to sell his paintings, where he bumps into Foch, who fancies him as a boyfriend (and that's before she's seen him dance or sing, which must say something). She's a rich, older American lady, you see, with a yen for young artists. The line that really dates the film?

Kelly: "So where did you get your Money, Husband or father?
Foch : "Father. He was in oil"

Any modern rich pretty woman would have hit him, I think, making for a very interesting musical routine indeed. Well, she takes him, after some persuasion of the non-erotic kind (namely promises of an art exhibition) to dinner, where he meets the lovely Caron, all teeth, hair and tiny waist, and, surprise, they dance (and sing, a bit). Kelly is smitten, follows her around, and despite her engagement to the successful Guetary, and the jealousy of Foch, they have a scenic, romantic song
-and-dance filled love affair.

Well, of course, it all goes wrong towards the end. Caron feels guilty, and promises to marry Guetary before he takes up an offer to go to Hollywood. She tells Kelly, who is devastated, but, they all have one more night, since it is the night of the Art Students' Ball. Yes, that's the Art Students' Ball.

This is the bit I really like, in terms of spectacle and costume. The Art Students' Ball is a sort of parody of a Venetian Masque, except all the costumes, and the set, are coloured Black or White. Enormous hats shaped like wedding cakes, or giant cream horns, gloriously outlandish dresses, and lots of men in capes, tights and masks. It's outlandish, and beautifully staged and filmed. I can see bits of "Prospero's Books" in the staging, and the theatrical spectacle of it all. It's wonderful, even if, at this point, disbelief has stopped trying to be suspended, and is lying on the floor wanting you to tickle its tummy.

So there you go. Kelly and Caron meet, have a sad episode, overheard by Guetary (he's hidden behind a big baroque pillar), and Kelly is left on the balcony, doing sad very well, and lost in thought. Cue the 16 minute long ballet episode, and after that, the ending, but I'll leave you to guess what that is.

There are some things, despite the silly plot, that do stand out a bit. Caron's character, such as it is, has to choose between nice, old, wealthy and conservative, and nice, young, romantic and poor. It's the tension between the successful old guard and unsuccessful young that make it a bit more interesting than it could be. Similarly, Kelly is American, so is Koch. There's a sort of Europe/States tension around, too. So although it is flimsy, the plot does have some depth to it, and these things are explored a little in the ballet at the end, which is more than just spectacle, I think, but has quite a few lurking themes, too
.

I have to admit that it is the spectacle that draws me to this sort of film, and I also have to admit that this sort of film doesn't draw me very often. The times when it does are those cold winter days when you've got flu, and all you want to do is snuggle up in a blanket on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate and a silly film. I'd rather watch something like "An American in Paris" than, let's say, "Pretty Woman". That's just my taste, which, like I said, doesn't usually run to silly films anyway. I'd probably have Fred and Ginger as my first choice, because I adore them, but sometimes you need a change, and I'm feeling a spell of "Big Musicals" coming on.

One thing you can say about films of this type is that they are rarely dull. They can be silly, dated, cheesy, but not dull. There's just too much going on for that. I haven't even mentioned Levant's Orchestra sequence, or Guetary's big, on-stage musical number (which is fantastic). They are also devoid in wit or any surplus cleverness, which when I've a cold, I rather appreciate.

So there you go. I'm no film critic, so I can't give you that angle at all (sorry), but I do like watching musicals when I'm hungover, and this is quite a good one. It's not the best, for me, but it's a good one, hilarious - sometimes unintentionally, and without any grounding in reality whatsoever. And it's a Spectacle, the dancing is super, and don't forget that Glorious Technicolor.

Running Time 109 minutes
Story and Screen Play :Alan J Lerner
Music :George Gershwin
Lyrics :Ira Gershwin
Director :Vincente Minelli
Producer :Ira Reed
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture 1951.

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