An American in Paris (film)

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An American in Paris
theatrical poster
Directed by	Vincente Minnelli
Produced by	Arthur Freed
Written by	Alan Jay Lerner
Starring	Gene Kelly Leslie Caron Oscar Levant Georges Guétary Nina Foch
Music by	George Gershwin (music) Ira Gershwin (lyrics) Saul Chaplin (uncredited)
Cinematography	Alfred Gilks John Alton (ballet)
Editing by	Adrienne Fazan
Distributed by	Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release date(s)	4 October 1951
Running time	113 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2,723,903 (est.)

An American in Paris is a 1951 MGM musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, and Oscar Levant, the film is set in Paris, and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner. The music is by George Gershwin, with lyrics by his brother Ira, with additional music by Saul Chaplin, the music director.

The story of the film is interspersed with show-stopping dance numbers choreographed by Gene Kelly and set to Gershwin tunes. Songs and music include "I Got Rhythm," "I'll Build A Stairway to Paradise," "'S Wonderful," and "Our Love is Here to Stay". The climax is "The American in Paris" ballet, an 18 minute dance featuring Kelly and Caron set to Gershwin's An American in Paris. The ballet alone cost more than $500,000, a staggering sum at the time.

[edit] Plot summary

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam (Oscar Levant) is a struggling concert pianist who is a long time associate of a French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in Jerry more than his art. Jerry remains oblivious to her feelings, and falls in love with Lise (Leslie Caron), a French girl he meets at a restaurant. Lise loves him as well, but she is already in a relationship with Henri, whom she feels indebted to for having saved her family during World War II.

At a raucous masked ball, with everyone in black-and-white costumes, Milo learns that Jerry is not interested in her, Jerry learns that Lise is in love with him, but is marrying Henri the next day, and Henri overhears their conversation. When Henri drives Lise away, Jerry daydreams about being with her all over Paris, his reverie broken by a car horn, the sound of Henri bringing Lise back to him.

[edit] Cast

• Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan
• Leslie Caron as Lise Bouvier
• Oscar Levant as Adam Cook
• Georges Guétary as Henri "Hank" Baurel
• Nina Foch as Milo Roberts

Cast notes

• Hayden Rorke, best known for playing Dr. Bellows on the TV series I Dream of Jeannie has a small part as a friend of Nina Foch's character.
• Noel Neill, later to portray Lois Lane on the TV series The Adventures of Superman, has a small role as an American art student who tries to criticize Jerry Mulligan's paintings.

[edit] Soundtrack

• "Our Love Is Here to Stay"
• "By Strauss"
• "Tra-la-la (This Time It's Really Love)"
• "I Got Rhythm" (performed by Gene Kelly)
• "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" (sung by Georges Guétary)
• "'S Wonderful" (sung by Gene Kelly and Georges Guétary, danced by Gene Kelly)
• "Nice Work If You Can Get It" (sung by Georges Guétary)
• "Embraceable You" (danced by Leslie Caron)
• "An American in Paris Ballet" (danced by Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron and ensemble)
• "Strike Up the Band"
• "Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra" (played by Oscar Levant and The MGM Symphony Orchestra)

[edit] Production

The film was shot in Hollywood, so it features some quirks in the occasional French dialogue. Notably, near the beginning of the I Got Rhythm number, one of the 'French' children Jerry, parle anglais à nous, which sounds rather curious, containing mistakes both in direct object placement and in respectful address. In the French soundtrack, which switches to the original sound for the duration of the songs, the à nous is masked through a plop sound, to make the sentence more palatable.

Hollywood movies set in France seldom used location shooting or native speakers. However, great care was sometimes put into reproducing Paris surroundings, as in An American in Paris or Irma La Douce. Many French Paris-set movies of this era avoided location work too, and sometimes the same art directors (Alexandre Trauner being the best known example) worked on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

[edit] Awards and honors

Kelly and Caron dance

[edit] Academy Awards

Wins

• Academy Award for Best Picture — Arthur Freed, producer
• Academy Award for Best Art — Set Decoration, Color — E. Preston Ames, Cedric Gibbons, F. Keogh Gleason, and Edwin B. Willis
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color — John Alton and Alfred Gilks
• Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Color — Orry-Kelly, Walter Plunkett, and Irene Sharaff
• Academy Award for Best Musical Score — Saul Chaplin and Johnny Green
• Academy Award for Best Writing, Scoring and Screenplay — Alan Jay Lerner

Nominations

• Academy Award for Best Director — Vincente Minnelli
• Academy Award for Best Film Editing — Adrienne Fazan

[edit] Golden Globes

Wins

• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Nominations

• Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture — Vincente Minnelli
• Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy — Gene Kelly

[edit] Others

Gene Kelly received an Academy Honorary Award that year for "his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film." It was his only Oscar.

The film was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

In 1993, An American in Paris was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

American Film Institute recognition

• 1998: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - #68
• 2002: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions - #39
• 2004: AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs - #32
  • I Got Rhythm
• 2006: AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals - #9

AFI also honored star Gene Kelly as #15 of the top 25 American male screen legends.

[edit] Stage adaptation

A stage version of the musical has been adapted by Ken Ludwig, and began previews at the Alley Theatre (Houston) on April 29, 2008, officially opening on May 18 through June 22. The production, directed by Alley artistic director Gregory Boyd with choreography by Randy Skinner, stars Harry Groener and Kerry O'Malley. The musical has many of the film's original songs, and also incorporates other Gershwin songs, such as "They All Laughed", "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "Love Walked In".^[2][3]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: An American in Paris

• An American in Paris at the Internet Movie Database
• An American in Paris at the TCM Movie Database
• An American in Paris at Allmovie
• Filmsite.org's Greatest Films An American in Paris
• Combustible Celluloid's review of An American in Paris