1951: An American in Paris

    

     An American in Paris, 1951’s Best Picture, was the first musical to win Best Picture since 1944’s Going My Way, kicking off a two decade high water mark for the genre (in terms of awards). Unlike previous musical winners, however, An American in Paris was the first of what we in the Snooty English Film Studies Business would call a diegetic musical to win. Let me explain: There are, broadly speaking, two types of Movie Musicals. In “show musicals” like The Great Ziegfeld, all the song and dance numbers take place in the context of being part of one of Ziegfeld’s shows, a musical within the larger context of the realistic, non-musical movie. In diegetic musicals, which are what most people think of when they think of the Hollywood musical, characters can break into song and dance at any point in their world and it’s considered perfectly normal. Why yes, I did go to college to learn this.

Anyway, An American in Paris, with top shelf musical pedigree like Gene Kelly and director Vincent Minnelli (Mr. Judy Garland) is fondly remembered as part of the Golden Age of the Hollywood Musical, but aside from one tremendous musical sequence, I found it to be inferior to a lot of other (non-Best Picture winning ) musicals. (Sidenote: There are something like five more musicals to win between now and 1968 but I’ve only seen one of them, so I may reconsider this statement in the roughly five years it will take me to get to Oliver!).

 

Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron in the great final dance sequence

Set in 1950s Paris, Kelly plays Jerry Mulligan, a former GI who stayed in Paris following World War II to pursue his dream of becoming a painter. Despite not selling any pictures, Mulligan lives an idyllic life with best friend, Adam Cook (Oscar Levant) a sarcastic and pessimistic concert pianist. One day Mulligan sells a painting to Milo Roberts, a lonely American heiress who decides to sponsor his painting ambitions. Whether Milo believes Jerry is a good artist or just wants to bed him is unclear, an ambiguity that becomes more complicated when Jerry falls head over heels in love at first site with Lise (Leslie Caron), a mysterious Parisian shop girl. Lise is actually seeing another man (who coincidentally is a good friend of Adam’s) but continues to let Jerry woo her with musical interludes.

My main problem with An American in Paris is that basically everyone in it is a jerk. Jerry in particular is extremely unlikable, constantly telling off Milo, flirting with other women right in front of her and basically ignoring her when all she is trying to do is help him succeed at his life’s ambitions. Never mind that Kelly is too old to be playing the character, he comes off as so ungrateful, when he’s not creepily stalking Lise that I could never root for him. Lise, for that matter, is also fairly terrible with her unrepentant two-timing. Adam is funny comedic relief but talks like he came out of a film noir, an affect that can be rather jarring at times.

 

A larger scene from the jaw dropping final dance number

Here is why the movie is well remembered, though, and probably why it won Best Picture. The movie closes with an utterly amazing 15-minute plus balletic dance sequence through several Parisian sets designed to resemble great French artists. Kelly is of course a tremendous dancer and flows with Caron through the sets with such grace and ease. The whole thing is astonishing and even though it has little to do with the actual plot of the movie (it all takes place in Kelly’s head) it’s so fantastic, I didn’t even notice how long it was. Hollywood was definitely entering a new age of spectacle in the 50s as it tried to compete with television and this is an early Best Picture to capitalize with this mind blowing sequence.

Ever since I watched Annie (the Carol Burnett version) on television when I was but a wee lad, I have had a soft spot for a good musical, like Singing in the Rain (widely considered the best musical of all, so naturally, it didn’t win Best Picture) or Hello Dolly, or even the newer entries like Cabaret (not a winner, but magnificent) and Chicago . So I am both pained and perplexed to say I found An American in Paris to be just ok. It has a fun, breezy score of Gershwin tunes (that weren’t originally written for this movie) and as noted has a tremendous climatic dance piece. But the actual story is pretty weak, even by musical standards, and the characters lack the charm of the best of these sorts of movies (For the record, I prefer Fred Astaire to Gene Kelly when comparing Hollywood hoofers).

Trivia: Besides being the first musical in seven years to win Best Picture, An American in Paris was only the second color film to win, following 1939’s Gone With the Wind. The struggle between black and white and color continues throughout the 50s.

Other Notable Movies of 1951: Decision Before Dawn*, A Place in the Sun*, Quo Vadis*$, A Streetcar Named Desire*, The African Queen, Alice in Wonderland, Bedtime for Bonzo, Show Boat, Strangers on a Train
* Nominated for Best Picture
$Top Grossing movie of the year