An American in Paris [Special Edition] [2 Discs]

Director: Vincente Minnelli Vincente Minnelli

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.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/16/2008
UPC:	0883929003952
Original Release:	1951
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Home Video
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:54:00
Sales rank:	2,219

Special Features

'S Wonderful: The Making of An American In Paris - Spellbinding New Documentary about the Groundbreaking creation of Musical Classic featuring 10 new interviews; Including Leslie Caron and Nina Foch; American Masters Career profile Gene Kelly: Anatomy of a Dancer ; Love Walked in Outtake Song Sequence; Audio-only bonuses: Outtake Songs Gallery and Gene Kelly/Leslie Caron/Jimmy Green Radio Promos

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gene Kelly	Jerry Mulligan
Leslie Caron	Lise Bouvier
Oscar Levant	Adam Cook
Nina Foch	Milo Roberts
Eugene Borden	George Mattieu
Martha Bamattre	Mathilde Mattieu
Ann Codee	Therese
George Davis	Francois
Mary Jones	Old Lady Dancer
Hayden Rorke	Tommy Baldwin
Paul Maxey	John McDowd
Dick Wessel	Ben Macrow
Georges Guétary	Henri Baurel
Robert Ames	Actor
Larry Arnold	Actor
Felice Basso	Actor
Charles Bastin	Actor
Marie Antoinette Andrews	News Vendor
Madge Blake	Edna Mae Bestram
Nan Boardman	Maid
Ann Brendon	'Stairway to Paradise' Dancer
Jon Gardner	Child in Ballet
Joan Anderson	Child in Ballet
Joan Bayley	Ballet Dancer
Rodney Bieber	Ballet Dancer
Ralph Blum	Patron at Flodair Café
Dino Bolognese	Bartender
Peter Camlin	Artist
Benny Carter	Saxophonist in Cafe
Monique Chantal	Audience Member
Mary Young	Old Woman Dancer
Andre Charisse	Dancing Partner
Art Dupuis	Driver
John Eldredge	Jack Jansen
Jeanne Lafayette	Nun
Greg McClure	Artist
Noel Neill	American Girl
Anna Nilsson	Kay Jansen
Alfred Paix	Postman
Don Quinn	Honeymooner
Alex Romero	Actor
Maurice Chevalier	Actor
Louis Jourdan	Actor
Hermione Gingold	Actor
Eva Gabor	Actor
Georges Guetary	Actor
George Gershwin	Composer
Saul Chaplin	Composer
Conrad Salinger	Composer
Johnny Green	Composer

Technical Credits

Alan Jay Lerner

Vincente Minnelli	Director
Alan Jay Lerner	Screenwriter
Arthur Freed	Producer
Warren Newcombe	Special Effects
Douglas Shearer	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

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.