An American in Paris -1951 Oscar best picture winner film

13/04/2018

"An American in Paris -1951 Oscar best picture winner film"

1. Profile :-

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
Lyrics:
Ira Gershwin

Musical Direction:
Johnny Green
Saul Chaplin

Cinematography :-
Alfred Gilks

Ballet:
John Alton

Edited by
Adrienne Fazan

Production
company
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Distributed by
Loew's Inc.

Release date
November 11, 1951

Running time
113 minutes

Country United States

Language English

Budget $2.7 million
Box office $7 million

2. Introduction :-

An American in Paris is a 1951 American musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition An American in Paris by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guétary, and Nina Foch, 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 dance numbers choreographed by Gene Kelly and set to Gershwin's music. Songs and music include "I Got Rhythm", "I'll Build A Stairway to Paradise", " 'S Wonderful", and "Love Is Here to Stay". The climax of the film is "The American in Paris" ballet, a 17-minute dance featuring Kelly and Caron set to Gershwin's An American in Paris. The ballet sequence cost almost half a million dollars to shoot.

An American in Paris was an enormous success, garnering eight Academy Award nominations and winning six, as well as earning other industry honors. It is ranked #9 among AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals.

3. Plot :-

American World War II veteran Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an exuberant expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend and neighbor, Adam Cook (Oscar Levant), is a struggling concert pianist and longtime associate of a French singer, Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary). At the ground-floor bar, Henri tells Adam about his cultured girlfriend, Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron). Jerry joins them later, before going out to sell his art.

A lonely society woman and heiress, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), finds Jerry displaying his paintings in Montmartre and takes an interest in him and his art. She brings him to her apartment to pay for his works, and invites him to a dinner party she is throwing later that night. After singing with French children on the way home ("I Got Rhythm"), Jerry goes up to Milo's apartment. He quickly finds out that the "party" is actually a one-on-one date, and tells Milo he has no interest in being a paid escort. When he attempts to leave after giving her money back, she insists that she is only interested in his art.

They go to a crowded bar, and Milo offers to sponsor an art show for Jerry as a friendly gesture. Some of Milo's friends arrive, and while sitting with them, Jerry sees Lise seated with friends at the next table, and is instantly smitten. He ignores Milo and her acquaintances, and instead pretends to know Lise already and dances with her. She is standoffish and gives Jerry a wrong phone number, but is innocently corrected by someone at her table. Heading home, Milo tells Jerry he was very rude cavorting with a girl he does not know while in her presence; tired of Milo, Jerry gets out of the car and bids her farewell.

The next day, Jerry calls Lise at her work, but she tells him to never call her again. Jerry and Milo meet at a cafe, and she informs him that a collector is interested in his paintings and she arranged a showing later that day. Before going to the showing, he goes to the parfumerie where Lise works and she consents to a late dinner with him,. She does not want to be seen eating with him in public, but they share a romantic song and dance on the banks of the Seine River in the shadows of Notre Dame. However, she quickly rushes off to meet Henri after his performance ("I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise"), where Henri tells her he has been asked to go on a tour of America and asks her to marry him.

Later, Adam humorously daydreams that he is performing Gershwin's Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra for a gala audience in a concert hall. As the scene progresses, Adam is also revealed to be the conductor, other members of the orchestra, and even an enthusiastic audience member applauding himself at the end.

Milo gets Jerry an art studio and tells him she has planned an exhibition of his work in three months. He initially refuses the studio because he does not have the money for it, but eventually accepts it under the condition that he pay Milo back when his art proceeds allow him. Roughly a month later and after much courting, Lise abruptly runs off when she and Jerry arrive by taxi at his apartment. When Jerry complains to Adam, he is shocked to realize that both Henri and Jerry are involved with the same woman. Henri and Jerry discuss the woman they each love ("'S Wonderful"), unaware she is the same woman.

That night, Jerry and Lise reunite in the same place on the banks of the Seine close to Notre Dame. She informs him that she is marrying Henri the next day and going to America. Lise feels a sense of duty to Henri, to whom she feels indebted for keeping her safe during World War II. She and Jerry proclaim their love for each other.

Feeling slighted, Jerry invites Milo to the art students' masked ball and kisses her. At the raucous party, with everyone in black-and-white costumes, they meet Henri and Lise, and Jerry finally tells Milo about his feelings for Lise—soon, Henri overhears Jerry and Lise saying goodbye to each other, and realizes the truth. As Henri and Lise drive away, Jerry daydreams about being with Lise all over Paris to the tune of the George Gershwin composition An American in Paris. His reverie is broken by a car horn, the sound of Henri bringing Lise back to him. They embrace as the Gershwin composition (and the film) ends.

4. 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
Eugene Borden as Georges Mattieu
John Eldredge as Jack Jansen (uncredited)

Hayden Rorke, best known for playing Dr. Alfred Bellows on the TV series I Dream of Jeannie (1965–70), has an uncredited part as a friend of Milo. 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's paintings. Jazz musician Benny Carter plays the leader of a jazz ensemble performing in the club where Milo first takes Jerry.

Madge Blake, best known for playing Bruce Wayne's aunt Harriet Cooper on the TV series Batman (1966–68), has an uncredited part as a customer in the perfume shop in which Lise works. Judy Landon, better known for her appearance in Kelly's next musical Singin' in the Rain (and as the wife of Brian Keith), appears as a dancer in the Stairway to Paradise sequence.

5. Music and dance :-

"Embraceable You" – Lise
"Nice Work If You Can Get It" – Hank
"By Strauss" – Jerry, Hank, Adam
"I Got Rhythm" – Jerry
"Tra-la-la (This Time It's Really Love)" – Jerry, Adam
"Love Is Here to Stay" – Jerry, Lise
"I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" – Hank
Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra – Adam, The MGM Symphony Orchestra
" 'S Wonderful" – Jerry, Hank
An American in Paris Ballet – Jerry, Lise, Ensemble

The 17 minute ballet sequence, with sets and costumes referencing French painters including Raoul Dufy, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Maurice Utrillo, Henri Rousseau, and Toulouse-Lautrec, is the climax of the film, and cost the studio approximately $450,000 to produce. Production on the film was halted on September 15, 1950. Minnelli left to direct another film, Father's Little Dividend. Upon completion of that film in late October, he returned to film the ballet sequence.

6. Box office :-

According to MGM records, the film earned $3,750,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $3,231,000 in other countries during its initial theatrical release. This resulted in the studio making a $1,346,000 profit.

7. Review :-

Gene Kelly is superb in ‘An American in Paris’

(Originally published by the Daily News on October 5, 1951. This story is written by Kate Cameron.)

The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture on the Music Hall screen, "An American in Paris," embodies so much of the color, atmosphere and spirit of the city on the Seine that to anyone who loves the town it is a dream come true. All the romantic elements of Paris are rolled into one gorgeous Technicolor film for our delight.

Inspired by the late George Gershwin's impressionistic musical suite of the same name, the picture is one of the finest musicals Hollywood has ever produced.

It is a joy to the eye, ear and imagination of the beholder, because of its original use of the Technicolor cameras, the clever designing of the backgrounds, borrowed in some instances from the French impressionists, the artistic use of light and color, the beauty of its sets and costumes, its exhilarating choreography, its wit and rhythm, its Gershwin score and lyrics, and because of its highly talented cast.

Here, on the Music Hall screen, is cinema at its best. The film, made at the Metro studios in Hollywood, gives the screen its greatest technical advance in more than a decade, or since Walt Disney's "Fantasia" was released in November, 1940.

Cinema At Its Best.

Besides the cast, which is headed by Gene Kelly, Nina Foch, Oscar Levant, Leslie Caron and Georges Guetary, the latter two imported from France, credit for the success of the picture must go to those behind the scenes, who helped to make this a fine, entertaining and beautiful production. Producer Arthur Freed, director Vincente Minnelli, author Alan Jay Lerner, the artists who designed and dressed the sets, the camera men, the men who lighted them and the costume designers, all deserve a special bow for their part in the production.

Preston Ames designed most of the backgrounds under the supervision of Cedric Gibbons. Henri Jaffe and James Gooch acted as Technicolor consultants, while Alfred Gilks and John Alton were in charge of photography and lighting. Gene Grant contributed some interesting paintings, Warren Newcombe and Irving Ries were responsible for the special photographic effects and, besides the clothing designed for Nina Foch and Leslie Caron by Orry-Kelly, Irene Sharaff and Walter Plunkett created a series of eye-arresting costumes for the ballet and Beaux Arts' Ball sequences. Gene Kelly originated the dances and Johnny Green and Saul Chaplin had charge of the musical department.

Ira Gershwin's lyrics are as great a source of amusement today as they were when first sung to brother George's enticing rhythms.

The story on which the dances and music are strung is a simple but engaging tale of a GI who elected to remain in Paris after the war to study painting. Jerry Mulligan has a small garret studio on the Left Bank, exhibits his painting in Montmartre's streets, and makes barely enough money to keep himself in cigarettes and coffee.

Jerry's friend, Adam Cook, a pianist, occupies the room below Mulligan's studio and as Adam day-dreams of playing the Gershwin Concerto in F, his dream becomes a reality on the screen, with Levant at the piano, giving a brilliant interpretation of the Gershwin work. This is one of the cleverest sequences in the film.

An Exquisite Dancer :

While Jerry is being patronized by a rich American woman he falls in love with a French girl, who is engaged to marry Henri Baurel, the current rage of the Paris entertainment world. Guetary, in the role of Henri, has a fine voice and an attractive personality. He is no stranger to New York, as he played on the stage here opposite Nanette Fabray in "Arms and the Girl," a few seasons back.

Kelly is superb as dancer and comedian, but a little less than that as a singer of Gershwin songs. Leslie Caron, who dances like an angel, is no beauty, according to Hollywood standards, but she is endowed with great grace and personal charm. She is an exquisite dancer.

"An American in Paris," in short, is definitely a picture to see.

8. Awards and honors :-

I. Academy Awards :-

i. 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 Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture: Saul Chaplin and Johnny Green
Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay: Alan Jay Lerner

II. Nominations :-

Academy Award for Best Director: Vincente Minnelli
Academy Award for Best Film Editing: Adrienne Fazan

9. Golden Globes :-

I. Wins :-

Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

II. Nominations :-

Golden Globe Award for Best Director – Motion Picture: Vincente Minnelli
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy: Gene Kelly

III. Others :-

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.

10. The film was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival.

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

11. 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 Kelly as #15 of the top 25 American male screen legends.

12. Digital restoration :-

In 2011, the film was digitally restored by Warner Bros. for its 60th anniversary.

13. Stage adaptations :-

I. 2008 adaptation :-

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

II. 2014 adaptation :-

Main article: An American in Paris (musical)

In 2014, a stage adaptation premiered in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet, with Robert Fairchild as Jerry Mulligan and Leanne Cope as Lise Bouvier (here renamed Lise Dassin and turned into an aspiring ballet dancer). The production, which ran from November to January 2015, was directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, written by Craig Lucas and designed by Bob Crowley. The musical then transferred to Broadway, with previews at Palace Theatre beginning on March 13, 2015, before officially opening there on April 12.

13. In popular culture :-

The epilogue of the 2016 musical film La La Land references the set design and costuming of An American in Paris.

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