An American in Paris

Date watched- 13th February 2011

Genre; Romantic, Classic
Year; 1951
Running Time; 1 hour 49 minutes
Director; Vincente Minnelli
Written By; Alan Jay Lerner
Actors; Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron et al.

Acting 3/5
Keeping my attention 2/4
Visuals/Direction 3/5
Story/Plot 3/6
Total 11/20

Plot

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) an ex GI who loved Paris so much that he stayed behind after the war was over falls for a perfume seller (Caron) who also falls for him. Unbeknown to Jerry his girl is already engaged to someone else, a man he actually knows through a friend of his. Through dance and song there story is told againt the backdrop of Paris.

My Personal Views

I originally bought this DVD in my first year at University (way back in 2004 or 2005). I bought it because I wanted to see a movie I could remember from my childhood set in Paris and all the other detail I could remember was a lot of different coloured doors at the beginning, turned out it was not An American in Paris but Funny Face which I bought some years later. I have to say I don’t think I have seen this movie other than once all those years ago when I realised it wasn’t the movie I was really after. Though maybe the purchase of this movie is one that I should praise as this was one of the very first (of literally hundreds) DVDs I bought and it was through my time at University in the North West of England that I found my passion for movies and wanted to know more about them, it was also when I discovered IMDB which allowed me to do so.

I have to say that the age gap between the two main stars is quite noticeable (19 years) as Carson looks very childlike in this movie even though she was 19 or 20 years at the time. This fact may have put me of the movie a little bit but I think it is a factor of other things that made me lose my attention when watching this movie.

Gene Kelly was the choreographer for this movie and in the most part is very good, apart from the 17 minute ballet routine at the very end of this move. Don’t get me wrong I like dancing and it is really lovely dancing but 17 minutes is a little too long, especially at the end of a movie. I am a fan of Gene Kelly's acting, I am a big fan of Singin' in the Rain and also watched a lot of his other movies when I was 'studying' for my GCSEs, good old TCM; but I'm not sure if this quite hits the spot for me,

This movie is filmed well with a good introduction for the main character and his friends who live near him but the polystyrene Paris is a little off putting in places.
Another issue I have is the speed of the story, for instance it takes over 30 minutes for the boy to even meet the girl and when he does he gets a little bit too excited and is almost dare I say a bit of a stalker! This added to the age gap made me feel a little bit uncomfortable.

On the positives the music of Gershwin is amazing as always, in fact after watching this I had to find the Gershwin music I have on my iPod and played it as loudly as I could manage (rock on!). Jerry’s pianist friend also adds some comic relief and the dream sequence where he is playing the piano and many other members of the orchestra, does make me chuckle.

The songs in this movie are also very good including ‘s’wonderful s’marvellous’, which comes from Funny Face.

In all, music good, dancing a bit long winded in places but exceptional if you can get over this issue, acting ok, plastic Paris a little off putting at times. Oh and a sweet ending which makes you glad you stuck it all out.

Outcome

Surprising even to me it is staying in the collection for the time being, hopefully I can give it another go and maybe improve my opinion of it.