kz917-1 Life, Love, and Art all collide in Paris!A young painter and his friend (mostly unbeknownst) fall in love with the same Parisian young woman.The music, the dancing... All of it is top notch!The only movie Gene Kelly won an Oscar for! He did the majority of the choreography and directing of the dance numbers.

gkeith_1 Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. The long ballet is spectacular. Caron is quite young, and Kelly is long in the tooth and biologically old enough to be her father. This is her first film, I am told, and he is at the peak of his career. They pull off the ballet splendidly, however. Georges Guetary ALSO looks old for Caron in this film.Two old geezers competing for the hand of such a young, delicate flower? The creep factor enters in, here. As usual, Oscar Levant has no romantic inclinations, here. He is married to himself, his obnoxious cigarette and his mistress of a piano. I know! All of the young, hot Parisian men got killed in the war, or something like that. Kelly was born in 1912, and Caron in 1931. This makes him 19 years older than Caron. He wasn't such a veteran as he is made out to be, however, since his first film, I am told, was For Me and My Gal in support of hot-at-the-time Judy Garland in 1942 -- only nine years earlier. Previously, Kelly had been on stage in Pal Joey.Jack (Jacques?) Bouvier? Wasn't that the name of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis' father? Yes, Jackie's father was Black Jack Bouvier. The long ballet: I still like better the long ballet in The Red Shoes. It is very exotic and intriguing. Mayhap An American in Paris somehow copied some of that? Red Shoes was ALSO the film debut of ANOTHER young en-pointe female ballet dancer named Moira Shearer, I am told. I like Georges Guetary and Oscar Levant in this film, plus the older women dancers and older gentleman in the cafe near the beginning of this film. I like the colors and fashions in this film. I like all of the dancing policemen. Pirates of Penzance, anyone?I am a degreed historian, dancer, actress, singer, makeup artist, film critic and movie reviewer. My favorite films are always song and dance musicals.

DMead57 I write this, not so much as a film fan (which I very much am), but as a classical musician. I was in my early teens when I first heard GERSHWIN's "American in Paris" and have loved and admired it ever since.If you grant the film the conventions of that era's movie musicals, it's a stunner. I want to note the difference(s) between how the Gershwin SONGS were handled versus how his CONCERT MUSIC was handled. Songs in musical shows were almost never used without extensive modifying by arrangers and orchestrators other than the composer. His pieces composed for concert situations (the first of which was "Rhapsody in Blue") I think demand and largely deserve a different approach.Two of the concert pieces were used in the film. The first is the third (last) movement of the Piano Concerto for Oscar Levant's dream sequence. I haven't listened again to another recording to verify this, but I'm confident that that movement was used without any alteration. Also, to get technical about it, specific shots of Levant playing might not have used the soundtrack made in that specific shot, but Levant had dazzling facility and surely played every last note that we hear.As for the big ballet finale, only about two-thirds of the music comes directly from GERSHWIN's "American in Paris." My hunch is that Kelly made requests of the brilliant musical staff and decided to switch chunks of the score, played material again that Gershwin did not, re-orchestrated some passages, and even added completely new material to suit the choreography. I can't watch the otherwise superb ballet without wincing at various musical moments, therefore only 9 stars.

jacobs-greenwood "It's wonderful, it smarvelous", but it's also an average musical, though it does feature 44 (!) elaborate sets and did win six Oscars. It probably won Best Picture by benefiting from a split vote between A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and A Place in the Sun (1951).It does have a great, if long, dance sequence with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron. And, Oscar Levant and Nina Foch do provide excellent support. Director Vincente Minnelli received his first nomination (he later won for Gigi (1958), another questionable Best Picture winner).Kelly is a struggling American artist, working in Paris, until he finds a "sugar daddy" (er, "sugar mommy"?) in Foch. He pals around with his piano playing friend (Levant), dancing and singing "I Got Rhythm" with street kids. His friend knows a singer (Georges Guétary) that's engaged to a pretty young thing (Caron). When Kelly meets her, he naturally falls in love. He then chases her, trying to "win" her away from her unawares fiancé, much to the dismay of Foch and his friend Levant. But, when the two dance, "c'est la vie"!Added to the National Film Registry in 1993. #68 on AFI's 100 Greatest Movies list. #39 on AFI's 100 Greatest Love Stories list. "I Got Rhythm" is #32 on AFI's 100 Top Movie Songs of All Time. #9 on AFI's 25 Greatest Movie Musicals list.