Drugstore.com Coupons
You're supposed to lap it all up, all the class of an A-movie MGM musical. This is a world where everybody smokes, but no one coughs. Everyone parties at night, but no one works during the day. It's a movie where two grown men who just met (Kelly and Guetary) dance together in the street, synchronized and smiling. It's a world that doesn't exist, and never did. Paris has shops, nightclubs, cafes, theaters, and markets. So does New York City. The difference is that New York doesn't pretend to corner the market on romantic ambiance.
What it's about. American painter Gene Kelly lives in Paris, where he is the kept man of wealthy socialite Nina Foch. He meets chipmunk-cheeked Leslie Caron and soon wins her heart, but she's already pledged to ebullient stage performer Georges Guetary. Both men confide in obscure brilliant pianist Oscar Levant. How will this romantic square work itself out?
How I felt about it. MGM was the prestige studio for color musicals during the Gene Kelly era, which began with For Me and My Gal in 1942 and continued through Les Girls in 1957. Singin' in the Rain is clearly the best among these, but I also favor Take Me Out to the Ball Game and On the Town.
All the elements of greatness found in Singin' in the Rain are also present in An American in Paris, which landed the Oscar for Best Picture instead of the expected (and more worthy) winner, A Streetcar Named Desire. An American in Paris has enormous potential, with its package of talent and the studio's best efforts behind it. But while Singin' in the Rain hits a home run out of the park, An American in Paris only manages a fly ball for an easy out. By my scorecard, On the Town is a single, while Take Me Out to the Ball Game is at least a double.
Again, the talent is there for An American in Paris. Kelly and leading lady Leslie Caron are exceptional dancers. Oscar Levant is as droll as ever, and Georges Guetary's voice makes up for what Kelly's lacks. That is, Guetary has vibrato, while Kelly just carries a tune. But the magic isn't there. Even though all the elements of greatness are present, something extra is needed to bind them together. Instead, we have oddly effeminate interplay between Kelly and Guetary, Kelly entertaining perfectly behaved cute little kids with bubblegum (the candy and its vocal equivalent), a messy song about Strauss waltzes, a 'beautiful' fifteen minute ballet sequence that has little or nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and Guetary's weirdly exuberant "Stairway to Paradise" number, whose choreography suggests that paradise consists of becoming the queen bee to a swarm of ornately dressed, smiling showgirls.