An American in Paris

1951 musical

Rating: 14/20

Plot: An American in Paris, the titular painter in the titular city, falls for a woman while another rich woman tries to pay him to have sex with her.

You can watch this whole movie if you want, but you're better off just fast-forwarding to scenes where it looks like Gene Kelly is about to start dancing and just watching those. Actually, watch the first scene where the camera moves through this artificial setting while three or four different characters narrate for us. You'll get a feel for the characters and what they're about, and after an initial conversation with the three leads--one in which Leslie Caron's Lise Bouvier is introduced colorfully with about five costume chances and different monochromatic backgrounds--you're likely going to be able to piece together this entire story yourself. No, scratch that. You have to meet the rich lady, too. But then after that, you can save yourself a lot of time by writing the rest of the story in your head, shortcutting your way through a plot that takes way too much time to develop, completely missing some pretty dopey dialogue, and not having your opinion of Gene Kelly changed by his character here--a goofy-grinning American stalker.

You will miss an extra--a bald guy at the Cafe Bel Ami--who couldn't take his eyes off Gene Kelly for some reason, but I'm not sure he's worth watching this entire bloated production for.

The song and dance numbers are really good. There's Gene Kelly tap-dancing around some children, a scene where you're waiting to see whether one of the children gets injured by being tap-danced in the head or if somehow Kelly's big goofy grin is going to somehow hurt one of them. There's a fantastic "Tra-La-La" number with Kelly dancing on top of Oscar Levant's piano and probably irritating any downstairs neighbors they might have. There's a lovely dance by a river when the two leads fall in love, the kind of love-falling that can only take place in a musical like this. There's a dream sequence where Oscar Levant goes absolutely fucking batshit on a piano and then, just like Buster Keaton, plays everything else, too. That's a dream sequence because the movie's plot is much too simple to involve the cloning of concert pianists. Unfortunately.

And then there's the final 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, another dream sequence. It's quite the spectacle, a ballet with these wonderful sets, stunning colors, and some of the best choreography I've seen in any movie musical. Sure, Gene Kelly's pants during one portion of that sequence made me really uncomfortable, but this whole scene made the entire movie worth it, a lot like how a really good ride at Disney World can make a long wait in a line worth it. Not even the silly happy ending thrown in there soured me after that ballet sequence.