An American In Paris Anarchism

Although Gershwin wrote many stage shows in his lifetime, he was long dead by the time the 1951 musical film, An American in Paris, was made. The film, unusually, was based on the orchestral work of the same name, rather than on a stage musical, but used songs already written for other Gershwin shows. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron and Oscar Levant (one of Gershwin's closest friends in real life), was set in Paris, and directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner. All of the music in the film is by George Gershwin and Ira GershwinIra Gershwin (born Israel Gershowitz ( December 6 1896 August 17 1983) American lyricist, collaborator with, and brother of George Gershwin He is interred in the Westchester Hills Cemetery, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Comments on the Gershwin collection. The climax of the film is 18 minutes of fantastic dancing featuring Kelly and Caron, set to George Gershwin's "An American In Paris".

The film has also been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Trivia

The film was shot on Hollywood sets, so it features some quirks in the occasional French dialogue. Notably, near the beginning of the I got rhythm number, one of the "French" kids says Jerry, parle anglais à nous, which sounds rather curious. In the French soundtrack, which switches to the original sound for the duration of the songs, the à nous is masked thru a plop sound, to make the sentence more palatable.

Hollywood movies referencing France seldom use location shooting or native speakers. For example, in the Home Alone franchise, all airport scenes were fake and the speakers could not even pass for French-Canadian. Great care is however sometimes put into reproducing Paris surroundings, like in this American in Paris or in Irma La Douce. Ironically, a lot of older French Paris-based movies were studio work as well and the same art directors (eg. Alexandre Trauner ) were sometimes working on both sides of the ocean...

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Trivia

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