This film, made in 1951, has won six (!) Academy Awards (for best Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Music, Screenplay and Best Picture). Unbelievable! After discovering how great Singin’ in the Rain is (though it got no Oscars at all), I thought I have to check this one out, too.

Gene Kelly is Jerry Mulligan, a wanna-be artist who stayed in Paris after finishing art school. “If you can’t paint in Paris, you’d better give up and marry the boss’ daughter.” And what do you know, he gets discovered by a rich and influential woman (Nina Foch). What Jerry doesn’t realize is that she is really after him, not his art.

Meanwhile, he falls in love with a young French girl (Leslie Caron), who is engaged to be married to a popular French performer. It all sounds a bit complicated but it is actually a pretty average story… boy falls in love with girl who is promised to another while another girl falls in love with the first boy who won’t have her.

What is special about this film are, of course, the songs and the dancing. Gene Kelly is an amazing dancer and it is really fun to watch him! The sets are really well done, too. It is a creation of the perfect Paris, how everyone would like to see it: little street cafés, markets, lots of French children playing on the street and a lot of café au lait. It is charming!

I like An American in Paris but I prefer Singin’ in the Rain. The latter is, although only filmed one year later, a lot more modern. The story is more interesting, the music is (in my ears) better and the sets and special effects are amazing. In both films, they somehow manage to have a big dancing finale which is not part of the story. They are dream sequences which seem to go on for a very long time. They are absolutely beautiful but seem a bit unnecessary. Like the filmmakers only wanted to put in some more dancing.

One thing that actually bugged me about An American in Paris (and this is entirely personal) was the choice of Leslie Caron as Gene Kelly’s love interest. She is a good dancer but I don’t find her even remotely pretty. I didn’t believe that a handsome man like Gene Kelly would give up his career for this girl. (God, that sounds bitchy…but this is a Hollywood film and it’s not playing by the rules )

This film really made my day yesterday! Of course I knew the title song and had seen Gene Kelly jump around in the rain and dance with his umbrella, but I had never seen the whole movie before.

Well, it is absolutely marvelous! Gene Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a silent film actor in the late 20’s who suddenly has to act in talking movies. His on-screen lover Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) has the most horrible voice imaginable and finds the transition rather difficult. She is also immensely jealous of Don’s new off-screen love interest, Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds), who is not only stealing Don away from her but is also dubbing her voice in the new all-talking / all-singing movie production.

The story and cast are delightful. Especially funny is Don’s sidekick Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) who also wanted to become an actor but ended up playing the mood music on set. There are some nice songs in the movie but what is really great is the dancing. Gene Kelly seemed to be able to do anything from tap to ballet, amazing!

Here is an updated version of Gene singing in the rain:

Singin’ in the Rain is given the MovieCat award for being tremendous fun!