AN AMERICAN IN PARIS TIDBITS

HAVING RECENTLY MENTIONED An American in Paris, I thought it would be fun to go tidbit-gleaning about this 1951 musical flick. Sources include Wikipedia, IMBd, Silver Screen Modes, Thomson’s The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, and The New York Times Book of Movies: The Essential 1,000 Films to See.”

Bosley Crowther’s Review. On October 15, 1951, The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther wrote, “Count a bewitching French lassie by the name of Leslie Caron and a whoop-de-do ballet number, one of the finest ever put upon the screen, as the most commendable enchantments of the big, lavish musical film that Metro obligingly delivered to the Music Hall yesterday.”

“An American in Paris,” he reported, “which is the title of the picture, likewise the ballet, is spangled with pleasant little patches of amusement and George Gershwin tunes.… Mr. Kelly may skip about gaily, casting the favor of his smiles and the boon of the author’s witticisms upon the whole of the Paris populace. Nina Foch may cut a svelte figure as a lady who wants to buy his love by buying his straight art-student paintings. And Oscar Levant may mutter wryly as a pal.. But the picture takes on its glow of magic when Miss Caron is on the screen.”

“When she isn’t,” Crowther continued, “it bumps along slowly as a patched-up, conventional musical show,” with some elements leaving “the uncomfortable impression that they were contrived just to fill out empty spaces in Alan Jay Lerner’s glib but very thin script.” 

Ouch.

Glib? Very Thin? But Fun. The film’s trailer offers what passes for a plot: Aspiring painter Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) and his pal Henri Bourel (portrayed by real French star Georges Guitry) both are in love with Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron, in her film debut). Lonely heiress/potential art patroness Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) completes the romantic rectangle.  Jerry’s pal/struggling concert pianist Adam Cook adds counterpoint to it all.

A Fav of Mine: Wikipedia describes when Adam Cook “daydreams he is performing Gershwin’s Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra in a concert hall. As the scene progresses, Adam is also the conductor, other musicians, and even an audience member enthusiastically applauding at the end.” 

For car nuts, there’s a cameo of Henri’s 1939 Delage D8 120 Chapron.

Caron’s Magic. And throughout, there’s also Caron’s “glow of magic,” as Crowther called it. Wikipedia says, “Caron was initially a ballerina. Gene Kelly discovered her in the Roland Petit company ‘Ballet des Champs Elysées’ and cast her to appear opposite him in the musical An American in Paris (1951), a role for which a pregnant Cyd Charisse was originally cast.”

“The prosperity, sunshine and abundance of California were a cultural shock to Caron,” Wikipedia continues. “She had lived in Paris during the German occupation, which left her malnurished and anemic. She later remarked how nice people were in comparison to wartime Paris, in which poverty and deprivation had caused people to be bitter and violent. She had a friendly relationship with Kelly, who nicknamed her “Lester the Pester” and “kid.” Kelly helped the inexperienced Caron—who had never spoken on stage—adjust to filmmaking.”

A Personal Note. Wikipedia describes the Caron family: Leslie’s father Claude founded the artisanal perfumier Guermantes.  Her older brother Aimery also became a chemist.

Aimery recalled in We Are UVI: Stories of Our Past, “My mother died in August 1967 while I was teaching chemistry at the University of Massachusetts. This tragedy caused my father to ask me to come help him manage the family’s gift shop, C. & M. CARON, on Main Street [in St. Thomas in the Caribbean].”

Aimery tried it, but decided he was better suited to academia: “Thus, it was that in January 1969, I applied for a teaching position at CVI, which was then a two-year college.… This was a crucial time when CVI was planning to become a four-year college in the following fall. Therefore, my main assignment was to recruit new faculty members whose numbers were to be increased by 35 or 50 % by the following semester.” 

Within seven months, one of those Aimery coordinated in hiring was a new Ph.D. mathematician named Dennis Simanaitis. I never met his sister Leslie, but knew Aimery as an amiable colleague from 1969 to 1976 (when he went on sabbatical and I filled another’s sabbatical back on the mainland). 

Dr. Caron worked at UVI from 1969 until 2001 when he retired. He’s now Professor Emeritus of Chemistry. 

Aimery’s sister, now 92, is of equally solid stock. Wikipedia cites, “In her autobiography, Thank Heaven, she states that she obtained American citizenship in time to vote for Barak Obama for president. In October 2021, she was chosen to receive the Oldie of the Year Award by The Oldie magazine.”

Leslie Caron portraying Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim, Théâtre du Châtelet, 2010. Image by Marie-Noelle Robert (Théatre du Châtelet). 

A Favorite Quote. Wikipedia cites, “According to Leslie Caron in a 2009 interview on Paul O’Grady‘s interview show, the film [An American in Paris] ran into controversy with the Hays Office over part of her earlier dance sequence with a chair; the censor viewing the scene called it ‘sexually provocative,’ which surprised Caron, who answered ‘What can you do with a chair?’ ” ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2024