The Oscar Project #24: An American in Paris (1951)

by Chris Marshall:

Seven years ago (in Oscar Project time), I made the comment that Going My Way was a kinda sorta musical in that Bing Crosby sang a couple of songs, but it still didn’t feel like what I think of as a musical; I said similar things about The Broadway Melody and The Great Ziegfeld as well. Well, 1951’s An American in Paris fits all the criteria of a “real musical.” In fact, there was almost nothing but songs and dance numbers.

When I think about dancers in the movies, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire are always the first names I think of. Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain is usually considered the greatest example of this genre, but An American in Paris was the one that won the big prize. From what I understand, it was quite revolutionary; people had really never seen anything like it before.

But did I like it? I’d be hard pressed to say that I did. I appreciated the dancing (and some of the singing), but most of the time it was difficult to figure out what the dance numbers had to do with anything. Then again, I suppose the plot in these movies will always be of secondary importance; Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message,” but here the music is the message. People don’t watch this kind of movie for the story.

The Oscar Project #2: The Broadway Melody (1928)

Talking! What a novelty!

by Chris Marshall:

Movies have come a long way in the past 84 years, but at least some things have stayed the same. If you look at the list of Best Picture winners, you’ll see that almost all of them fall into some combination of three categories: War Film, Rich People Problems, or Historical Epic.[1] Wings took care of the first, so it’s only fitting that the second winner, The Broadway Melody, would take care of the second. In this case the rich people are two sisters with the completely normal names Hank and Queenie. Their “problems,” such as they are, are that they’ve just moved to New York to try and star on Broadway, and god forbid, they aren’t given top billing in their first show. Oh, and somebody mispronounces their last name.

Granted, the real conflict in the story centers around the love lives of the protagonists. The problem was that the film tried to set up Hank as the heroine (in the loosest sense of the word), but she came across as shrewish and intensely unlikeable. Hank and Eddie, a performer in the show, were “together,” I guess, I don’t know, we’re just supposed to accept it, and meanwhile, a wealthy socialite named Jock (or Jacques, depending on the scene) began courting Queenie. Both Hank and Eddie are opposed to this blossoming relationship, for reasons that are clear in Eddie’s case and utterly baffling in Hank’s. It turns out that Eddie is secretly in love with Queenie, while Hank just badgers her and tells her not to see him, ad nauseum, without ever explaining why. And they sang songs every now and then.