Coral Gables residents can spend Saturday morning in postwar Paris — at no charge.
The city’s Adult Activity Center will present the 1951 musical An American in Paris at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on Saturday, Sept. 5, the latest installment of “A Saturday at the Cinema,” a recurring series that brings residents to the Aragon Avenue theater for free screenings of classic films.
Directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, An American in Paris pairs a romantic story set in the French capital with the music of George and Ira Gershwin. The film won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and remains especially known for the elaborate ballet that occupies much of its final act.
Tickets are free for Coral Gables residents and include popcorn and a drink courtesy of the Coral Gables Community Foundation. They are distributed first come, first served, with any tickets remaining available at the theater on the morning of the screening.
Gene Kelly, Gershwin and postwar Paris
Kelly plays Jerry Mulligan, an American World War II veteran who stays in Paris after the war to pursue a career as a painter. His modest artistic ambitions become entangled with romance after he meets Lise Bouvier, played by Caron, a young Frenchwoman who is already committed to another man.
The cast also includes Oscar Levant as Jerry’s friend Adam Cook, a concert pianist, and Georges Guétary as French singer Henri Baurel.
The story gives Minnelli and Kelly a framework for a succession of Gershwin songs and dance numbers. The score draws from some of the brothers’ best-known work, including “I Got Rhythm,” “‘S Wonderful,” “Embraceable You” and the orchestral composition from which the film takes its title.
Kelly was already one of Hollywood’s leading musical stars when the movie was made. Caron, a French ballet dancer, was only 19 when Kelly selected her for the film, which became her Hollywood debut and helped launch a screen career that would later include Lili and Gigi.
Their contrasting styles—Kelly’s athletic, distinctly American approach to dance and Caron’s classical ballet training—became central to the movie.
A ballet built around French art
The film’s most celebrated sequence comes near the end.
Running roughly 17 minutes, the An American in Paris ballet dispenses with conventional dialogue and moves through a succession of stylized Paris settings. Kelly choreographed the sequence, which combines dance, music, costume and elaborate studio sets intended to evoke the work of French artists.
Rather than attempting to reproduce Paris realistically, the sequence transforms the city into an imagined landscape of color, painting and movement. Different portions draw inspiration from artists including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Maurice Utrillo.
The scale was unusual even for the lavish Hollywood musicals of the period. The ballet became the movie’s visual signature and helped distinguish An American in Paris from the many song-and-dance films being produced during the height of the studio musical.
The film received eight competitive Academy Award nominations and won six at the 1952 ceremony: Best Picture, screenplay, cinematography, art direction, costume design and scoring of a musical picture.
Kelly did not win a competitive acting or choreography Oscar for the film, but the Academy presented him with an honorary award that year recognizing his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer and his contribution to film choreography.
The Best Picture victory was particularly notable because musicals rarely dominated the Academy’s top category, even during an era when they were among Hollywood’s most prominent productions.
Classic films on Aragon Avenue
“A Saturday at the Cinema” is presented through the Coral Gables Adult Activity Center in partnership with the Coral Gables Art Cinema.
The program periodically uses the nonprofit theater at 260 Aragon Ave. to give residents an opportunity to see older films on the big screen rather than at home. Its most recent prior installment, in December, featured the 1960 film The Time Machine, based on H.G. Wells’ science-fiction novel.
The Art Cinema has become one of the city’s principal venues for independent, international, repertory and classic films, making the theater a natural home for a series built around movies from earlier eras.
For the Sept. 5 screening, residents do not need to pay admission, and the ticket includes popcorn and a beverage provided through the Coral Gables Community Foundation.
The screening begins at 11 a.m. and is scheduled to conclude at 1:30 p.m.
With its Gershwin score, Paris setting and one of the most ambitious dance sequences of Hollywood’s golden age, An American in Paris gives the series a film that was designed for precisely what the event offers: seeing it on a theater screen.
If you go…
An American in Paris, Saturday, Sept. 5, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave. Admission is free for Coral Gables residents and includes popcorn and a drink. Tickets are first come, first served, with remaining tickets available at the door.
