Mar. 18, 2003 - 11:42 pm
ok, first of all i'd like to say that An American in Paris (1951) is crap. A Place in the Sun won more Oscars that year than anything else, but that stupid movie won Best Picture. right, the Academy is often wrong.
this was my second time seeing it. i loved it the first time i saw it, and i enjoyed it nearly as much the second time. i had the advantage the first time of never having paid that much attention to the three main actors previously. i don't think i had actually even seen Shelley Winters, Montgomery Clift, or Elizabeth Taylor in anything prior to that. that really made me love it because i didn't know that Shelley Winters is always someone that you eventually want to die. and Elizabeth Taylor is amazing in this. she really is the perfect girl in this movie and she makes you fall in love with her at the same that George does.
so what happens in the movie? well George Eastman comes to town to see his rich uncle about getting a job at his plant. he gets one working in the lines, but the rule of the business is that the few men there do not associate with the 90 percent female population of the plant. no mixing business with pleasure. he quickly falls for one of the girls he works with though and they start going out together secretly. all the while he's dreaming of moving up in the world and taking notice of the young rich debutantes that he always sees at his uncle's and in the newspapers. he especially starts to take notice of Angela Vickers, the most glorious of the bunch. and it doesn't help that there's a red flashing sign a few blocks away from his apartment that flashes "VICKERS" at night. one night at a party he actually ends up meeting Angela and they instantly really like each other. at that point, the girl from the plant begins to drag him down with more and more problems and his love for Angela pushes him to want to take desperate measures.
this is another one of those movies i wish that i could be watching again for the first time. and whenever that happens i know it's got to be a 10. it's one of the ones that i'll always come back to and find something great that i didn't notice before. i love this film.