AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
S wonderful, 's marvelous: Gene Kelly, producer Arthur Freed, director Vincente Minnelli and an ace creative team conjure sheer screen magic, one of the American Film Institute's Top-100 American Films. Kelly plays an ex-GI who loves Paris and loves even more an alluring (but engaged) perfume-shop clerk (Leslie Caron in her beguiling screen debut). Dance sequences spun around Gershwin songs accent Kelly's romantic pursuit. And the final 17-minute ballet -combining the title symphony, Impressionist set stylings and Kelly's unique talent for telling a story in dance -lifts this winner of six Academy Awards including Best Picture into the ether of timelessness. Love Is Here to Stay Kelly sings. So is An American in Paris.