Plush strings and colorful, sinewy winds filled out emotion and characterization the writers of 'An American in Paris' sometimes failed to do. The Philadelphia Orchestra, it turns out, has a roar more powerful than the MGM lion.
is real and deep, and more than a few synergistic sparks were sent flying Thursday night in the Philadelphia Orchestra’s live-to-screen presentation ofThe most remarkable aspect of this show, though, was the number of times the music saved the movie. It’s not a uniformly great film. Parisian culture comes across as canned. The dialogue can be corny.
The Gershwin brothers get the credit for the music and lyrics, and rightly so. The film brings back a patchwork of George Gershwin tunes, all from decades earlier , and, interestingly, the film’s namesake 20-minute score never appears in unadulterated form — not even in the famous ballet sequence near the end. And yet the two-hour film’s music is nearly wall to wall.