Nothing Beats the Oldies

Caught a couple of old musicals on the Turner Classic Movies channel last Sunday:

1) Easter Parade (1948)- which starred Judy Garland (as Hannah Brown) and Fred Astaire (Don Hewes). Irving Berlin's "It Only Happens When I Dance With you" is such a lovely song, and so is "A Fella With an Umbrella," light and funny and sung by a girl and a guy, meeting for the first time and walking under the rain, sharing an, um, umbrella.
Some interesting tidbits about this film: The role of Don Hewes was originally written for Gene Kelly; the movie was the only collaboration between Fred Astaire and Judy Garland; and another movie (The Barkeleys of Broadway) was planned out for them, however, Ginger Rogers had to take the place of Judy Garland. Cool story, huh?

2) An American in Paris (1951)- an Academy Award Best Picture Winner, with Leslie Caron (as Lise) and Gene Kelly (as Jerry Mulligan). Nothing could compare to "Our Love is Here to Stay." The Gershwins are such geniuses! The movie was Leslie Caron's debut into filmdom (she went on to play the title role in Gigi, some years later).
One of the film's highlights, aside from its score, is a 13 minute uninterrupted "dream ballet," (described as "pretentious" by some critics) which cost half a million dollars to produce! Was wondering if the dance scene was ever gonna end, the first time I watched it.

Wouldn't mind watching these films for the zillionth time, though. Makes me feel like a child again.