31st Academy Awards (1959)
Nominations: 9
Wins: 9
When getting into classic movies, the films that really got me hooked on the musical were the ones put out by MGM in the ’40s and ’50s, and particularly the ones produced by Arthur Freed. These encompassed films like Meet Me In St. Louis, On The Town, The Band Wagon, Singin’ In The Rain, and Best Picture Winner An American In Paris, among many others. The other Best Picture to come out of Freed’s mini-empire was 1958’s Gigi, a film I’d never felt all that compelled to see since it’s never been talked about in the same category of classic musicals the way the other films I just named are.
However, it became apparent why this was when I was talking to a friend who’d stumbled onto it in a bar and watched it in its entirety later out of curiosity for its creepy overtones and extravagant production value. Well, I can now say that the plot is indeed pretty uncomfortable to wrestle with, though its milquetoast Hayes Code-era treatment explains why it went down so easy with audiences at the time, in addition to its very accomplished pedigree behind the camera.
