AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

MGM, 1951 | COLOR (TECHNICOLOR), 113 MINUTES

DIRECTOR: VINCENTE MINNELLI PRODUCER: ARTHUR FREED SCREENPLAY: ALAN JAY LERNER CHOREOGRAPHER: GENE KELLY SONGS: GEORGE GERSHWIN (MUSIC) AND IRA GERSHWIN (LYRICS) STARRING: GENE KELLY (JERRY MULLIGAN), LESLIE CARON (LISE BOUVIER), OSCAR LEVANT (ADAM COOK), GEORGES GUÉTARY (HENRI BAUREL), NINA FOCH (MILO ROBERTS), MADGE BLAKE (EDNA MAE BESTRAM), HAYDEN RORKE (TOMMY BALDWIN), NOEL NEILL (AMERICAN GIRL)

An expatriate painter is pursued by an American heiress while he romances a young Parisian.

In many minds, An American in Paris is the quintessential MGM musical and, with its history-making ballet, a momentous achievement by any standard.

Some movies, it seems, are inevitable. This one came together because several talented people possessed, and shared, overlapping ideas. Gene Kelly wanted to do a story about an ex-G.I. in postwar Paris; Arthur Freed wanted to buy the rights to the George Gershwin tone poem An American in Paris; Ira Gershwin wanted a film that featured songs he wrote with his brother. By the time all these intersected, the concept had expanded to include director Minnelli and writer Lerner.

As with On the Town, some initial thought of location filming was quickly extinguished due to cost and difficulty. Fortunately, some authentically French compensation arrived with the casting of a teenaged ballerina, Leslie Caron, whom Kelly had spotted dancing in Paris. For both Kelly and Minnelli, everything in the production revolved around its title ballet. With decor based on the works of Dufy, Renoir, Utrillo, Rousseau, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec, it was conceived as an answer to the superb sequence in the British film The Red Shoes (1948). Although Kelly had already pushed dance into new realms in Cover Girl, The Pirate (1948), and On the Town, this would be the most ambitious number of its kind yet seen in an American film. It was, as it turned out, a knockout, as was Caron. With the Best Picture and six more Oscars, plus a huge return on MGM’s investment, it succeeded on all counts.

An American in Paris was and is an unquestioned triumph, yet perhaps its greatness takes a while to manifest itself. For some, MGM’s “Made in Hollywood USA” does not always seem the most convincing substitute for the real City of Light, and Oscar Levant’s dream sequence (performing Gershwin’s Concerto in F) may feel overlong. Fortunately, Levant also has some genuinely amusing wisecracks, Kelly has never been more brashly charismatic, and Nina Foch makes her acquisitive rich girl unusually compelling. Caron, for her part, is adorable, and clearly she was unlike anyone ever before seen in American film. Her superbly imaginative introductory scene is a key to much of the film’s success.

“American in Paris” ballet: Gene Kelly