An American in Paris (1951)

An American in Paris won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1951, beating such other classic films as A Place in the Sun and A Streetcar Named Desire. Despite its somewhat surprising victory, this musical about an American veteran of World War II who has decided to stay in Paris and become a painter is one of the best of the MGM song-and-dance fests. If it had been nominated in almost any other year, it would be seen as a very worthy choice as Best Picture. Too many people probably think it was chosen when the other “more serious” films split the vote, but to me, it represents a remarkable achievement in filmmaking on its own. It remains as charming and beautiful today as it was in the early 1950s when some were rejecting the gritty realism of post-war films for the lighter touch of romantic comedy and musicals. Thankfully, An American in Paris is one such masterpiece.

Gene Kelly plays the painter, Jerry Mulligan, and he's usually strapped for cash because he's not really very successful at his chosen profession. Like many aspiring artists, he copies more famous works or paints scenes that are the subject of countless paintings by amateurs. However, he does, apparently, demonstrate a level of skill at his art. He's “discovered” by a wealthy American woman who likes him perhaps a bit more than she likes his art, but she nevertheless begins work on helping him to establish a professional reputation. His patron (or would that more properly be “matron”?) is Milo Roberts, played by the elegant Nina Foch, who was almost always cast as this kind of patrician woman. She expects that if she pays attention to Jerry's career, he will pay attention to her.

Unfortunately for Milo, Mulligan meets by chance a beautiful young French girl, Lise, played by Leslie Caron in her first starring role. She, however, is engaged to Henri Baurel (Georges Guetary), a cabaret performer. To add even more complications to the mix, Henri and Jerry are friends, but neither knows about the other's attraction to Lise, so their conversations about the girls they love take on an added sense of the absurd. Only their mutual friend Adam, played by the deliciously wicked-tongued Oscar Levant, knows their secret. At least, he's the only one who knows for a while. Eventually, all must be revealed, and Lise must make a choice.

The plot is relatively simple. Boy (Jerry) meets girl (Lise). Boy loses girl (to her fiancé). Boy gets girl back. It's the stuff of countless movies. What makes An American in Paris stand out is the music, of course. It's all songs by George and Ira Gershwin, some of the greatest songs ever written, and each one blends seamlessly into the plot. My favorite may be the performance of "I Got Rhythm," in which Kelly and a dozen or so French children sing in English and French while Kelly jokes and dances. It's a charming number, sure to bring a smile. Another highlight is Guertary's performance of "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise,” which spectacularly uses a lighted staircase to full effect.

Most stunning, though, is the 17-minute ballet near the end of the film. All of the principals are attending a ball thrown by the art students of Paris. After a series of revelations and tentative decisions, Kelly's Mulligan begins to imagine himself in various settings around the city and as a part of various famous works of art as the score swells with the glorious “Rhapsody in Blue.” It's an astonishing set piece, one that momentarily makes you forget that you're watching a “realistic” film about a love quadrangle. Interestingly, as authentically French as the sequence seems to be, it was all filmed on the MGM backlot; they had real talent for production design in those days, conjuring up any place, real or imagined. The dancing by Kelly in this sequence is among the best he ever did, and given just how remarkable a dancer he was, that's saying something. There’s such a sense of masculinity to his movements. He and Caron are both at the top of their game here, making for quite a sultry pair during the moments when some of the more-familiar strains of “Rhapsody in Blue” emerge.

(As a side note, Kelly was not nominated for his acting or his choreography for An American in Paris. Instead, the Academy’s Board of Governors gave him an Honorary Oscar “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” I suppose you could count this award as part of the total number of Academy Awards that the film received.)

It would be tough to describe all that happens during the magnificent ballet; it's just that inspired and inspiring. You can't quite believe your eyes at times. The film does end, of course, back in the “realistic” setting of the ball, allowing Jerry and Lise to be reunited and leave everyone happy. I keep putting the word “realistic” in quotation marks because none of the great MGM musicals are truly realistic. That's one of the reasons that they are so spectacular. You're able to lose yourself for a couple of hours in one of these movies. Arthur Freed, who produced most of the best of them, and Vincente Minnelli, who directed this one, were always committed to quality, and An American in Paris certainly has all of the hallmarks of what they were capable of doing.

Years ago, I showed this film in a class I was teaching, and it was the ballet that most confounded students. As much as they (reluctantly) admitted that it was visually spectacular and that the dancing was intriguing, they couldn't fathom why it took up so much time near the end of the film when you know or, at least, expect that the two leads will come together. Once I pointed out that it lasts about the appropriate amount of time for a brief but important cab ride (you understand if you've seen the film yourself), they started to appreciate it a bit more. I'm not sure I converted anyone to become a lover of MGM musicals, but I like to think that I might have moved them ever-so-slightly in that direction.

Two other points I'd like to make: Levant, who plays a pianist and composer here, was never really a movie star. However, no one could toss off a line better than he could. In the voice-over that introduces him, he says that he's a concert pianist: “That's a pretentious way of saying I'm unemployed at the moment.” He's like that throughout the movie. There's an undercurrent of bitterness and acidity to Levant's Adam that is well suited to this bright, sunny film. His comments keep it pretty well grounded. Levant is just one of those performers you always enjoy seeing in a film even if the part is relatively small.

The other point: An American in Paris came out a year before Singin' in the Rain, universally considered the greatest movie musical of all time. I wouldn't challenge that designation at all, but if you're looking for the second greatest, you might consider An American in Paris. Great music by arguably America's greatest composers, strong performances from some of the best actors at MGM, remarkable dancing by two of the best in the business, a lively sense of romance throughout—in the words of one of the Gershwin songs here, “who could ask for anything more?”

Oscar Wins: Best Picture, Best Story and Screenplay, Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Color Costume Design, and Best Scoring of a Musical Picture

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Director and Best Film Editing