Review of An American in Paris (1951) by Nick R — 15 Jan 2009

Winner of six Academy Awards - including Best Picture (over supposed favorites A Streetcar Named Desire and A Place in the Sun) - as well as a special citation for choreographer-star Gene Kelly and the Thalberg Memorial award for MGM producer Alan Freed. Vincente Minnelli's joyous musical, An American in Paris, was an original for the screen, conceived by Freed as a vehicle for Kelly and constructed around a clutch of George Gershwin's most popular songs ("I Got Rhythm," "'S Wonderful").

Penniless artist Kelly brings his athletic exuberance to a sanitized Montmartre, tap dances with urchins, falls for gamine muse Leslie Caron, and vies for her with suave French singer Georges Guetary. Meanwhile jealous patron Nina Foch seethes, all dryly observed by the composer pal played by pianist and Gershwin exponent Oscar Levant. Sending up the penchant of Lost Generation Americans to immerse themselves in a little culture Francaise, Minnelli fills the film with vitality, romance, and a riot of color. The sensational, innovative highlight is Kelly's original 18-minute ballet to the title music, staged through sets in the style of French artists, notably Toulouse Lautrec, and the blissfully romantic Kelly - Caron "Our Love Is Here To Stay" dance number on the banks of the river Seine.