The praise: An American in Paris won the Oscars for Best Picture, screenplay, musical score, art design, costume design, and cinematography, and was also nominated for editing and director. (Note that it is one of the few Best Picture winners not to have any acting nominations.) Gene Kelly took home an honorary Academy Award — the only one he ever got — for his “versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” The award wasn’t explicitly tied to An American in Paris, but it was given to Kelly during the Oscar ceremony being dominated by that film. It came in at No. 68 on the American Film Institute’s 1998 list of the 100 best movies ever made, though it was absent from the 2007 revised list.

The context: Before it was a movie, “An American in Paris” was a jazz- and classical-influenced composition by George Gershwin, first performed in 1928 by the New York Philharmonic. Gershwin intended for the piece to convey a first-time visitor’s impressions of Paris, and it was inspired by his own experiences in that city at a time when many notable artists (Hemingway, Picasso, Fitzgerald, etc.) were gathering there. Gershwin’s musical tribute to the City of Lights became one of his best-known pieces, performed by orchestras regularly throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

In 1949, MGM bought the film rights to the piece — one of the few instances of a movie being based on nothing more than a musical composition. Alan Jay Lerner, the writer and lyricist whose collaboration with composer Frederick Loewe had produced Broadway’s Brigadoon (and would later produce My Fair Lady and Camelot), was hired to write the screenplay. Vincente Minnelli, then MGM’s go-to guy for musicals, was assigned to direct it, and Gene Kelly came aboard as the star and choreographer.

Choreography was no small matter, either. An American in Paris was to culminate in an elaborate dance sequence set to Gershwin’s composition — all 17 minutes of it. What’s more, it was to be a ballet, a dance form that had not had much exposure in popular film. But if anyone could bring it to the masses, it was Gene Kelly, who’d spent the 1940s establishing himself as one of the most likable, hard-working, and creative dancers in Hollywood.

Kelly is also responsible for bringing Leslie Caron to Hollywood. (That’s right: apart from a few location shots, the whole movie was filmed at MGM studios in Southern California.) The enchanting 19-year-old French dancer and actress was performing with a Paris ballet company when Kelly discovered her and offered her the female lead in An American in Paris. She went on to have a long career in movies, including the title role in Gigi (1958), another Best Picture winner directed by Minnelli and written by Lerner.

With the film being built around Gershwin’s musical suite, it made sense to fill out the rest of the story with other Gershwin compositions, all of them popular songs that he’d written with his lyricist brother, Ira: “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” “‘S Wonderful,” “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” and so on. George Gershwin had died, tragically early at age 38, in 1937; these were among the standards he and his brother had added to the musical canon. They’d all appeared in other movies and on the radio, so they were familiar to 1951 audiences.

An American in Paris got reviews that ranged from very positive to ecstatic, and it was a hit at the box office. MGM’s marketing department called the ballet sequence “the greatest dance entertainment ever projected on the screen,” which wasn’t far off from what New York Times critic Bosley Crowther said in his review. Time magazine called it “a grand show — a brilliant combination of Hollywood’s opulence and technical wizardry with the kind of taste and creativeness that most high-budgeted musicals notoriously lack.” Nearly every review mentioned the vibrant Technicolor cinematography, which was notable because color films — especially ones this bright and alluring — still comprised the minority of Hollywood’s output in 1951.

The movie: There’s this American, you see, and he’s in Paris. He’s a struggling artist named Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly), a G.I. who stayed in France after the war ended. Despite being broke, he is optimistic and carefree, selling (or more often not selling) his paintings on street corners and lounging at cafes. A wealthy socialite woman named Milo Roberts (Nina Foch) wants to become his patron, and perhaps more. But Jerry also meets Lise (Leslie Caron), a beautiful young French woman. Romantic complications ensue!

What it influenced: Between this and the next year’s Singin’ in the Rain, Gene Kelly’s status as a screen icon was assured. Moreover, his efforts here helped establish ballet as a viable art form (and a masculine one at that) for mainstream movie audiences. He did it by mixing the classical style of dancing with modern forms like tap. He made ballet look cool. Musicals would fade in popularity over the next decade and a half, but the dance-heavy ones that flourished benefited from Kelly and An American in Paris. The dancing gang members in West Side Story (1961) would have seemed more peculiar if this film hadn’t helped audiences get used to the idea. In recent years, we’ve seen films like Save the Last Dance and Step Up that have successfully combined classical techniques with modern, popular styles.

An American in Paris also launched the career of Leslie Caron, who was later twice nominated for best actress at the Oscars (Lili [1953] and The L-Shaped Room [1962]) and has worked ever since. She appeared in Chocolat (2000), and as recently as 2007 won an Emmy for her guest appearance on Law & Order: SVU (aka, the show where old actresses go to get Emmys).

What to look for: Jerry Mulligan’s deadpan pianist friend, Adam, is played by Oscar Levant, an actor, composer, and comedian who really was a master of the piano. Levant was especially suited for the role because he had been close friends with George Gershwin (he plays himself in the 1945 Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue) and had performed Gershwin’s music regularly. When he plays piano in the film, you can tell he knows what he’s doing and isn’t just faking it.

The ballet sequence takes place in a fantasy world, one meant to represent how Jerry — a painter — views Paris. The AFI notes: “Each sequence in the ballet was shot in a different color scheme, with costumes, sets and choreography of the large company of dancers reflective of the mood of the various sections of Gershwin’s musical suite.” Art aficionados might recognize the painters whose styles are reflected in the sets and costumes: Dufy, Renoir, Utrillo, Rousseau, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec. People who aren’t art aficionados but like pretty things might recognize that these sets and costumes are very pretty.

What’s the big deal: The review in Variety turned out to be prescient: “There’s a lengthy ballet to the film’s title song for the finale, which is a masterpiece of design, lighting, costumes and color photography. It’s a unique blending of classical and modern dance with vaude-style tapping, which will undoubtedly trailblaze new [dance] techniques for Hollywood musicals. British-made Red Shoes and Tales of Hoffman, of course, have initiated American art house patrons to such work but this one will hit the mass audience — and it’s going to hold ‘em completely entranced.” The movie was indeed a hit, and it broadened viewers’ horizons a little more in the process.

Further reading: The AFI-produced behind-the-scenes notes at Turner Classic Movies are enlightening, as is Tim Dirks’ thorough analysis.

Tags: an american in paris, gene kelly, leslie caron