An American in Paris
US (1951): Musical/Dance/Romance
A G.I. (Gene Kelly) stays in Paris after the war to become an artist, and has to choose between the patronage of a rich American woman (Nina Foch) and a French gamine (Leslie Caron) engaged to an older man (Georges Guétary). The plot is mostly an excuse for director Vincente Minnelli to pool his own extraordinary talent with those of choreographer-dancer-actor Kelly and the artists behind the screenplay, art direction, cinematography, and score, creating a rapturous musical not quite like anything else in cinema. The final section of the film comprises a 17-minute dance sequence that took a month to film and is breathtaking. Songs include several Gershwin standards like "'S Wonderful," "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You" and "Our Love Is Here to Stay." Irene Sharaff designed a style for each of the ballet sequence sets, reflecting various French impressionist painters: Raoul Dufy (the Place de la Concorde), Edouard Manet (the flower market), Maurice Utrillo (a Paris street), Henri Rousseau (the fair), Vincent Van Gogh (the Place de l'Opera), and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (the Moulin Rouge). The backgrounds took six weeks to build, with 30 painters working nonstop. Three filmed solo numbers were cut from the film: "I've Got a Crush on You" (Gene Kelly), and "Love Walked In" and "But Not For Me" (Georges Guétary). This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1993. (Amazon.com)
8 nominations, 6 Awards
· Best Picture 1951: Arthur Freed - Producer (MGM)
· Writing (Best Story and Screenplay) 1951: Alan Jay Lerner
· Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (Color) 1951: Cedric Gibbons & Preston Ames - Art Direction, Edwin B. Willis & Keogh Gleason - Set Decoration
· Best Cinematography (Color) 1951: Alfred Gilks, John Alton - Ballet Photography
· Best Costume Design (Color) 1951: Orry-Kelly, Walter Plunkett, Irene Sharaff
· Music Scoring Awards (Best Scoring of a Musical Picture) 1951: Johnny Green, Saul Chaplin
· Directing 1951: Vincente Minnelli
· Film Editing 1951: Adrienne Fazan