--- title: "An American in Paris" year: 1951 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/an-american-in-paris" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 79 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-20T02:14:49.529760+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T02:14:49.898887+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # An American in Paris (1951) Directed by Vincente Minnelli · 1h 53m · MPA G · Music, Romance, Comedy **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 79 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* A painter who cannot sell a canvas gets a whole city repainted for him in the last quarter of an hour > Minnelli’s Technicolor musical has a thin story, a pushy hero and a heroine asked to do little but be looked at. It also has Gershwin, Gene Kelly at full stretch and a closing ballet we have not stopped thinking about. ## Synopsis Paris, a few years after the war. Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly), an ex-GI who stayed on to paint, rents a garret above a Montmartre café and hangs his canvases on a railing in the street, where nobody buys them. Downstairs lives Adam Cook (Oscar Levant), a concert pianist who has never given a concert, and Adam’s friend Henri Baurel (Georges Guétary), a music-hall star, talks fondly of a young woman he means to marry. One morning Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), a rich American, buys two of Jerry’s paintings and offers to fund a show; her interest is not only in the paintings. That night, at a club, Jerry sees Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron), a girl from a perfume shop who wants nothing to do with him, and decides she is the one. ## Review Arthur Freed’s production is a musical built around a dead composer’s back catalogue. George Gershwin’s songs, most of them written for the stage in the twenties and thirties, are stitched by Alan Jay Lerner into a story about an American painter in Paris, and the whole thing is aimed at a closing ballet set to Gershwin’s orchestral piece of the same name. Vincente Minnelli directs as if the ballet were the point and the rest were the price of admission. That is roughly how it plays. Gene Kelly’s Jerry Mulligan is an ex-GI who stayed on after the war to paint and cannot sell a canvas. Kelly dances on a café step with a crowd of French children, teaching them the words of “I Got Rhythm” and letting them shout the answers back, and we laughed out loud, because he is plainly enjoying the children more than the choreography. Later he dances on and around Oscar Levant’s piano for “Tra-La-La” and never once looks down to check where the lid is. Levant’s Adam Cook, a concert pianist who has never given a concert, gets the film’s best lines and delivers them as if he had just thought of them, which with Levant may have been the case. Levant also gets the film’s funniest idea: a daydream in which he plays the Concerto in F as soloist, conductor, every member of the orchestra and the audience, and applauds himself. Georges Guétary, as the music-hall star Henri Baurel, climbs a staircase that lights up under his feet for “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise”, and Alfred Gilks shoots it head-on in gold and black so that the man and the set are equally the act. The numbers are fine. It is what lies between them that tried us. The trouble is Jerry. He sees Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron) across a nightclub, talks his way to her table, wheedles her telephone number and then turns up at the perfume shop where she works until she agrees to meet him. Lerner writes this as ardour; we watched it as a man refusing to hear no, and we winced. This was Caron’s first film and it shows: she moves beautifully and speaks her lines as if reading them off Kelly’s forehead. The gap in years between them is plain on the screen, and the script does not so much as notice. Nina Foch’s Milo Roberts, the rich American who buys Jerry’s paintings and wants to fund a show, is the only adult in the love story, and the film uses her as an obstacle and then loses interest in her. And yet the one quiet number moved us. Jerry and Lise on the bank of the Seine at night, a low wall, mist on the water, one lamp, and “Our Love Is Here to Stay” arranged by Conrad Salinger for strings kept so low you could talk over them. Kelly barely dances. He walks her along the wall, turns her once, and lets Gilks’s camera do the rest. For three minutes nobody is pushing. Then the ballet. It runs a quarter of an hour or so, has no dialogue, and puts Kelly and Caron through a Paris rebuilt on the MGM lot in the manner of French painters: a Place de la Concorde with Dufy’s spidery fountains, a flower market out of Renoir, a Rousseau jungle, a fairground in which Kelly appears as Toulouse-Lautrec’s Chocolat. The costumes, credited to Irene Sharaff, Orry-Kelly and Walter Plunkett, go from black and white at the Beaux Arts ball straight into every colour the Technicolor process could hold. Adrienne Fazan cuts on the music and holds on the dancing, so that you see whole phrases from Kelly’s feet to his hands without interruption. We sat forward. It still stopped us, mostly because of a single held moment when the crowd clears and Kelly is left alone in a grey set with a red rose. What it means for the story we will not say. Kelly made *Singin’ in the Rain* the following year, and that film has jokes where this one has taste, which is why it has aged better. *An American in Paris* is a beautiful object with a tiresome hero at its centre. Sit through him. The last quarter of an hour is why the film exists, and it is a U, so the children can see what a musical used to be allowed to attempt. *Fi1m score 76, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics are won over, and they are won over by the same things. Gene Kelly’s dancing and choreography draw the warmest praise, with Leslie Caron close behind, and nearly every review singles out the Gershwin score and Minnelli’s Technicolor palette. The closing ballet, running the best part of twenty minutes, is the sequence most often named as the reason to watch. Reviews from 1951 and from decades later land in much the same place. The reservations are nearly as consistent. The plot is called thin, the romance corny, and several critics say it has dated less gracefully than other MGM musicals of the period. The Guardian finds it sugary and theatrical, The AV Club calls its ambitions muddled and a little pretentious, and Time Out notes an uncomfortable age gap in the love triangle. Roger Ebert ranks it below Singin’ in the Rain. Nobody dislikes it; the spread runs from fond to dutiful. ### Reviews we read (9) - **Empire**, William Thomas (90/100, inferred): The film is the archetypal MGM musical, with thin plotting that is outweighed by its Technicolor visuals, George Gershwin's music and Gene Kelly's choreography. It is an extravagant charmer. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/american-paris-review/) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (90/100, inferred): The lavish musical shines thanks to Gene Kelly, the enchanting Leslie Caron and a spectacular ballet sequence set to Gershwin music. Minnelli's direction and the Technicolor production create genuine romantic magic on screen. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/paris-re.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): Metro has another sock boxoffice winner in this imaginative musical confection spotlighting Gene Kelly's dancing and new choreography talents alongside bright newcomers Leslie Caron and Georges Guetary. The title ballet is a masterpiece and the Gershwin score is given boffo treatment throughout. [Read](https://variety.com/1951/film/reviews/an-american-in-paris-1200417083/) - **Evening Standard** (80/100, inferred): Despite a thin plot, the classic musical has undeniable charm thanks to Gene Kelly's choreography, Alan Jay Lerner's screenplay and the Gershwin score. The 17-minute ballet sequence is a show-stopper, and the cast shines under Minnelli's direction; its seven Oscars were well deserved. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/an-american-in-paris-review-7427349.html) - **Time Out**, Tom Huddleston (4/5): The critic praises the film's groundbreaking musical elements, Kelly's grace, Caron's face, Gershwin's score, and Minnelli's color palette, but notes some smugness in early scenes and a creepy age gap in the love triangle. The ballet sequence is highlighted as awe-inspiring yet cool compared to predecessors. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/an-american-in-paris) - **The AV Club**, Noel Murray (B): The film is muddled as an artistic statement and unsatisfying as conventional Hollywood product due to its pretentious ambition and reactionary streak, yet it earns credit for a multivalent meditation on aesthetics and the timeless appeal of its Gershwin songs. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/an-american-in-paris-1798204819) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (70/100, inferred): The restored film is a bright Technicolor musical with inventive dance numbers and Gershwin songs, though its thin story and corny romance make it less satisfying than Singin' in the Rain. The 18-minute ballet finale and Kelly's choreography stand out as highlights. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/an-american-in-paris-1951) - **The New Yorker** (70/100, inferred): The film is a thoroughly pleasant musical that trips along to Gershwin tunes with Gene Kelly at his nimblest and most ingratiating. It features handsome ballets against imaginative Parisian backdrops and skips lightly from romance to dance. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1951/10/06/1951-10-06-073-tny-cards-000038308) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (60/100, inferred): The critic finds the 1951 Minnelli musical a little sugary and theatrical, and notes that it has dated less well than other classic Hollywood musicals, though it retains charm and a kind of willed American innocence. The most distinctive elements singled out are Leslie Caron's opening persona montage showcasing her dance moves and the final fantasy ballet sequence. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/27/an-american-in-paris-review) ## Details - **Director:** Vincente Minnelli - **Director:** Vincente Minnelli - **Screenplay:** Alan Jay Lerner - **Story:** Alan Jay Lerner - **Cinematography:** Alfred Gilks - **Editor:** Adrienne Fazan - **Music:** George Gershwin, Conrad Salinger - **Costume design:** Orry-Kelly, Irene Sharaff, Walter Plunkett - **Producer:** Arthur Freed - **Cast:** Gene Kelly as Jerry Mulligan; Leslie Caron as Lise Bouvier; Oscar Levant as Adam Cook; Georges Guétary as Henri Baurel; Nina Foch as Milo Roberts; Robert Ames as Ballet Dancer (uncredited); Joan Anderson as Child in Ballet (uncredited); Larry Arnold as Frenchman (uncredited) - **Runtime:** 1h 53m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 4 October 1951 - **Genres:** Music, Romance, Comedy - **Budget:** $6 million - **Box office:** $7 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XMXAleA1eQ ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IT, LT, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1952: Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Art Direction, Color (won); Best Cinematography, Color (won); Best Costume Design, Color (won); Best Original Musical Score (won); Best Picture (won); Best Writing, Original Screenplay (won) ## If you liked this - *Singin' in the Rain* (1952), Fi1m 93: Kelly again, a year later, with a script that is actually funny between the numbers. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/singin-in-the-rain.md) - *The Red Shoes* (1948), Fi1m 92: The other great ballet-in-a-film, and this one takes the dancing seriously as a life. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-red-shoes.md) - *The Umbrellas of Cherbourg* (1964): A French musical in colours as loud as Minnelli’s, with a story that hurts. - *The Band Wagon* (1953): Minnelli and Freed again, older and drier, with Astaire dancing in a shoeshine parlour. - *The Young Girls of Rochefort* (1967): Kelly in France once more, in Jacques Demy’s pastel town full of coincidences. --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/an-american-in-paris