In 1949, revered producer Arthur Freed bought the rights to the late George Gershwin’s musical suite An American in Paris for MGM, with hopes of building a film around the idea. He would then gather a group of extraordinary artists to work on the project. Song-and-dance man Gene Kelly was hired as the leading man and choreographer. Brilliant studio director Vincente Minnelli was brought in to film it. Broadway musical veteran Alan Jay Lerner was asked to develop an original story, as well as incorporate a handful of Gershwin tunes into the plot. Finally, ballet dancer Leslie Caron was hired to co-star along Kelly. The 19-year-old was scouted in Paris, and the film would be her on-screen debut.

By the early 1950s, MGM was known as the studio who made the best movie musicals in the business. Box office successes such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), On the Town (1949), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) made them a force to be reckoned with. Their Technicolor masterpieces were always filled with the biggest stars, the grandest set pieces, and an undeniable Old Hollywood pizzazz. Arthur Freed, Vincente Minnelli and Gene Kelly were at the forefront of this golden era, as they always looked for ways to push the genre into new and exciting artistic heights. The great opportunity came with An American in Paris, as it would feature a 17-minute ballet as the film’s final set piece. This would be the longest and most ambitious ballet ever committed to celluloid at the time.

An American Paris follows Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly), an American GI who stays in Paris after the war to pursue a career as a painter. He soon catches the attention of wealthy heiress Milo Roberts, who offers Jerry her patronage. However, the lines are blurred when Jerry realizes that Milo is interested in more than his paintings. Hesitant but desperate to survive as an artist, Jerry accepts her advances and her money. At the same time, Jerry meets and falls in love with a young Parisian girl named Lise (Leslie Caron). Sadly, Lise’s life is also complicated, as she is engaged to an older man whom she credits for saving her life during the war. The story concludes in a ravishing impressionistic ballet, as Jerry imagines himself chasing Lise across the paintings of the great Parisian artists.

Production on An American in Paris began in August of 1950. Apart from two days in which the production crew traveled to Paris for a few establishing shots, most of the movie was shot in 44 meticulously constructed sets on the MGM backlot. When the plot and a majority of musical numbers were filmed, Minnelli temporarily left the project to direct Father’s Little Dividend. He entrusted Kelly to choreograph and rehearse his dancers for the upcoming ballet shoot. Gene Kelly wrote the impressionistic libretto of the ballet. He mentioned Dance Magazine later: “We selected each artist’s tone and ‘felt’ for similar tone in the passages of the Gershwin score. For example, that one brassy section could have meant nothing else to us but Lautrece’s “Chocolat” and we all agreed immediately that the “walking Theme” was most potently related to the lightly sketched style of Raoul Dufy.”

Minnelli’s work on Dividend eventually wrapped, and he returned to the set of An American in Paris in time to direct the ballet sequence. The dance finale took a whopping eleven weeks to complete, and would go on to cost MGM almost half a million dollars. Today, when adjusted to inflation, it is equivalent to almost $6 million. However, if you look at the film today, you will notice that not a single cent was put to waste. Gene Kelly’s work on the ballet is a true testament to his talents. Biographer Tony Thomas wrote in his seminal book about the star: “The ballet is a summation of Gene Kelly’s work as a film dancer and choreographer, allowing him his full range of style—classical ballet, modern ballet, Cohanesque hoofing, tapping, jitterbugging and sheer athletic expressionism.”

Critics were generally enthusiastic about An American in Paris in 1951. Although many pointed out that Alan Jay Lerner’s screenplay was the film’s weakest point. However, most writers agreed that the final dance sequence was truly groundbreaking. Variety wrote in their original review: “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 terp 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.”

Even the hard-to-impress New York critic Bosley Crowther noted its brilliance: “And a ballet it is, beyond question--a truly cinematic ballet--with dancers describing vivid patterns against changing colors, designs, costumes and scenes. The whole story of a poignant romance within a fanciful panorama of Paree is conceived and performed with taste and talent. It is the uncontested high point of the film.”

An American in Paris would go on to win six Academy Awards including Best Picture of 1951. Today, it is often criticized for winning the top prize over more dramatic fare such as Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire and George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun. Many Oscar insiders and fans speculate that vote splitting between the two dramas may have given the splashy MGM musical the edge. Despite its naysayers, An American in Paris remains one of the most influential films of all time. It has inspired a generation of artists, including Oscar-winning director Damian Chazelle (who paid tribute to the ballet in La La Land in 2016) and Tony-winning choreographer Christopher Wheeldon. At the center of the Technicolor production is the unforgettable 17-minute ballet, which after 70 years remains fresh and groundbreaking.