An American in Paris

An American in Paris (1951) is the MGM Technicolor musical you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Vincente Minnelli. Jerry Mulligan, a former GI, stays on in postwar Paris and tries to make it as a painter.

Gene Kelly plays Jerry and choreographed the dances himself. He's broke until a wealthy patron, Milo, starts buying his canvases — but his heart belongs to Lise, a young Parisienne played by Leslie Caron in her screen debut, who happens to be engaged to his friend. Oscar Levant supplies the dry wit from behind a piano, and every note rides on the music of George Gershwin.

The closing ballet runs nearly eighteen wordless minutes set to Gershwin's tone poem, an extravagance that cost MGM a fortune and rewrote what a musical could do. The picture took six Academy Awards, the top prize among them. A treat for anyone who loves old Hollywood at its most lavish, where a dance says more than a line of dialogue ever could. Stream An American in Paris (1951) online on iFILM.