John Alton's tenure at MGM was stormy. Popular with producers who admired his cost-cutting methods and speed at setting up, he was less popular with the studio's established cameramen who used masses of lights, far more assistants, and were accustomed to be given time to assess possible compositions and lighting schemes. When Vincente Minnelli, unhappy with the work of cameraman Alfred Gilks on 'An American in Paris', insisted on Alton's filming the ballet sequence, it added to the resentment. "With Gilks, every little thing was lit," Minnelli told the writer Donald Knox, "and there were certain things that had to have mood. Alton had never worked in colour . . . he'd done some very fine black-and-white things at Eagle-Lion. He was disliked, however by the other cameramen - they all thought he was egotistical. But he was so fast and used so few lights. I got along just wonderfully with him. I felt that the ballet needed someone who would live dangerously." The film's star and choreographer Gene Kelly added that a lot of cameramen became stubborn when new lighting effects were suggested. "We found Alton willing to try anything, when we were used to cameramen saying, 'You're nuts, you can't try that.'" "The secret of the ballet's photography," said Alton, "was the smoky quality, which changed all the colors to pastel." Keogh Gleason, the set decorator, recalled that the electricians' union tried to stop Alton cutting down on the lights. "Of some 60 lights, Alton would only use three or four, which cut down tremendously on labor. It's a wonder he didn't have a light dropped on him . . ." [Tom Vallance in The Independent, 25 June 1996]