A Salute to Stanley Donen - Singin' In the Rain

MGM, 1952
Starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, and Jean Hagen
Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly
Music by Nacio Herb Brown; Lyrics by Arthur Freed

Director and choreographer Stanley Donen, who passed away on February 21st, made some of the most beloved musical movies of all time. This week, we're going to look at two of them. Although it wasn't a huge hit when it came out, Singin' In the Rain is now generally considered to be the greatest original movie musical of all time. Does the story of the changes wrought in Hollywood by the coming of sound - and how the cast and staff of one fictional studio is effected by it - live up to that lofty hype? Let's head to the Chinese Theater in Hollywood for the premiere of Monumental Pictures' latest blockbuster and find out...

The Story: Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Hagen) are Monumental's biggest stars. Their every move is followed by legions of adoring fans, who lap up their romantic swashbucklers. Turns out that their romance - and much of Don's life story - is as fictional as their movies. Don's a former vaudevillian and stuntman who loathes his shrill and obnoxious leading lady, but tolerates the publicity for the sake of their careers. Avoiding the fans, he leaps into the car of actress Kathy Seldon (Reynolds), who first screams at him, then calls him out on silent film pantomime not being "real" acting. He then runs into Kathy at the after-premiere party, where she's a chorus girl. Fed up with his teasing, she tries hitting him with a cake, but gets Lina, then runs off.

A few weeks later, Don and Lina are just starting to film their next big costume adventure when studio head R.F Simpson (Millard Mitchell) shuts them down briefly to turn the production into a sound film. Meanwhile, Don and his musician friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) find Kathy working on the lot. Don confesses his love to Kathy, and she admits that she wasn't quite truthful about not having heard of him before.

Their romance progresses far better than the film does. The production of the new movie is filled with nothing but headaches with the new, capricious sound equipment and the fact that Lina's Brooklyn accent and shallow manner is all wrong for her role. The movie's preview is a disaster, until Cosmo comes up with the idea of turning it into a musical and using Kathy to dub Lina. Everyone is happy with this...except Lina, who has no desire to share stardom or Don with anybody.

The Song and Dance: "What a glorious feeling," indeed! This is a delightful ride, with a hilarious script, gorgeous costumes, and some of the funniest performances of any movie musical. Hagen and O'Connor get top honors as the ditzy dame whose attempt to prolong her fifteen minutes of fame brings about her downfall and Don's deadpan best buddy. Reynolds does quite well for this being one of her earliest roles; I especially love her calling Don on his hammy acting in his movies when he ends up in her car. Kelly has a lot of fun, both parodying his own swashbuckling image and matching O'Connor's quips.

As someone who has been studying 20th century history for most of her life, my favorite non-musical scenes (along with Don and Kathy in the car) are the filming of the ill-fated original version of The Dueling Cavalier and the botched premiere afterwards. With many people who had actually worked on early talkies still on the lot in the 1950's, screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green had no shortage of real-life inspiration. Some of what happens to Lina, Don, and the crew in those scenes - including the places where the microphone ends up - actually occurred on the sets of early sound movies.

Favorite Number: Given how famous the musical numbers in this movie are, it would be easy to say "all of them!" Special kudos to O'Connor and Kelly's "Fit as a Fiddle," where they somehow manage an energetic vaudeville routine while playing violins (those audiences had no taste) and to O'Connor, Kelly, and Reynolds' "Good Morning." Poor Reynolds worked so hard to keep up with that number - she was gymnast, not a dancer - her feet eventually bled. Other favorites include O'Connor and Kelly's other big duet "Moses Supposes," O'Connor's wild salute to slapstick "Make 'Em Laugh," and, of course, Kelly's famous romp in the rain to the title song, one of the happiest scenes in musical history.

Trivia: Reynolds isn't the only one who had trouble keeping up with the fast-paced numbers. O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh" was so physically exhausting for him, he ended up in the hospital for several days. Kelly danced the title number while he was sick with a very bad cold, making his joy and high spirits during that sequence all the more remarkable.

The only songs in the movie that weren't written by Brown and Freed were "Make 'Em Laugh," "Moses Supposes," and "Fit as a Fiddle." Comden and Green wrote "Laugh," which closely resembles Cole Porter's "Be a Clown." (Reportedly, Porter didn't mind, but Irving Berlin did complain to music director Roger Edens, who basically told him to stuff it.) Edens wrote the music for "Moses Supposes," Comden and Green the lyrics. Freed did write the lyrics for "Fiddle," but Al Hoffman and Al Goodheart wrote the music.

Just to make things even more confusing, Jean Hagen actually used her own voice to dub some of Debbie Reynolds' performance of Lina's lines ("Would You?" was dubbed as well).

What I Don't Like: While "The Broadway Melody Ballet" has amazing dancing by Cyd Charisse and Kelly, it does seem slightly shoe-horned in to give Kelly another ballet after the success of the one at the end of American In Paris. The costumes are actually quite historically accurate (both for the 17th century and the 1920's), but the makeup and hair, on men and women, are pure 1950's and can take one out of the time period slightly.

The Big Finale: For once, the critics are 100 percent right. This is a delightful look at one of the most chaotic periods in Hollywood history; the script and the musical numbers alone are worth checking out.

Home Media: Quite easily found in most formats, including several streaming companies. If you can dig it up, look for the original 2-disc Special Edition DVD that I have. The second disc includes performances of the songs from the movies they came from, some of them fairly rare.

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