Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Just a masterpiece mixing an interesting background story, great script with good humor, exceptional singers and dancers and a Gene Kelly that is just genial, well sided with Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds. A must to be seen.

I'm happy again! Singing In The Rain is to me the greatest musical ever made, sure many others push it close, The Wizard Of Oz for one will always be a 10/10 movie in my opinion, but Singing In The Rain is a film that has no flaws, it is a perfect movie. Don Lockwood is a star of silent movies but his life is boring, then talking movies arrive and with them he eyes an opportunity to greatly improve his life. A chance encounter with dancer Kathy Selden will further shape his destiny, and along with best pal and partner Cosmo Brown, their respective fortunes will hopefully dovetail towards fulfillment. Where do you start? The film is a homage to happiness, be it film making or love, or friendships and honour, the film is pure and simply joyous from the first reel to the triumphant last shot. Featuring stunning choreography, Singing In The Rain doesn't cop out by merely having characters plodding thru a script and then bursting into song occasionally, each song furthers the characters and fleshes out the story unfolding to keep the plot lines tight and crucially, important. Make 'Em Laugh, Good Morning, and Singing In The Rain are just some of the brilliant songs and dance routines on show here, with the latter a now legendary piece of cinematic history that speaks volumes for the joyous nature of the film, whilst the finale sequence of the 'Broadway Ballet' is magic & elegance personified. The cast are uniformly excellent, Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor & Debbie Reynolds interplay together like they were hatched from the same egg, and the joint direction from Stanley Donen (along with Kelly) is seamless. Full of hat tipping and self-referencing winks, Singing In The Rain regularly hits the top ten lists of critics and movie fans alike, so lets not beat around the bush about it...it flipping well deserves it. 10/10 in every respect.

I'm clearly in the major, major minority. Honestly though, I didn't enjoy this. It's certainly worth noting musicals are probably my least favourite genre, but I'm still more than capable of finding entertainment with them - e.g. 'The Greatest Showman', 'The Sound of Music' and others. 'Singin’ in the Rain', however, simply didn't connect with me. There's one, maybe two, good songs that I had already heard, while Gene Kelly (Don) is solid fun in the lead role. The premise, minus the music, is actually very interesting, what with the silent film transition era. Given it's a musical, though, they don't delve as deep into that as I wanted. None of the songs, aside from the previously alluded to "Singin' in the Rain", landed well with me, I kinda found them a chore to sit through to be frank. Elsewhere on the cast, aside from Kelly, I found Debbie Reynolds (Kathy) alright but Donald O'Connor (Cosmo) a little irritating - he tries too hard, for my liking. Jean Hagen (Lina) is likewise a tad annoying, though that's intentional with her to be fair. I will acknowledge that the film, aesthetically, looks excellent. I wish I liked it more overall, but I just didn't. Do feel free to ignore me!

There's a tendency with this film to just think of the genius that was Gene Kelly and his umbrella with the title song, but as a wonderfully enjoyable three hander between himself, Debbie Reynolds and my own favourite from this film Donald O'Connor, it is so much more the that. It just oozes charm and style. The plot centres around the aspirations of a silent movie company to make a talkie! Their long established stars "Don Lockwood" (Kelly) and "Lina Lamont" (Jean Hagan) have a successful on-screen (and in-press) persona as the dream couple - in reality they can barely stomach each other - but they must embrace progress and with the arrival of the sound equipment and new ideas man "Cosmo" (O'Connor) the challenge is on to make a smash hit. Anyone who's seen any silent movies will know that not everyone successful in that medium had the, shall we say - attributes - to make a go of this, and soon we have a bit of a battle going on between Hagan and Kelly's actual gal in this movie "Kathy" (Reynolds) for the big part! The settings allow the costumier to have a field day, and the three are very much in their elements trying out all these would-be scenarios from the creative head of "Cosmo". Songs? Well, where do you start? Betty Comden and Adolph Green hit a real purple patch with his - they trawled through musicals from the twenties and thirties and present us with the likes of "You Were Meant For Me", "Make 'em Laugh" and "Good Morning" as well as the theme song that get our feet a-tapping and our smiles a-raising. Reynolds' singing voice came courtesy of Betty Noyes, but the dubbing is perfect and it matters not a jot that she isn't actually singing. There is plenty of light-heartedness (and a healthy dose of jealous back-biting too!) and the dancing isn't perfect, which helps lots too. For much of the time, the routines look and feel natural, like pals making it up as they go along and having fun in the process. A lavish looking production and a wee bit of Cyd Charisse and Rita Moreno too - what more could you ask for...?