This is part of a series of articles reviewing the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films, as updated in 2007. Why am I doing this? Because the damned cinemas are closed and I have to review something.
(G) ★★★★★
Director: Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen.
Cast: Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Douglas Fowley, Cyd Charisse, Rita Moreno.
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| "Mister won't you please help my pony?/He's over there behind the tree..." |
Singin' In The Rain is almost perfect. Aside from featuring a handful of the greatest song-and-dance routines in Hollywood history, it's also a clever satire of the film industry, as well as being a jovial comedy and a charming love letter to cinema's ungainly transition from silent to sound.
Right from start, the film gently prods at Tinsel Town with a knowing nudge and a cheeky wink. A red-carpet premiere and post-screening party show off the weirdos, fake marriages, gold-diggers, brown-nosers, ridiculous excess, fickle fans and false facade of publicity. Don Lockwood (Kelly) offers a heartfelt tale of privilege to a reporter on the red carpet, but it's hilariously contradicted by a montage detailing the actual hard road he and Cosmo Brown (O'Connor) travelled to reach their respective rungs on the Hollywood ladder. Nothing in this town is as it seems - just like the movies they make here. But hey, that's entertainment.
Hollywood loves films about Hollywood, which has no doubt helped maintain Singin' In The Rain's reputation. It offers a peek behind the curtains, regaling us with in-jokes and early silver screen stereotypes - crazy directors, hard-luck stuntmen, egomaniac divas, and clueless producers. Hilariously, one of Lockwood's run-of-the-mill silent swashbucklers features almost-out-of-shot stage hands grabbing at a stunt performer and very obvious 'safety dirt' placed for a safe landing.
But it all comes from the heart. Singin' In The Rain's key plot-driving moment is the release of the original talkie, The Jazz Singer, and as a result there is a nostalgic warmth to the film, which was made a quarter of a century after The Jazz Singer. Singin' In The Rain salutes the first talkie's innovation, and also shares an affection for the vaudevillian song-and-dance routines that predate "moving pictures", as well as the many movie musicals that went before it.
Aftter all, Singin' In The Rain, if it were released today, would probably be labelled a jukebox musical. Only two of its songs were written for the film - the rest were well known numbers from films released between 1929 and 1939. Among these songs are highlights we now associate with Singin' In The Rain, and not the films that originally launched them, which means Singin' In The Rain is Natalie Imbruglia's Torn, and all those previous musicals are the original version of Torn that no one knows.
(I can guarantee this is the only review of Singin' In The Rain that references Natalie Imbruglia's Torn.)
But we need to talk about Gene Kelly. This is the peak of his career, coming a year after he received an honorary Oscar (for An American In Paris). He would go on to be a Golden Globe-nominated director, and give well-received turns in dramatic films, but as the thing he is best known as - a song and dance man - this is his Everest.
Alongside co-director Donen, he gives every routine its own feel, its own cinematic style. The manic pratfall energy of Make 'Em Laugh, the dance-around-the-house charm of Good Morning, and the title number's effortless joy are the moments that help define Singin' In The Rain as a benchmark in movie musicals and Kelly's career.
The showstopper - in both the positive and negative potential of the word - is the climactic Broadway Melody set-piece. This is the aforementioned "one song too many". It's a 14-minute-long vanity piece for Kelly that would otherwise be okay if wasn't dropped right at the start of the final act. The story grinds to a halt as Kelly does his thing, apropos of nothing much.
But this is part of the reason Singin' In The Rain is so well regarded - it's as much about Kelly doing his thing as it is anything else, so critics and film students are happy to let him throw the plot aside and indulge his every song-and-dance fantasy in what amounts to an out-of-nowhere dream sequence. It's nicely staged, beautifully filmed, and impressive in its attempts to push the movie musical into the realm of high art, so despite it being wholly unnecessary and even detrimental to the storytelling, it gets a pass. It also sets up a great meta-gag, which helps.
Kelly is only one part of a triple threat of triple threats that ensure the film isn't merely humming in the drizzle. Donald O'Connor's Make 'Em Dance routine is a masterpiece and his classic vaudeville gags are classics for a reason (sample: "Cosmo, call me a cab"... "Ok, you're a cab"). Debbie Reynolds, who was half Kelly's age when she played his lover, does a fantastic job in Good Morning despite not being a trained dancer (Fred Astaire helped her prepare), but she also brings piles of charm and verve to the film.
But the secret weapon of Singin' In The Rain is Jean Hagen. Her Oscar-nominated turn is great comedy acting from an under-rated actor. The broad nasal Noo Yawk accent is not her real voice and never wavers, and her comic timing is impeccable. She even manages to make Lina Lamont pitiable, despite her being the villain of the piece. We never truly despise Lina, probably because she's too unwittingly hilarious and daffy.
You could cynically suggest that Hollywood loves Hollywood, which is possibly part of why Singin' In The Rain has endured. But realistically it represents a highwater mark in the dance-driven musical. It nostalgically champions the music and movies that came before it, but also dares to push the art form to new heights. Its three best songs (all of which appear on this AFI list) are three of the best song-and-dance sequences ever committed to film, but more than that, it's a sharp satire and wonderfully warm and funny comedy. No other film can brag of being all these things, making Singin' In The Rain a real one-of-a-kind experience.
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