A HILARIOUS, WONDERFUL FILM - Watching Singin' in the Rain for the first time

Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell and Cyd Charisse. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to "talkies".
The film was only a modest hit when it was first released. O'Connor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green won the Writers Guild of America Award for their screenplay, while Jean Hagen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. However, it has since been accorded legendary status by contemporary critics, and is often regarded as the greatest musical film ever made and one of the greatest films ever made, as well as the greatest film made in the "Freed Unit" at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It topped the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals list and is ranked as the fifth-greatest American motion picture of all time in its updated list of the greatest American films in 2007.
In 1989, Singin' in the Rain was one of the first 25 films selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in its list of the 50 films to be seen by the age of 14. In 2008, Empire magazine ranked it as the eighth-best film of all time. In Sight & Sound magazine's 2022 list of the greatest films of all time, Singin' in the Rain placed 10th.
Cast
Gene Kelly as Donald "Don" Lockwood
Donald O'Connor as Cosmo Brown
Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden
Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont. Fresh from her role in The Asphalt Jungle, Hagen read for the part for producer Arthur Freed. She did a dead-on impression of Billie Dawn, Judy Holliday's character from Born Yesterday which won her the role.
Millard Mitchell as R. F. Simpson. The initials of the fictional head of Monumental Pictures are a reference to producer Arthur Freed. R. F. also uses one of Freed's favorite expressions when he says that he "cannot quite visualize it" and has to see it on film first, referring to the "Broadway Melody" sequence.
Cyd Charisse as the long-legged woman in the green sequined dress and Louise Brooks-style hair who vamps Gene Kelly in the "Broadway Melody" sequence.
Douglas Fowley as Roscoe Dexter, the director of Don and Lina's films.
Rita Moreno as Zelda Zanders, the "Zip Girl" and Lina's friend. As of 2024, Moreno is the last surviving credited star from the film.
Uncredited
Dawn Addams as "Teresa", a lady-in-waiting to Lina's character in The Duelling Cavalier
Madge Blake as Dora Bailey, a Hollywood gossip columnist based on Louella Parsons
Mae Clarke as the hairdresser who puts the finishing touches on Lina Lamont's hairdo
John Dodsworth as "Baron de la Ma de la Toulon", the villain in The Duelling Cavalier
King Donovan as Rod, head of the publicity department at Monumental Pictures
Tommy Farrell as Sid Phillips, the director of the movie featuring "Beautiful Girl"
Kathleen Freeman as Phoebe Dinsmore, Lina's diction coach
Stuart Holmes as J. Cumberland Spendrill III, Olga Mara's husband who accompanies her to the premiere of The Royal Rascal
Judy Landon as Olga Mara, a silent screen vamp who attends the premiere of The Royal Rascal.
Betty Noyes as the singing voice of Debbie Reynolds on "Would You" and "You Are My Lucky Star"
In addition, although the film revolves around the idea that Kathy has to dub for Lina's piercing voice, in the scene where Kathy is portrayed recording a line of Lina's dialogue ("Nothing can keep us apart, our love will last 'til the stars turn cold"), Jean Hagen's normal voice is used, because Hagen's deep, rich voice was preferred over Reynolds' somewhat thin and youthful one.
Julius Tannen as the man demonstrating the technology of talking pictures
Jimmy Thompson as the singer of "Beautiful Girl"
Bobby Watson as Don's diction coach during the "Moses Supposes" number
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a perfect 100% approval rating based on 64 reviews, with an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Clever, incisive, and funny, Singin' In The Rain is a masterpiece of the classical Hollywood musical." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 99 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The film made each site's list of best-rated films, ranked 46th on Rotten Tomatoes (as of 2021) and 9th on Metacritic.

[@Lensmaster1]

The purpose of this movie was to make a musical. Allen Freed wrote songs for movies in the 1930s. By the 50s he was a producer. He made the Gene Kelly movie An American in Paris the year before. That movie was made to feature the music of George Gershwin. They wrote a story arounf many of Gershwin's songs. Freed decided to do the same thing with his catalog of music. The story was written to incorporate as many of his songs as possible.

[@kcirtapelyk6060]

I’ve never been a big musical fan, but this is one of my all time favorite movies.

[@maryrichardson1318]

My granddaughter adored this movie when she was ages 3-8. She watched our DVD non stop. She is also a big Star Wars fan, thanks to her dad. She was more devastated when Debbie Reynolds passed away than she was when Carrie Fisher, Debbie's daughter by Eddie Fisher, passed. Our household was in mourning for a very long time.

[@thomastimlin1724]

Debbie Reynolds was Carrie Fisher's mom [who played Princess Leia in the first two Star Wars movies. They both died within in a day of each other in Dec of 2017.

[@DelGuy03]

There is indeed a delicious additional layer to the dubbing. The "ghost voices" for Lina in The Dancing Cavalier are (1) for the speaking , Jean Hagen (Lina) herself, using her true speaking voice rather than her special screechy Lina voice; and (2) for singing "Would You?", Betty Noyes (Debbie Reynolds had a good pop voice, but not the creamy cultivated tone called for here).

[@melenatorr]

Jean Hagen was a dramatic actress, whose voice was, of course, much different from Lina's. There is a snippet of an interview with Donald O'Connor I've seen on TC< where he discusses the genius of casting Hagen instead of a purely comic actress - Hagen gives Lina a drive and a serious attitude toward her profession. She is not a talented actress, but she is a serious one: she takes her voice lessons seriously; she knows her lines and her marks; she doesn't quite get it about the microphone but understands it's important to follow directions here. And she knows at the end that her livelihood is in jeopardy, and she knows the steps to take to protect it .... until overconfidence and pride goeth before the fall.

[@ellen6638]

He was trying to make a pass. So she humbled him

[@PaulMcCaffreyfmac]

The man with the 'phone isn't very happy is he?

[@ruth2141]

There is very little original music in the movie. Most songs were written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed for earlier MGM movies in the 1930's. Some, including the title song, were used in multiple movies over the years, and 50's audiences would have been familiar with them. Freed also produced Singing in the Rain and was head of the "Freed Unit" that created the lavish musical films MGM was known for in the 40s and 50s.

[@DelGuy03]

All good info. I think the only original songs here are "Make 'Em Laugh" and "Moses Supposes." The DVD set, as a cool extra, includes the scenes from earlier movies in which the songs were introduced.

[@MariaElena-ch3td]

Having the camera all the way to one side makes the furthest person away look like they’re about to fall asleep and I mostly see the whites of the eyes

[@flarrfan]

You should follow up this with Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. I won't spoil it by explaining...

[@melenatorr]

At this time, you were not going to have Gene Kelly in a movie and not have it be a musical. As it was clearly intended to be a musical, it's hard for it to be conceived as not a musical. You are asking for a completely different animal. So I'm not understanding your deducting points for it being the animal it's intended to be.

[@melenatorr]

Jean Hagen: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaG5nIeQnJZ2ndE