Singin' in the Rain 1952
It would be hard to get through life without seeing at least parts of the classic Gene Kelly dance musical Singin’ in the Rain and I probably had seen more of it than I realized. I sat down and watched the whole thing after it was shown on PBS recently. While the plot is a little cartoonish, it is still fun, and the different dance pieces are each pretty impressive. Parts of the movie just seem like art for the sake of art, so maybe it is perfect that it comes from MGM, with its motto “ars gratia artis,” as the movie tacks on some artistic dance pieces that don’t have much to do with the rest of the movie except for Gene Kelly being there. Donald O'Connor has a pretty big part and gets some of his own dances, mostly clowning around, but Gene Kelly gets most of the credit. I remember seeing a documentary where they said Debbie Reynolds practiced dancing until her feet bled, but was surprised that she really only had a couple of dance scenes. Kelly was a workaholic and Reynolds wasn’t a trained dancer, so admittedly it had to be tough for her.
As a movie, not everything here works, but as a great example of a big movie musical, it would be hard not to consider this one of the best, with great music, a reasonably good plot, and a lot of variety, so I can give this one an A.
Written: 31 Jul 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital