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Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography. It offers a comic depiction of Hollywood's transition from silent films to " talkies".

The movie is frequently described as one of the best musicals ever made,^[1] topping the AFI's 100 Years of Musicals list, and ranking fifth in its updated list of the greatest American films in 2007.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Singing in the Rain 3 Cast 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] Plot

Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is a popular silent film star with humble roots as a singer, dancer and stunt man. Don barely tolerates his vapid, shallow leading lady, Lina Lamont ( Jean Hagen), who has convinced herself that the fake romance their studio concocted and publicized is real.

One day, to escape from overenthusiastic fans, Don jumps into a passing car driven by Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). She drops him off, but not before claiming to be a stage actress and sneering at his undignified accomplishments. Later, at a party, the head of Don's studio, R.F. Simpson ( Millard Mitchell), shows a short demonstration of a talking picture, but his guests are unimpressed. Don runs into Kathy again at the party. To his amusement and her embarrassment, he discovers that Kathy is only a chorus girl, part of the entertainment. Furious, she throws a pie at him, only to hit Lina right in the face. Later, Don makes up with Kathy and they begin falling in love.

After the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, proves to be a smash hit, R.F. decides he has no choice but to convert the new Lockwood and Lamont film, The Dueling Cavalier, into a talkie. The production is beset with difficulties (most, if not all, taken from real life), by far the worst being Lina's comically grating voice. A test screening is a disaster. In one scene, for instance, Don repeats "I love you" to Lina over and over, to the audience's derisive laughter (a reference to a scene by John Gilbert in his first talkie^[2]).

Don's best friend, Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), comes up with the idea to overdub Lina's voice with Kathy's and they persuade R.F. to turn The Dueling Cavalier into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier. When Lina finds out that Kathy is dubbing her voice, she is furious and does everything possible to sabotage the romance between Don and Kathy. She becomes even more angry when she discovers that R.F. intends to give Kathy a screen credit and a big publicity buildup. Lina blackmails R.F. into backing down and demands that Kathy continue to provide her singing voice anonymously. As a contract player, Kathy has no choice in the matter.

The premiere of The Dancing Cavalier is a tremendous success. When the audience clamors for Lina to sing live, Don, Cosmo and R.F. improvise and get Lina to lip-synch while Kathy sings into a second microphone while hidden behind the curtain. Unbeknownst to Lina, as she starts "singing", Don, Cosmo and R.F. gleefully open the curtain behind her, revealing the deception — Lina flees in embarrassment. When Kathy tries to run away as well, Don has her stopped and introduces the audience to "the real star of the film".

The movie ends with Don and Kathy kissing in front of a poster that says "Singin' in the Rain with Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden."

[edit] Singing in the Rain

[edit] Cast

• Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood. Although his performance in the song Singin' in the Rain is now considered iconic, Kelly was not the first choice for the role — Howard Keel was originally cast. However, Keel was replaced by Kelly as the screenwriters evolved the character from a "Western actor" to a "song-and-dance vaudeville" performer.^[2]
• Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden. Early on in production, Judy Garland (shortly before her contract termination from MGM), Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell, Leslie Caron, and June Allyson were among the names thrown around for the role of the "ingenue".
• Donald O'Connor as Cosmo Brown. The role was based on, and was initially written for, Oscar Levant.
• Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont. Judy Holliday was strongly considered for the role of Lina, until she suggested Hagen, who had been her understudy in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday. Fresh off her role in The Asphalt Jungle, Hagen read for the part for Arthur Freed and did a dead-on impression of Holliday's Billie Dawn character, 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 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 ballet sequence, a joke, since the audience has just seen it.
• Cyd Charisse as Don's dance partner in the "Broadway Melody" ballet
• Rita Moreno as Zelda Zanders, the "Zip Girl" and Lina's informant friend

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Roger Ebert's review
• Very detailed review from filmsite.org
• 100 Greatest Film Musicals
• Speaking vs. Dancing in the Rain: An essay on the importance of the "completely unrelated" 14-minute ballet sequence