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Singin' in the Rain
I never came to appreciate the movie musical until I realized how much better and colorful the world would be if people really could break out into song at any moment and display uncharacteristic, amazing physical dancing feats. With a seemingly invisible, full-piece orchestra playing in the background to back them up, of course. With such a gift, wouldn’t the world literally have more color and more joy (just imagine how wars would be fought - dance competitions!)? Most movie musicals are about such color and joy, and they are demonstrated in the acts of singing, dancing, and comedy. With so much sadness in the world, how can such a combination be anything less than 100% appealing? I confess, I didn’t use to think this way. In fact, I’m willing to bet that, like me at one time, most people would rather watch The Terminator or The French Connection over a film about smiles, music, and predictable happy endings. I was recently involved with a semester-long seminar on the language of film, and I’ll never forget the groans and rolled eyes over the first scene in Singin’ in the Rain—Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor with cheerful grins on their faces, holding their umbrellas and singing the chorus of the title song. To be fair, I believe that the last movie that we had watched had been Rosemary’s Baby, so perhaps the contrast was a bit too much for these rookie film-patrons. But compare Singin’ in the Rain with a film like, say, The Terminator. Is there really that big of a difference? Both have storylines intended to shuffle their audience along from one amazing physical sequence to the next. Both have interesting stories anyway, making the shuffle forgivable. In both, the guy gets the girl. The key difference, of course, is in the tone of each film: In The Terminator, lots of people ultimately die and there is much sadness and despair. In Singin’ in the Rain, no one dies and everyone is still smiling. Have we become such bad-news junkies that a film like Singin’ in the Rain is outdated, and the harsh, gritty tone of The Terminator remains the more popular filmmaking trend? Consider this: When was the last time you saw a really good, joy-filled musical? Not Moulin Rouge! or Chicago, which both have generally dark subject matter and feature bizarre, Burton-like distortions of people and places . I mean, when was the last time you saw a man dance up the wall with a big smile on his face, and it was so exhilarating in its feel-good innocence that you wished that you had the ability to do the same, with the same free-spirited attitude? If you think hard, you’ll realize that the last time you saw something like that was probably the last time you saw Singin’ in the Rain. That’s the triumph of movie musicals. They represent a time when cinematic magic had more to do with people's talents and less to do with special effects. They are capsules of joy and light-heartedness, celebrations of fluff and physical beauty, packaged into an hour or two of pure family entertainment. Such traits are contained almost exclusively in movie musicals—adaptations of Broadway shows usually have complex themes and darker moments (Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, Man of La Mancha), but musicals of the Astaire/Kelly era made exclusively for the cinema didn’t concern themselves with the potential of unhappy endings, nor were they interested in any hint of melancholy. They were simply about happiness, about beauty, about talented people showcasing their singing/dancing skills, and about art as entertainment. Of the movies made in this era of the musical, Singin’ in the Rain remains the most colorful, the most joyful, and the most beautiful. By default, it is also the best. The plot: The invention of the musical came, of course, with the invention of talking pictures (most of you will know that the first talking film was, in fact, 1927’s The Jazz Singer, a musical). The makers of Singin’ in the Rain are clever enough to exploit that fact and make a film that takes place in the wake of sound pictures, with Kelly playing a silent star scrambling to keep his career going now that he has to—gasp—TALK! At first, he fumbles with his former leading lady (Jean Hagen, whose voice resembles a deflating balloon) in a talking picture, and the result is a disastrous test screening. Desperate to keep his job, he at last teams up with his off-screen leading lady (Reynolds) and his old friend and sidekick (O’Connor), and they at last decide that the only way to save Kelly’s career is to make a….musical. Of course. These scenes, particularly the moments concerning the difficult transition from the silent era of motion pictures to talking era, contain plenty of gags on par with the best comedy of either era. In addition, Kelly, Reynolds, O’Connor, and Hagen are all very talented comedic actors, demonstrating the ability not to take the material too seriously and nevertheless maintain complete sincerity. However, Singin’ in the Rain is a musical through-and-through, and it is in this aspect that the film truly comes to life. And does it ever breathe! Here are catchy, energetic songs that should have audience members singing along no later than halfway through the first chorus. That said, the most impressive feats are the dance numbers. They include the title song, in which Kelly sloshes about in the rain, “Make ‘Em Laugh,” in which O’Connor seems to defy gravity by jumping along like a man made out of rubber, and “Broadway Ballet,” a colorful dream-sequence in which Kelly quite literally leads a whole crowd in a dance with himself. The songs and dance numbers are not against poking fun at musical motifs. In one of the slow love songs, Kelly dances and sings on a soundstage to a smitten Reynolds, whose hair blows romantically in the wind. After a few brief angles, we realize that the wind is coming from a prop-fan, set up just for the occasion! More than anything else, the dance sequences are amazing feats of physical strength and beauty in their own right, demonstrating ballet and rhythmic energy as crisp as the best of Bruce Lee’s martial arts. If for no other reason, Singin’ in the Rain must be admired for such powerful displays of the human body realizing its highest physical potential, and if you don’t recognize such beauty in your first viewing, it is only because the actors and performers have done their jobs: They’ve made it all look easy and contagious. And so I come back to my original observation: How nice it would be if we had the ability to break out into song and dance, just like they do it in the movies. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but it would suit me fine. Singin’ in the Rain is about that joy and liberty, about the freedom and cheerfulness that comes with innocence and the determination to live life to the fullest, and to keep smilin’ and keep singin’ no matter what twists and turns life may bring. Roger Ebert put it very nicely when he observed, “The image that everyone remembers […] has Gene Kelly, dressed in a yellow slicker, hanging from a lamp-post and swinging his umbrella in the wild joy of new love.” Once I came to understand that movies didn’t always have to be dark, serious, or depressing, Gene Kelly’s cocky grin constantly on display here could never be wide enough, at least as far as I was concerned. Cast: A film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Rated G - suitable for the whole family. Running time: 103 minutes. Original United States theatical release date: April 10, 1952. Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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