The last time I covered Singin’ in the Rain, I mostly marveled how little I knew about the film before I watched it. I knew the title, the title song, and Gene Kelly was in it, and when he performed the title song, he was really sick and somehow powered through it. What was the plot about? I had no idea then. Now I know it’s a musical that acts as something of a Hollywood satire as the main characters need to adjust to a world where audiences can hear them speak, and Damien Chazelle’s tribute Babylon tells a very similar story much more dramatically to the point where a character, regretting what happened to his friends at the end of the silent era, actually finds joy by seeing Singin’ in the Rain and recognizing what happened to many of his performer friends when talkies came through. But the point is, I don’t know that many people who haven’t seen Singin’ in the Rain know what the film’s basic plot actually is.
It’s actually amazing this film works at all.
OK, let’s get something out of the way right away: I rather like Singin’ in the Rain. It’s a fun little musical. Yes, it does show the main characters basically ruining an actress’s career, but she was going full-bore evil diva and arguably deserves it by film logic. But unlike other famous musicals from this era, there was no stage version of this film to adapt. There’s no novel or anything along those lines. Yeah, it is based loosely on Hollywood history where actors who were huge in the silent era suddenly found themselves out of demand because for some reason, they don’t sound right or good when they talk. No, Singin’ in the Rain was based on the idea to build a film around a series of songs in the MGM song library. That’s it. There’s no story connecting these songs when the idea comes up. Producer Arthur Freed just decided to create an original musical around a series of songs that the studio owned the rights to.
I would think normally the plot would come before the songs, but not in this case.
That might explain the rather eclectic nature of the songs on display. What other connections could there be with, say, the title song and “Make ’em Laugh”? They don’t seem to have any connections to each other. Heck, the film can’t even decide what kind of musical it is. Is it the musical biopic type of film where the songs are really the characters performing for each other, or is it a more standard musical when the songs push the plot along and tell part of the story? Honestly, it has moments of both. Kelly’s Don Lockwood sings “Singin’ in the Rain” to show how happy he is to have found love with newcomer Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). He’s alone (or so he thinks until he spots a cop watching him), so he’s not performing for anyone but himself. Meanwhile, Don’s longtime buddy Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) performs “Make ’em Laugh” as a way to cheer up his pal while explaining his general philosophy in life. Other times songs are there to perform as part of a show.
And that’s not getting into that dream sequence (for lack of a better way to describe whatever that “Broadway Melody” thing is supposed to be) that pops up near the end of the film for, well, no real reason other than to show off an elaborate song-and-dance section that honestly doesn’t fit well into the plot all that well.
And then there’s Gene Kelly. Acting as both lead actor and co-director, Kelly onscreen seems like a nice, genial fellow that people just want to hang out with. The real Gene Kelly was nothing like that. Debbie Reynolds would say the two hardest things she ever had to do in her entire life was childbirth and Singin’ in the Rain. Reynolds was a trained gymnast, and Kelly apparently was uninterested in teaching her to dance. A strict taskmaster of a director, the story goes that Reynolds was reduced to tears when she couldn’t dance well enough for the man until another legendary song-and-dance man, namely Fred Astaire, found her crying and offered to give her the necessary dancing lessons that Kelly should have given her. O’Connor, a heavy smoker, had to rest up after filming “Make ’em Laugh,” but some versions of the story suggest he came back much quicker than he should have after suffering from exhaustion because he was a bit afraid of Kelly’s wrath.
That said, O’Connor arguably matches Kelly as a dancer if not in a scene or two doing better. How this guy is not better known today I have no idea.
So, a musical stitched together using pre-existing songs where the co-director was something of a tyrant, and the plot seems intent to just toss stuff at the wall and see what fits. This film just should not work.
And yet, it does.
Musicals aren’t always known for their complex plots, and to be clear, Singin’ in the Rain isn’t exactly that complex, but it does recount how Hollywood reacted to the talkie very well. The stars and studio heads are skeptical at first, but then they end up coming around to the process. The fix for how bad Don and his longtime leading lady (and enemy) Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen basically doing her Judy Holiday voice for most of the runtime) sound in their first talking feature is to just make their film a musical, a task that apparently doesn’t take very long at all since it occurs between test screenings and wide release. And sure, Lina is awful, but an actress’s career suddenly going poof for the crime of getting older or sounding wrong isn’t exactly unheard of even today.
But setting that aside, it’s still a charming film. Kelly, Reynolds, and O’Connor, regardless of how well they got along off-screen, are an engaging trio, and when they suggest making the disaster of a talkie into a musical, why it just makes sense. Their enthusiasm for the work is infectious. Lina is an obvious villain, one who gets worse as the film goes on. There’s some nice songs, really impressive dancing, and a fun plot. It’s Hollywood making a story about itself, something that Hollywood does well when they put some effort into it. And there’s a reason that the title song is so well known. Lots of films look like they shouldn’t work and somehow do, but I don’t think any of them make it look as effortless as Singin’ in the Rain.’
NEXT: Speaking of films that somehow work despite some unconventional elements, up next is another Hitchcock with a hell of a mid-story swerve. Be back soon for 1960’s Psycho.
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