Singin' in the Rain
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly (1952)
If you know anything about life at all you know there is nothing like getting soaked under the rain in the right circumstances. There are places that only reveal their best magic through that pearly curtain. Paris is such a place as
Midnight in Paris recalls us - it is in fact the place. Then there are moments when there is nothing as appropriate to our hidden selves than the humid hug of a myriad droplets. Whether it be to melt one's soul into a solitary puddle or kiss watery ghosts in the air the rain can be your best friend - and that is never as true as when someone is in love. So when you make a movie featuring rain, a romance and some singin' thereabouts I am down for it.
Singin' in the Rain is about Cosmo, a vaudeville expert turned movie piano player who spends his days practicing being perfect and rising the ladder of the movie industry, continuously getting promotions and raises as he establishes his superior competence. He is the friend everyone wishes they had. Perpetually in good spirits, unfailingly witty and possessing an unusual propensity to break into song and start dancing.
«
But I've got - what have I got ? »
«
I don't know. What have you got ? »
«
I gotta get out of here. »
Oh no you don't. Don't you dare go anywhere mister.
There are also less important characters and they are given enough screentime that I should spend some time writing about them. Gene Kelly tries out for the first time the role he will later reprise in
The Artist under his new name Jean Dujardin. Incredible how little he has changed physically all these years. The rest of the cast is unknown to me but everyone plays their part well, including Lina who has that perfect shrieking voice that instantly makes you murder someone and their entire family.
Now, by the fourth paragraph I should probably have started talking about all the singing and dancing but there is one thing I must address before and that is the writing. Oh the writing…It is so great from the first seconds. The dialogue is not only sharp and quick, it is full of great jokes that somehow liven up a movie that is hardly dead-numb to begin with. Don's speech in the beginning where he describes a bollocks version of his life whilst the real thing unfolds before our eyes is a treasurable bit of comedy and spot-on timing. The rest of the movie is filled with similarly outstanding bits. There are even a few saucy double-entendres if you catch them. I am not sure that they would have worked as such back in the fifties but for the modern viewer there are such delicious tidbits to be found as «
Well I can't make love to a bush ! ». Oh Lina, you naughty old you.
So, for the pièce de résistance. There are some marvellous musical numbers here and
Singin' in the Rain is far from being the only memorable song in the film. I also thoroughly enjoyed
Good Morning and some other bits whose names I ignore. But by no means was it a total success for me. For starters I am not as fond of the dancing as I am of the music because these kinds of acts don't appeal to me - as opposed to a ballet piece in, say,
The Red Shoes, which can be fantastic. So the parts that featured only dancing ended up feeling a bit dull to me. What's more, the first numbers in the movie are not as good as the rest and
Make 'em Laugh is full of slapstick humour that made me almost cringe. It very much looked like Cosmo was having a mental breakdown, especially since at one point he gets to a place in the studio where his audience of one cannot see him anymore. As for the piece that is supposed to serve as the beginning to the movie they are shooting, it is too long. My senses got dull after a while and the middle part was not as good as the bookends.
I still somehow managed to love this movie. It is contagiously cheerful in an almost deceptive way. Even when two characters are fighting or someone has a problem you cannot help but feeling the palpable glee getting out of the screen. It really is unfair. How is one to objectively judge a movie in such conditions ? I need my cold-hard analysis, stop throwing your wonderfulness at me.
9/10 - Wonderful