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In
1927, fans gather at Hollywood's Chinese Theater for the premiere of
Monumental Picture's latest romantic epic, The Royal Rascal, starring
the popular silent screen couple Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont. Don
tells radio commentator Dora Bailey that his motto has always been "dignity"
and relates the idyllic story of his childhood and rise to fame, all of
which is complete fabrication.
The audience applauds enthusiastically at the
end of the swashbuckling film and asks for speeches from its stars, whom
they think are a couple off-screen as well as on, but Don, who loathes his
screechy-voiced co-star, insists that Lina merely smile.
Assisted by studio boss R.F. Simpson, Don slips
away from the cloying Lina and drives with his best friend, studio pianist
Cosmo Brown, to the premiere party. On Hollywood Blvd., Cosmo's car
breaks down, and Don is surrounded by fans. To escape the screaming
mob, who have torn his tuxedo, Don jumps onto a passing car driven by Kathy
Selden. She is frightened at first but, when a policeman tells Kathy
who Don is, she offers him a ride to his house in Beverly Hills.
Although Kathy says that she is a stage actress, who has seen only one of
Don's films, she is actually a chorus girl at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub.
After dropping Don off to change his clothes,
Kathy drives to the party at R.F.'s house, where she will be performing.
Don arrives at the party in time to see a short talking picture. Most
of the guests are unimpressed by the new phenomenon, even when R.F. says
that the Warner brothers are about to release a feature-length talking
picture. When the entertainment starts, Don is surprised, but happy to
see a scantily clad Kathy jump out of a cake, and tries to talk with her,
but she thinks that he only wants to ridicule her. Just as a jealous
Lina takes Don's arm, Kathy throws a cake at him, but misses, and hits Lina
instead. Kathy quickly runs away, and Don cannot find her.
Some
weeks later, Warner Bros.' The Jazz Singer is a box office smash and
audiences are clamoring for more talking pictures. As Don and Lina
start their next film, The Dueling Cavalier, Cosmo makes a crack
about all of their films being alike, and Don is stung, thinking that Kathy
was right about words being necessary for real acting. Lina continues
to complain about Kathy, whom she had fired, which makes Don dislike Lina
even more, as he has not seen Kathy since the party.
During a break in filming, R.F. announces that
they are shutting down production and will resume in a few weeks as a
talking picture. Cosmo happily anticipates unemployment, but R.F.
makes him head of the new studio music department.
Some time later, when a musical number is being
filmed for another picture, Cosmo sees Kathy in the chorus. When Don
shows up just as R.F. is about to offer Kathy another part, she confesses
what happened at the party, but Don tells R.F. that it was not her fault and
R.F. agrees.
Later,
when Kathy and Don are talking, he tells her that his "romance" with Lina is
completely fabricated by fan magazines and Kathy confesses that she has seen
all of his pictures. Don has difficulty revealing his feelings to
Kathy until he takes her to a romantic setting on a sound stage.
Soon preparations for The Dueling Cavalier
begin with diction lessons for Lina and Don. Although Don is
fine, Lina's voice shows little improvement. When filming resumes,
director Roscoe Dexter becomes increasingly frustrated by Lina's voice and
inability to speak into the microphone, but the picture is completed.
When it is previewed on a rainy night in Hollywood, the audience laughs at
Lina's voice, howls at synchronization problems, and leaves the theater
saying it was the worst film ever made.
Later that night, Cosmo and Kathy try to console
Don, who thinks his career is over until Cosmo comes up with the idea to
turn the film into a musical comedy and have Kathy dub Lina's voice.
Don worries that this plan is not good for Kathy, but she convinces him by
saying it will be for just one picture.
The
next day, R.F. loves the idea and they all conspire to keep Lina from
finding out. To enhance the picture, they add a modern section in
which Don can sing and dance the story of a Broadway hoofer. After the
picture is finished, Don tells Kathy that he wants to tell the world how
much he loves her but, as they kiss, Lina interrupts them and flies into a
rage.
She then starts her own publicity campaign
proclaiming herself Monumental's new singing star. R.F. is angry, but
Lina shows him her contract and he reluctantly agrees that she controls her
own publicity. Lina then threatens to ruin the studio unless Kathy
continues to dub her singing and speaking voice, but do nothing else.
At the picture's premiere, the audience loves "Lina's"
voice. Feeling triumphant, Lina boasts that Kathy will keep singing
for her, and Don is furious. When the audience clamors for a song from
Lina, Don hatches the idea of having Kathy stand behind a curtain and sing
into a microphone as Lina pantomimes the words. While Lina silently
mouths "Singin' in the Rain," Don, R.F., and Cosmo pull the curtain and the
audience laughs hysterically when they realize that Kathy is actually
singing. Lina does not know what is happening until Cosmo takes the
microphone from Kathy and starts singing himself. Lina runs off
screaming, and an embarrassed Kathy starts to leave the theater, until Don
tells the audience that she is the real star of the film and has her join
him in a song. Finally, a billboard proclaims that Don and Kathy are
co-stars of the new Monumental film Singin' in the Rain.
Notes
According to a February 5, 1951 HR news item, Carleton Carpenter was
to co-star in the film with
Gene Kelly and
Debbie Reynolds, and March 19, 1951 news item noted that the
husband-and-wife dancing team of Marge and Gower Champion were to start
rehearsals "at the end of the month;" however, neither Carpenter nor the
Champions were mentioned in the files on the film in the Arthur Freed
Collection or the MGM Collection at the USC Cinema-Television Library.
MGM files reveal that Reginald Gardner was sought for a role and that
Nina Foch and Barbara Lawrence were tested for "Lina Lamont."
Donald O'Connor was borrowed from Universal for his first MGM picture.
News items also include Gloria Gordon, daughter of producer Leon Gordon,
Carmen Clifford, Frances Meehan and Frankie Grandetta in the cast, but their
appearance has not been confirmed. As noted in news items and modern
sources, actress Gwen Carter, who is seen briefly in the party sequence, was
then O'Connor's wife. Dancer/choreographer Jeanne Coyne was briefly
married to director Stanley Donen prior to the film's production and married
Kelly in 1960. Coyne and Kelly remained married until her death in
1973.
Of the film's numerous songs, only two were
written especially for the film, "Make 'Em Laugh" which features
O'Connor singing, dancing and doing comic acrobatic turns on a studio set,
and "Moses" (also known as "Moses Supposes") in which Kelly
and O'Connor sing and dance during a diction lesson. Other songs in
the film were from the 1920s and 1930s, most of them previously featured in
MGM musicals. The song "Singin' in the Rain" was first featured
in the MGM musical
Hollywood Revue of 1929, sung by Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards. The
song is performed three times in the 1952 film, first in the opening
credits, in which Kelly, O'Connor and
Debbie Reynolds appear in yellow raincoats, carrying umbrellas; second,
when Kelly sings and dances in a downpour; and finally, when "Lina," played
by Jean Hagen, lip syncs as Reynolds' "Kathy" sings at the premiere of The
Dancing Cavalier. The rendition of the song by Kelly, which takes
place in a heavy rainfall manufactured on the studio's back lot, is one of
the most famous musical numbers of all time. It has been included in
many documentaries on the history of motion picture musicals, including the
1974 MGM film That's Entertainment, in which Kelly spoke about how
the number was filmed. According to Kelly, he had a bad cold and a
fever while performing the number. Modern sources have added that the
equivalent of two city blocks were used on the studio back lot and pumped
with hundreds of gallons of water. The number took seven days to film,
with the artificial rain needed for six hours each day. Dancer Gwen
Verdon has stated that she and Kelly's dance assistants, Coyne and Carol
Haney, dubbed the sound of Kelly's taps and made splashing noises when the
film was in post-production.
Other noteworthy numbers in the film include "Good
Morning," in which Kelly, O'Connor and Reynolds sing and dance in "Don
Lockwood's" Beverly Hills mansion; and the almost seventeen-minute "Broadway
Ballet" in which Kelly sings and dances through a large number of sets
and partners with
Cyd Charisse as the femme fatale of the film-within-a-film. The
sequence tells the story of a hoofer who comes to New York and becomes a
success on Broadway but is rejected by a mysterious woman with whom he falls
in love. The number marked the first of several times that Charisse
and Kelly worked together. During Singin' in the Rain, when
Cosmo describes his idea for reworking the seventeenth-century France
setting of The Dueling Cavalier by adding a modern storyline, the
plot he describes is very similar to the popular Cole Porter Broadway
musical
DuBarry Was a Lady, which was turned into a 1943 MGM film starring
Red Skelton,
Lucille Ball and
Gene Kelly. The "Broadway Ballet" includes the well-known
Kelly tagline, "Gotta Sing - Gotta Dance." According to
information in the MGM files, the final cost of that musical sequence was
$605,960, $85,000 over budget, with the final cost of the entire film
$2,540,800, $620,996 over budget.
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Several additional old songs are heard briefly
in the film, including "Should I," "I've Got a Feelin' You're
Foolin''" and "Temptation." According to MGM files, two
numbers were cut from the film, a solo of "You Are My Lucky Star,"
sung by Reynolds and included in the film's special edition LaserDisk, and a
long solo by Kelly singing "All I Do Is Dream of You," which,
according to information in the MGM collection, was cut after the film's
preview. Another number, featuring Kelly and O'Connor dancing to "The
Wedding of the Painted Doll," was planned but not shot. That song
is heard briefly in the film, however. According to co-director
Stanley Donen's autobiography,
Rita Moreno's character, "Zelda Zanders," was to sing "Make Hay While
the Sun Shines," but that, and most of Moreno's role, was not in the
released film. Donen also indicated that the originally conceived
ending included a premiere for Lina's newest film, Jungle Princess in
which she "doesn't say a word--just grunts," and Lina and Cosmo's marriage.
Many of the characters within the film's
storyline were patterned after real people. "Dora Bailey" was loosely
modeled on Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons; director "Roscoe
Dexter" was modeled after musical director
Busby Berkeley and, according to modern sources, "R.F. Simpson" was
modeled after producer Arthur Freed, although Freed was unaware of it.
According to memos in the MGM files, Jimmie Thompson, who sang the "Beautiful
Girl" number, was to be modeled after popular 1920s crooner Rudy Vallee,
but Vallee was imitated in a brief montage just before the number.
Charisse, who had no dialogue in the "Broadway Ballet" sequence, had
hair and makeup reminiscent of the screen persona of 1920s film star
Louise Brooks.
Books and feature articles on the film have
noted that several of the film's sets were previously used in some of MGM's
films of the 1920s and 1930s, including the
Greta Garbo-John
Gilbert picture
Flesh and the Devil , which provided the setting for Don's mansion.
Costumes and wigs in The Dueling Cavalier were from MGM's 1938 picture
Marie
Antoinette.
According to information in the MGM files,
because Reynolds' voice did not work well for the scene in which her
character, "Kathy," dubs the speaking and singing voice for Hagen's Lina
Lamont in The Dancing Cavalier, Hagen's own voice was used to dub for
Reynolds. Hagen was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actress for her role, and Lennie Hayton was nominated for Best Scoring of a
musical picture. The film was named one of the top ten pictures of
1952 by the National Board of Review;
Donald O'Connor received a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a
Musical or Comedy, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green won the Writers Guild
Award for Best Written American Musical.
In modern interviews, Comden and Green have
stated that the film was proposed to them by Freed, head of MGM's musical
division. According to Comden and Green, Freed, who was one of the
songwriters of the 1929 song "Singin' in the Rain," proposed that
they write a musical film based on the song. The pair then spent
several weeks trying to come up with an idea and hit upon a storyline that
was, as they explained, funny, but also a reflection of the sadness that
accompanied the film industry's transition to sound.
Modern sources offer variations on the film's
origins; some state that the production was devised as a way to keep Freed's
production unit happy and maintain the momentum started on
An American in Paris, which was still in production when pre-production
began on Singin' in the Rain. Contemporary news items and
production information indicate that Singin' in the Rain was being
developed prior to the start of production on
An American in Paris, however. Singin' in the Rain was
mentioned as being on Freed's slate in an HR news item on May 15,
1949. Information in the Freed Collection also reveals that he
received $25,000 for all musical materials for the film on August 29, 1950.
In his autobiography, Donen mentioned that the basic story idea for the
picture was developed in 1948 under the title Excess Baggage and
intended as a starring vehicle for dancer
Ann Miller.
Singin' in the Rain has often been cited
in modern surveys and documentaries as one of the most popular films of all
time. Among its many accolades, in 2007, Singin’ in the Rain
was ranked 5th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition
list of the greatest American films, moving up from the 10th position it
occupied on AFI's 1997 list. The picture was also ranked first on
AFI's list of the Greatest Movie Musicals.
Singin’ in the Rain was re-issued in 1974
and again in 1992 with a fortieth anniversary premiere. It was also selected
as one of the first American films presented in Communist China. A
stage production of Singin' in the Rain opened in London in 1983,
starring and directed by Tommy Steele and produced by Harold Fielding.
The stage production closely followed the film, including the same songs.
The play also recreated Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" number.
Music includes: "Broadway Ballet"
by Nacio Herb Brown;" "All I Do Is Dream of You;" "Broadway Rhythm;"
"Broadway Melody;" "Make 'Em Laugh;" "You Were Meant for Me;"
"Singin' in the Rain;" "You Are My Lucky Star;" "Would You;"
"Good Morning;" and "Beautiful Girl," music by Nacio Herb
Brown, lyrics by Arthur Freed; "Moses;" music by Roger Edens, lyrics
by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; and "Fit as a Fiddle," music by Al
Hoffman and Al Goodhart, lyrics by Arthur Freed. |
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