Inspiering dance scenes.

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2005)

Musicals, are an MGM speciality. And because they are musicals, MGM were less concerned with acting ability. By not concentrating on acting ability, this permitted MGM to focus on the important stuff which made their musicals spectacular, such as colour,beautiful costumes,elaborate film sets, great songs, excellently sung - although from what I gather often dubbed - and not least of all the exquisite, and spectacular dancing from the likes of Gene Kelly in the classic; Singing in the Rain.
In Singing in the Rain,the dance scenes are full of energy, and are well choreographed. Though their styles of dancing are completely different, it seems that Kelly works hard at his dancing, whereas Astair's dancing looks effortless, and thus more flowing in the films in which he starred. But in favour of Kelly, he had to dance with Reynolds in a couple of scenes, who was an untrained dancer, unlike Astair's frequent dance partner in RKO's films, Rogers who was a trained dancer, which could've been to the advantage of Astair. By working with an untrained dancer, such as Reynolds, it could've contributed to the fact that Kelly's dance scenes with her lacked total synchronisation at times, especially the scene where they dance on the film set. However, other causes of the lack of synchronisation in the said dance scenes, could be due to the apparent fact that Kelly and Reynolds had disagreements whilst making Singing in the Rain; or it could be due to time constraints set by MGM, which did not permit the perfection of the said dance scenes.
If I could choose a favourate scene, it is that of Kelly executing; Singing in the Rain, which has become somewhat of a cliché in the genre of musicals. Indeed, this classic dance scene has recently been adapted for a television advert, in which Kelly bursts into a break dance.
Overall a truly escapist film.