Why it's the best

Rating: Null/10 (18 April 2002)

There are two kinds of musicals. You can call them different things. You could call them the Hollywood Musical and the Broadway Musical. That's not quite proper because the Hollywood Musical is what the Broadway Musical was in the 20's and 30's, before Rogers and Hammerstein changed everything. maybe a better distinction is the Dancing Musical vs. the Singing Musical, except that both kinds have dancing and singing...
Let's try it this way. The original musicals on Broadway in the 20's and 30's and Hollywood in the 30's and 40's were musicals with a slight storyline, some singing and tremendous dancing numbers. They also have low comedy and plenty of beautiful girls. They usually are about show business itself and many of the numbers take place on the stage. the others seem like the likely result of bringing show people together: of course they are going to sing and dance from time to time. Looking at them these days, the singing is kind of boring, the comics dreadful and the plots the answer to a moron's prayer. It's the dance numbers that are timeless. These films were made for highlight reels like "That's Entertainment".
Rogers and Hammerstein changed all that. They took serious plays and converted them into operetta of popular music. Characters who were not in show business at all used songs and dances as soliloquies to reveal their private thoughts. The result was some of the best plays and films of all time- Oklahoma, Carousel, The King and I, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Brigadoon, Gigi, My Fair Lady, The Music Man, etc. South Pacific was the first film my parent sever took me to see and this is the type of musical I normally prefer. Here songs tended to dominate- "Surrey with the Fringe on Top, "Out of My Dreams", "People Will Say We're in Love, "If I Loved You", "My Boy Bill", "I Have Dreamed", "Hello Young Lovers", "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger Than Springtime", etc. ,etc. There are dance pieces but the dancers are on the sidelines.
"Singing in the Rain" is the greatest of all the Hollywood Musicals. It has the memorable dances a Hollywood Musical needs: "Make 'Em Laugh", Singing in the Rain", "Good Morning", "Broadway Melody". There is also the best of the Freed-Brown songbook, such as "You are My Lucky Star". But it has the strongest story of any of the Hollywood Musicals, thanks to the Comden-Green team and the memories of the early days of sound. it's virtually the only Hollywood Musical that could have held up as a non-musical. It could have just been a comedy about he conversion to sound. it would not have been "Singing in the Rain", but it would have been good.
As it is, it's the one musical that has it all.