A great movie that's great fun

Rating: 8/10 (26 November 2012)

There are plenty of movies which may be a lot of fun but aren't really great movies. Singin' in the Rain is a great movie. And great fun. It is one of the most iconic movies ever and deservedly so. Even people who have never seen the whole movie know Gene Kelly splashing about in the rain. But this is a movie which is so much more than that one legendary musical number. For starters there are plenty of other musical numbers which are just as good as, or perhaps depending on your tastes, even better than Kelly's famous nighttime twirl through the rainy streets. But what makes the movie truly great is that it does not have to rely solely on the big song-and-dance numbers. This is a movie with a great story. So many musicals are just biding their time between songs. Not this one. There are actually compelling things going on between the songs. And funny things too. Add it all up and this is absolutely fabulous entertainment.
It's Kelly everyone remembers most but great credit must also go to his co-stars Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds. The three of them make such a great team, their Good Morning number is as good as it gets, just as much of a highlight as the title song. We know what a legendary dancer Kelly is but O'Connor and Reynolds more than hold their own. O'Connor even gets a showcase of his own with Make 'Em Laugh, a number which is as much acrobatics as dance. Kelly, O'Connor and Reynolds are all terrific in their singing, their dancing and their acting. And yet perhaps the best performance is turned in by Jean Hagen. And Hagen doesn't do any singing or dancing at all. And that's the point. Hagen, a wonderfully talented actress, is playing a completely terrible actress who can't sing, can't dance, can't even talk. It takes a great actress to pull that off and Hagen absolutely nails it.
The story takes place in Hollywood at the dawn of the talking pictures era. Kelly and Hagen play Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont, the most famous and popular screen couple of the time. But they are silent film stars, the transition to talkies will be quite painful. The biggest problem is Lina's voice which is indescribably bad, grating to the extreme. The movie has plenty of fun at her expense and milks lots of laughs out of the overall struggle of those working in film at the time to come to grips with this newfangled sound technology. How can Don Lockwood go forward in this new era if he's attached to the talentless dim-bulb Lina? Enter, thanks to a rather ingenious suggestion from Don's friend Cosmo Brown, young Kathy Selden. Kathy's got the talent and the charm Lina lacks and Reynolds plays the part of the wide-eyed girl caught up in the crazy world of Hollywood so beautifully. Don and Kathy could be a great pairing, on and off screen...if only Lina could be nudged out of the way.
There is a story here full of comic possibilities and the movie takes full advantage of it. O'Connor's character of Cosmo has a few clownish moments but nothing too far over-the top. No need for a lot of slapstick silliness. The movie's more subtle than that. Smarter too. And whereas many musicals struggle to weave the songs into the story everything fits together wonderfully here. The only real misstep comes near the end with a huge production number which unfortunately sticks out like a sore thumb. In addition to going on for far too long it is quite disconnected from the plot. It really seems like an indulgence for co-director Kelly. There was nobody who could tell him it didn't belong. It's performed very well, it just is out of place. And it stops the movie's momentum just as it should be building to a big finish. It's one musical number too far. But that should not detract from what is all in all a brilliantly conceived and performed movie. It may have slowed down a touch at the end but it still has its big finish, and a thoroughly satisfying finish at that. Such a fun, enjoyable, charming movie. Great entertainment. What a glorious feeling indeed.