Not the greatest musical

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 1999)

The dance numbers in this picture are terrific, charged with energy and performed to near perfection by all involved. I can't help but say however, that although the film is good and well worth seeing, it is vastly, vastly overrated as far as the praise and notoriety it has received down through the years. The satire on old time Hollywood is not fully realized, leaving us with what is essentially a thinly strung together collection of set pieces, one of which really comes out of left field and has not a whole lot to do with the main plot . Just like he did in "An American In Paris, another vastly overrated classic, Gene Kelly's dynamic Broadway sequence is a long detour from what we are expecting as far as a cohesive and flowing storyline. It is this kind of dance sequence that prompted his "invitation to the dance" some years after, a film that didn't allow plot and dialogue to get in the way of artistic dancing. Another flaw in Singin' in the Rain is the unauthenticity of some of the musical numbers as far as what the standard was in 1930. As good and as entertaining as the film is, flaws aside, in no way does it hold a candle to the REAL greatest musical ever made, "Kiss me Kate."