MGM Near the Top of Its Musical Game

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2006)

The heaps of scholarly criticism heaped on "Singing' in the Rain" have done it a disservice by giving it the ball and chain reputation of an IMPORTANT picture in cinema history. Let's not forget why "Singin' in the Rain" was made, which was to provide a form of escapist entertainment, nor why it's still so loved now, which is because it's great fun and everything clicks. It's not homework, and it's not medicine.
I don't even think it's the best movie musical ever made (I liked MGM's "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" more), and it's not one I feel compelled to go back to again and again. I'm not a huge fan of Gene Kelly, and think he's squirrelly when he's trying to be dashing, and Donald O'Connor's manic energy is just as likely to be exhausting as it is funny. But there's no improving on Jean Hagen's pitch-perfect performance as the ditzy villainess, and Debbie Reynolds shows how sweet and charming she was early in her career, before she became a broad.
The songs and dances aren't especially well integrated into the film --you can practically hear the gears grinding whenever the film transitions from its book to its musical portions. But the numbers are so wildly entertaining in and of themselves that you don't much care. The "Singin' in the Rain" sequence does what far too few films do -- it transports you to a place where what's happening on the screen in front of you is the only thing that matters.
Grade: A-