Wonderfully entertaining musical comedy

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 2006)

Masterpiece of the musical genre, complete with hilarious slapstick silliness, a sweet romance, dazzling song and dance numbers, and amazing acrobatics.
This is one of those movie where Hollywood laughs at itself; a nostalgic glance at the dawn of the "talkies," in the late '20's. That innovation turned the film industry up-side-down, as studios hastily but ineptly scrambled to give audiences a taste of this new cinematic toy. Some of the funniest bits are when actors, with bulky mics stuffed in their clothes make loud brushing noises as they embrace, or the sound goes in and out, or you can literally hear the actor's heart beating! They also had no idea how to script dialog, and the resulting overdone melodramatic corn is hilarious too. "Yes! Yes! Yes! No! No! No! I love you! I love you! I love you!" Delightfully idiotic nonsense. Also some actors' careers disappeared, because they had bizarre voices or accents. This is represented by Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), who makes a hilarious, nasal-voiced villainous.
Classic routines by Donald O'Connor (Make 'em Laugh), and Gene Kelly (Singin' in the Rain), plus wonderful singing by Debbie Reynolds, and you have one of, if not the best, musical ever made. My only nitpicking objection is the "Broadway Melody" routine goes on too long, and seems disconnected from the rest of the movie--perhaps included only to give Kelly an extra opportunity to dance.
That minor excess aside, this movie remains one of the fun movies to recite lines from and to watch and enjoy again and again.