Most likely the best musical ever filmed, although I sure like "Cats" and "A Chorus Line" too!.

Rating: Null/10 (28 May 2001)

"Singing In The Rain" is unique in that the song actually inspired the movie. It is set in Hollywood in the mid-1920s. Gene Kelly, 39 when it was made, stars as Don Lockwood, silent film star. Donald O'Connor was 26, played Cosmo Brown, Lockwood's long-time sidekick. And 19-yr-old Debbie Reynolds, in already her 6th film, plays Kathy Seldon, aspiring legitimate (stage) actress set on going to NYC. Lockwood met her initially when he was escaping overzealous fans and leaped into her car from a streetcar top. Also, they later met again when she jumped out of a cake at a party. She obviously needed work!
However, the character who really makes the whole story possible, and the movie fantastic, is Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), Lockwood's silent screen co-star, who also happens to be a totally self-absorbed person with the most irritating voice possible. Hagen is absolutely perfect in this role, and I understand she received an Oscar nomination for it. In 1927, the first "talkie", "The Jazz Singer" with Al Jolson, changed movies forever. Suddenly the "talkies" were making all the money and the Lockwood/Lamont team had to follow or close down. No amount of diction coaching could get Lamont to sound good, and the audience could only laugh at the test screening just 6 weeks before scheduled opening. Cosmo had a great idea - Kathy would dub in her voice over Lina's. Also, the serious "Dueling Cavaliers" would become a musical, "The Dancing Cavaliers."

The new musical is a big hit, Lina gets coerced by the live audience to sing a song, but it was Kathy singing behind the curtain. Midway through it, they raised the curtain to expose the truth, Lina was put in her place, and the new team of Lockwood and Selden was a hit, on and off the big screen.
Except for an extended surreal dance scene with Kelly and Cyd Charisse, which seemed to break the continuity of the story, the movie is almost perfect. I rate it "9" of 10. Of course Kelly was choreographer, and co-director, so I suppose he just wanted that number in. The several energetic dance numbers with Kelly and O'Connor are simply great, as are the two individual solo numbers, "Singing in the Rain" by Kelly, right after Don leaves Kathy's apartment, realizing he is in love with her, and "Make 'Em Laugh" by O'Connor, which includes his running up two different inclining walls and back-flipping off them.
Who knew Debbie Reynolds could dance so well, and hold her own with Kelly and O'Connor?? Well, she couldn't until she was cast for the part, and she literally worked herself to bleeding feet in rehearsing for the production numbers, and all her hard work shows. She became a dancer for this role.
I love music, and I love good dancing. I cannot watch a film like this without mentally comparing the two great dancers of 1950s film, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I suppose Astaire was the greater "pure dancer" of the two, with always perfect positions and movements that would just glide over the floor. Kelly, however, is my overall favorite of the two. Not only is he a superb dancer, his more athletic build and dancing style, combined with good looks and singing voice, make him more believable in the musical film roles they both starred in.