What a Glorious Feeling!

Rating: 9/10 (12 November 2010)

Self-referential art can be tedious. Although there are exceptions, it is generally a safe rule of thumb that any novel whose main character is a novelist should be left on the bookshop or library shelf. About conceptual works of art whose purpose is to make a meaningful statement about the purpose of works of art, the less said the better. And when Hollywood makes a film about Hollywood the result is normally either introspective navel-gazing or smug self-congratulation.
There are, however, exceptions. The early fifties saw two great movies about the movie industry, one a tragedy ("Sunset Boulevard" from 1950) and the other a comedy ("Singin' in the Rain" from two years later). Remarkably, both films were inspired by the same actress, Norma Talmadge. Talmadge is today a largely forgotten figure; she was a huge star in the silent era of the 1910s and 1920s, but along with John Gilbert became one of the major casualties of the coming of sound in the late twenties. She made two "talkies", but neither was a success and her career came to an end in 1930. Part of the problem was her working-class New Jersey accent; American society is not as linguistically classless as some would like to believe. (Talmadge was still alive in 1952, and I often wonder what she made of these two films; in neither case is the character based on her portrayed in a very sympathetic way).
"Singin' in the Rain" is set in the Hollywood of 1927. The Talmadge figure is Lina Lamont, a highly popular silent film star working for the fictitious studio Monumental Pictures. Lina has a crush on her handsome co-star Don Lockwood and convinces herself that he is in love with her. In reality Don has little time for Lina who is vain, shallow and stupid. (She is also to prove bitchy and spiteful). When the first talking picture, "The Jazz Singer", proves an enormous success, the head of the studio decides that he will convert the new Lockwood and Lamont film, "The Dueling Cavalier", into a talkie. (The film is a romance set during the French Revolution; Talmadge's final film, "Du Barry, Woman of Passion" was also set in eighteenth-century France). This, however, proves to be a problem, as Lina has a harsh and grating voice, and attempts to give her elocution lessons prove unsuccessful. A young actress, Kathy Selden, is hired to dub Lina's voice. The rest of the film deals with the growing romance between Don and Kathy and with Lina's sexual and professional jealousy of her young rival.
Mention "Singin' in the Rain" to anyone today and they will probably think of the sequence in which Gene Kelly performs the title song, a sequence which has become famous, even among those who have not seen the actual film. Even parodies of it, such as the one performed by the British comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, have become famous in their own right.
There is, however, more to this film than just one single scene. It is often compared with that other fine Gene Kelly musical from a year earlier, "An American in Paris". The two films, however, are quite different, and each has its own strengths. "An American in Paris" is certainly more visually imaginative, and I would also rank it higher in terms of its music. Although "Singin' in the Rain" has some well-known songs, including not only the title song but also the likes of Make 'Em Laugh" and "Good Morning", I would not class these as highly as Gershwin's music used in the earlier film. Both films have a balletic sequence designed to show off Kelly's dance skills. In "An American in Paris" he dances with Leslie Caron, who plays his love-interest in that film, but here his partner is not his leading lady Debbie Reynolds but rather Cyd Charisse, who does not actually have an acting role. (At this stage of her career Reynolds was not regarded as a dancer).
In terms of plot and of humour, however, "Singin' in the Rain" is the better of the two films; the plot of "An American in Paris" consists of little more than a boy, a girl and a happy ending. The phrase "musical comedy" (like "romantic comedy") does not always imply that a work is particularly humorous; it is often used as a description for any musical play or film except for the minority (like "Carousel" or "West Side Story") which end tragically. "Singin' in the Rain" is one of the few musical comedies which is worthy of the name. It is one of the few Hollywood films which actually dare to make fun of Hollywood itself. A lot of the humour derives from the difficulties the industry encountered during the early days of sound, not only actresses with dodgy voices- Jean Hagen's Lina is a great comic character- but also problems in hiding the ungainly and not very effective microphones and in synchronising the sound with the picture. One of the themes is the antagonism between stage and screen during this period- during the silent era, and even in the early years of the sound era, stage actors, particularly classically trained ones, despised the cinema which they saw as a vulgar pantomime. Here Kathy claims to be a stage actress, although it later turns out her experience has been rather limited. There is also a lot of physical comedy, especially in the scenes featuring Donald O'Connor as Don's friend Cosmo.
"Singin' in the Rain" was a hit at the box office, but it was not a great success with the critics, unlike "An American in Paris", which won the "Best Picture" Oscar for 1951. Over the years, however, its reputation has grown, and today it has come to be regarded as one of the great musicals, not only of its day but of all time. 9/10