It's the vitality of its parts, as well as of the whole, that does it

Rating: 10/10 (26 November 2002)

That "Singin' in the Rain" is a great film you can learn from more erudite and closely argued reviews than mine (and from more enthusiastic reviews, too, although I love the film as much as anyone and could be just as enthusiastic if I chose).
I'd just like to mention one thing: the films within the film. Donen and Kelly deserve especial credit for not slacking off here. The swashbuckling silent picture that introduces us to Lockwood and Lamont actually comes across as a well-made crowd-pleaser (it is admittedly more compressed than a real film of the era would have been, but we can forgive the compression), and since Gene Kelly isn't afraid to give Lockwood his own charm, energy and physical skill, it's no strain at all to believe that he's a popular actor, or that the film could be a box-office success. (I wouldn't mind seeing it myself.) And the first and last sound Lockwood-and-Lamont vehicle is equally persuasive (in its earlier incarnation as a dire piece of petrified staginess AND later, when it's a perfectly decent early stab at a screen musical).
Kelly claims that the "Broadway Melody" section grew and grew from a tiny diversion to a huge, long, lavish diversion; and this, too, tells us something: that side references of this kind, to projects which the various characters happen to be or have been working on, have a life of their own, which means that the projects themselves have a life of their own. This is a GOOD thing. The musical numbers that are part of the story fit the story perfectly well, and as everyone knows the title song could not be a more natural or apt expression of Lockwood's feelings than it is in context. The musical numbers that are NOT part of the story are bound by no such rules of integration. Nor should they be.
The final film-within-the-film  Lockwood and Selden's first project together, the film they're looking at a billboard advertisement for in the final shot  is also entitled "Singin' in the Rain". Some people think that the film they make is more or less the film we see. But of course it isn't. "Singin' in the Rain"  neither the film we see, nor any film that Lockwood and Selden would have made together  is not some exercise in twee, unimaginative, academic self-reference. These people have talent. It's clear from the other samples of their craft that they're capable of CREATING stuff (in fact, they could scarcely prevent themselves from doing so), and they don't need to bottle their own autobiographies and pass it off as art. If you want some clue as to what the film-within-a-film version of "Singin' in the Rain" is like, look to the opening credits, in which we see Kelly, O'Connor and Reynolds singing in the rain together. I believe that this is a conceptual sketch (just as the version of "Broadway Melody" we see is a conceptual sketch) of the musical number as it will appear in Lockwood and Selden's film. It's clear the film they make is something entirely removed from the story of how they came to make it.