The Only Thing Missing is a Couple of Droogs

Rating: Null/10 (8 February 2008)

I love the title song to Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain. The whole scene, with Gene Kelly joyfully relishing in his love for Debbie Reynolds is a pure and simple delight. Yet, strangely enough, it's Malcolm MacDowell and his Droogs' home invasion, assault, and gang-rape in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange that gives me a pause when I think of SITR.
That and the fact that, after it gets off to a rousing, funny, and witty start, Donen and Gene Kelly's musical comes apart at the seams, with one over-long and self-indulgent song-and-dance number after another, eventually causing the movie to become a tedious mess instead of the tender love story it should have been.
With all-due attention given to my musical apostasy, I got half way through Singin' in the Rain and started to squirm and harumph, wondering when this damn thing would be over. I started longing for an episode of Don't Forget the Lyrics--at least that's only an hour! SITR just seems to go on and on, heaping on noisy songs, and it's not until the end that Donen and Kelly bring the original story back to its logical start, that of a talented heel who finds character and fulfillment in a nice girl's arms.
Singin' in the Rain is a big, bloviating pain in the butt, with one or two great--really great--bits, and a sore butt for sitting through the rest.