Singing Up a Storm!

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2015)

Singin' in the Rain (1952): Dir: Stanley Doren, Gene Kelly / Cast: Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell: The greatest of all musicals presenting a portrait of falling in love and the unwillingness to allow hardship to overrule joy. It opens within the birth of sound within motion pictures and Gene Kelly plays a celebrated actor in early cinema who falls in love with Debbie Reynolds. Donald O'Connor plays his life long friend who does a back-breaking number called "Make 'em Laugh." Jean Hagen is hilarious as Kelly's co-star whose high pitched voice becomes a technical problem for the talkies. Millard Mitchell plays the studio head who reluctantly embraces the idea of talking pictures due to the success of The Jazz Singer, so he decides that Kelly and Hagen's current film be a talking picture. Reynolds will factor in at the encouragement of Kelly to lend her voice over top of Hagen's. With inventive and glorious dance numbers including Kelly's wondrous title number where the storms of life fail to penetrate the expression or discovery of love at its most finest. This is a total celebration and expression of music and emotion. It also presents historical cinema shifting from one medium to another. It is a masterpiece that represents the very best from directors Stanley Doren and Gene Kelly. It is a dazzling and charming film full of joy and wonder. Score: 10 / 10