a review of how this film fits into the careers of the stars.

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2013)

You don't need a 500+ person to tell you that this film is a classic in terms of the abundance and quality of the music, dancing and comedy, So, I'd like to fill my space with insights into the stars' overall relations and how certain key performances relate to their previous and subsequent films.
It's the only film that paired two of the greatest male musical comedy entertainers of that era: Gene Kelly and Don O'Connor. We might wonder why they weren't paired again? Although Gene was a well established MGM star, this was Don's first musical outside his home studio of Universal. He would do another MGM musical the next year: "I Love Melvin". Debbie Reynolds again was the romantic lead. Clearly, this film was not given the royal treatment of the present film and is much shorter. But, it gives us an opportunity to see what Don and Debbie could do without Gene and Cyd(quite a lot of fun,too!) Reportedly, working with Gene on the present film was rather a traumatic experience for both Don and Debbie, especially the latter. Gene's extreme perfectionism and egoism was legendary. Nonetheless, nearly all his costars, especially Debbie, improved their dancing and acting by working with him. However, neither Don nor Debbie was anxious to do another film with Gene, and neither did.
Debbie was actually an anomaly in Gene's '50s musical comedies. In every other of his last 5 Hollywood musicals beginning in '51, his first choice as his leading lady and main female dance partner was Cyd Charisse. Cyd had been kicking around Hollywood for a decade, mostly as a cameo dance specialist. Gene wanted her to costar in "An American in Paris" the previous year, but a pregnancy ruled that out. Of course, she was a conspicuous dance specialist in the present film. She was his leading lady in the much less commercially successful "Brigadoon" and "It's Always Fair Weather", but declined this role in Gene's last Hollywood musical: "Les Girls", as did "An American in Paris" costar Leslie Caron. I think they rightly smelled a turkey.
I'd like to talk about Don's famous "Make 'Em Laugh" solo performance, having seen nearly all his Hollywood musicals. Although there are certainly original features to this madcap performance, you might be interested to know that a number of the main features can be recognized in several of his previous Universal films, from '45-'51. Thus, in "Top Man", Don and Peggy Ryan dance with cloth dummies in one scene. In "Something in the Wind", he does the bit behind the couch, although without the dummy.In "Feudin', Fightin'and Fussin'", he does the terminal plunge through a papery wall after dancing. In "Double Crossbones", we see his jumping up on a wall, followed by a backwards flip. Even the tune was essentially recycled from the "Be a Clown" Gene Kelly-Judy Garland performance in "The Pirate"
Having also seen nearly all of Gene's Hollywood musical comedies, I'd like to comment on the relation of some of his past and future performances to this film. Back in '44, he costarred in a color film with Rita Hayworth and Phil Silvers, called "Cover Girl". Several features of that film have often lead to it being dubbed 'the poor man's "Singing in the Rain' ". Phil takes the place of Don, as the odd man out in the central romance, but nonetheless an intimate friend of the romantic couple. Rita takes the place of Debbie, being a stage dancer and singer. This threesome do a street dance of joy, sometimes arm in arm, twice, including the parting scene. This somewhat resembles the "Good Morning" and threesome "Singing in the Rain" scenes in the present film. Also, Gene does a solo street dance with his shadow, somewhat foreshadowing his "Singing in the Rain" solo street dance in this film. However, there is a critical mood difference. That 'Alter-Ego' dance was inspired by frustration and apprehension about his future relationship with Rita's character, not by the elation of a new found love, as in the present film.
As regards his future films, we see Gene's joyful "Singing in the Rain" solo as a model for functionally equivalent solos in his next two musicals: "It's Always Fair Weather" and "Brigadoon", in the form of the "I Like Myself" and "Almost Like Being in Love" dances. I find the former performance, done on roller skates, his most challenging and interesting dance. Don, who didn't do solo dances in this context in his prior Universal musicals, did a functionally similar new love-inspired performance in the first portion of his long "I Wanna Wander" performance in MGM's "I Love Melvin", and his classy "A Man Chases a Girl" dance performance in Fox's "There's No Business Like Show Business". His equivalent solo dance in Fox's "Call Me Madam" was, like Gene's previous dances in "Cover Girl" and "On the Town", born out of romantic frustration, but seemed like a dance of enthusiasm, because he got drunk from his frustration! Even MGM's Fred Astaire got in on this trend with his classic new love -inspired ceiling and wall "You're All the World to Me" dance in "Royal Wedding", the previous year, and his solo "Seeing is Believing" levitation dance on a high building in "The Belle of New York", released the same year as "Singing in the Rain", and unfortunately overshadowed by it.