Singin in the Sunshine with a new born star?

Rating: 8/10 (10 March 2012)

I am delighted that this genial and vastly entertaining portrait of the dying days of silent cinema has gotten such a rapturous reception...if only because it may open people up to exploring the glory of GENUINE silent classics. I had a stranger chat with me about how she was stunned at how entertaining and spellbinding sitting through a mainly silent film was...I promptly recommended that she seek out something like "Wings"...nicely restored, freshly out on DVD, sure to be available on NETFLIX...and still as entertaining and enthralling as ever...I find it so sad that so many people today are frightened off by BLACK AND WHITE...much less silence...I hope this movie helps them realize what they are missing.
While I was vastly entertained by this film's superb acting and mainly successful atmosphere...I did wish they had not played so fast and loose with the actual history of the transition period. (In Brief this film is depicted as opening in 1927 with sound coming in sometime 1n 1929...in reality "Don Juan" had a synchronized score in 1926..."The Jazz Singer" was a sensation with a dialog in fall 1927, and "the Lights of New York " was ALL TALKING in early 1928...silents were all but totally gone by 1929...barring holdouts like Garbo who talked in 1930...and Chaplin who held out til '36)...If they played fast and loose so they could make the hero crash when the market crashed they could at least have gotten the dates right!!!!
Anyway...it is otherwise a miraculously entertaining movie...(even with the stolen cue from "Vertigo" ...which was nicely used...too bad the film could not have been acknowledged along with Herrman's tiny credit!
I think what impressed me most was how cleverly the script melded elements of "Singin' In the Rain" and "A Star is Born" together and formed a delicious soufflé of a portrait of golden age Hollywood...
Encore...Encore!!