Singin' in the Rain (1951)

Hollywood’s troubled transition from silent to talking pictures at the end of the 1920s provided the inspiration for perhaps the greatest of movie musicals.

The most enduring of the four MGM collaborations between Gene Kelly and his director and co-choreographer Stanley Donen, Singin’ in the Rain rises ten places from 20th in 2012 to land in the top ten again. The film’s ascent almost feels like a given, due to the effervescence that may be its defining characteristic and the scarcity of that quality in our trying times.

Yet, typically for anything that seems so effortless, Kelly and Donen’s achievement was in fact the product of an enormous amount of toil and trouble. At the project’s outset, the legendary writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green tried and failed to get out of the gig when MGM musical head Arthur Freed ordered them to build a new movie on top of a batch of tunes by Freed and his partner Nacio Herb Brown that were gathering dust. (Indeed, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ itself had made its screen debut in The Hollywood Revue of 1929.) Debbie Reynolds’ ordeal filming the ‘Good Morning’ tap-dance number famously left her with bloody feet. As for the title song, six months of rehearsal culminated in Gene Kelly gamely splashing about while running a high fever.

None of that suffering is discernible on screen, which is one of the many delightful ironies about Hollywood’s most deeply cherished movie about the making of a Hollywood movie. Pulling back the curtain to show yet more dazzling drapery, Comden and Green celebrate an earlier era of Tinseltown chancers and hustlers with a tale of a production caught between the silent and sound eras. Kelly’s plucky hoofer and stuntman-turned-star Don Lockwood leads the charge to retrofit a swashbuckler picture named The Duelling Cavalier to take advantage of the new vogue for sound, with his new sweetie Kathy (Reynolds) being his best means of disguising the squawky voice of his leading lady Lina (a hilarious Jean Hagen).

There are several movies besides Don’s latest somehow contained within the text of Singin’ in the Rain (including, if we are to believe the deliciously meta billboard in the final shot, Singin’ in the Rain). Cheekily purporting to reveal its own means of production while still delivering one unabashedly theatrical showstopper after another, Kelly and Donen’s masterwork anticipates the brassy postmodernism of Moulin Rouge! (2001). But like such fellow homage-payers as The Artist (2011) and La La Land (2016), Baz Luhrmann’s rendition feels meagre compared to the original and its seemingly inexhaustible bounty of ingenuity, bravado and sheer unabashed joy.

Jason Anderson

1951 USA
Directed by
Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
Produced by
Arthur Freed
Written by
Adolph Green, Betty Comden
Featuring
Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds
Running time
102 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Singin' in the Rain

Critics

Jason Anderson
Canada
Nicholas Baer
Netherlands
Grace Barber-Plentie
UK
Eurico de Barros
Portugal
Nikki Baughan
UK
Tom Beasley
UK
Annie Berke
USA
Lisa Bode
Australia
Stephen Bourne
UK
Peter Bradshaw
UK
Serge Bromberg
France
Ramsey Campbell
UK
Enrico Camporesi
Italy/France
Nae Caranfil
Romania
Monica Castillo
USA
Dylan Cave
UK
Robyn Citizen
Canada
Sam Clements
UK
Jonathan Coe
UK
Robbie Collin
UK
Andrew Collins
UK
Jane Crowther
UK
Nick De Semlyen
UK
Phil De Semlyen
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Rahul Desai
India
Philip Dodd
UK
Christophe Dupin
Belgium
Kate Erbland
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Dan and Edna Fainaru
Israel
Ilaria Feole
Italy
Ian Freer
UK
Leonardo García Tsao
Mexico
Charlotte Garson
France
Hannah Gatward
UK
Jan Göransson
Sweden
Jamie Healy
UK
Phil Hoad
UK/France
Alexander Horwath
Austria
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh
UK
Nick James
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USA
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Amir Labaki
Brazil
Elena Lazic
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Albert Lee
Hong Kong
Victoria Luxford
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Linda Marric
UK
Alain Masson
France
Mary McNamara
USA
Lidia Merás
Spain
Jacob Milligan
UK
Wendy Mitchell
UK
Andrea Morán
Spain
David Morrison
UK
Mike Muncer
UK
Nasreen Munni Kabir
UK
Stuart Murray
UK
Angela Ndalianis
Australia
Christina Newland
UK/USA
Helen O'Hara
UK
Yasmin Omar
UK
David Parkinson
UK
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USA
Dana Polan
USA
Carrie Rickey
USA
José Maria Rodríguez Armada
Spain
Philippe Rouyer
France
Tom Ryan
Australia
Peter Scarlet
USA/Abu Dhabi
Nicolas Schaller
France
Jerónimo Silvio Iglesias
Spain
Leigh Singer
UK
Katie Smith-Wong
UK
Margaret Smith
Danielle Solzman
USA
Kate Stables
UK
Michelle Swope
USA
Brian Tallerico
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Yann Tobin aka N.T.BINH
France
Irene Torp Halvorsen
Norway
Kenneth Turan
USA
Kyle Turner
USA
Nuria Vidal
Spain
Pablo Villaça
Brazil
Meg Walters
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Harriet Warman
UK
Grant Watson
Australia
Elizabeth Weitzman
USA
Paul Wells
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Tien-Hsiang Wen
Taiwan
David West
UK
Guy Westwell
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Melanie Williams
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Ramin Zahed
USA

Directors

Steve Barron
United Kingdom
Pablo Berger
Spain
Terence Davies
UK
Rajkumar Hirani
India
Axel Kuschevatzky
USA/Argentina
Bart Layton
UK
Sebastián Lelio
Chile
Sharon Maguire
UK
Steve McQueen
UK
Frank Oz
USA
Gary Tarn
UK
Edgar Wright
UK

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