The most exquisite and exuberant dream of the dream machine in transition, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain includes perhaps one of the greatest examples of how art can at once wildly embellish and find the emotional truth of an artist’s persona. And it is, of course, the greatest film to date about the pitfalls and promises that come along with change in film, though its ideas are so clear and profoundly realized that they have by now become universally relatable. Made today, it might have been about the move from film to digital, from the theater to VOD, from print criticism to blogging.
The film’s narrative is centered on Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), one half of fictitious acting duo of Lockwood and Lamont, stars of the silent film era. It’s the mid 1920s and the first examples of talking pictures are starting to make their way around Hollywood, precipitating the arrival of The Jazz Singer in 1927. Soon enough, Don’s boss, studio-head R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell), is looking for his own talkie and sets Don and his on-screen partner, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagan in a towering comedic performance), to star in The Dueling Cavalier.
Lina, whose ego is the size of the Titanic, has a voice that makes nails on a chalkboard sound positively symphonic, and after a catastrophic test screening, Don decides to dub her part. Enter Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), the chorus girl and singer who caught Don’s eye earlier in the film. The Dueling Cavalier, with some help from Don’s best friend and creative partner, Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), becomes a musical and is promised to be a great financial hit, but it also opens the door for Lina to wield her power with the studios to secure a hugely lucrative, completely unearned deal for more pictures using Kathy’s voice sans due credit.
Though it’s based on the birth of sound pictures and indebted to the birth of the color image, Singin’ in the Rain is also utterly fascinated and repulsed by the birth and exasperation of celebrity and, by extension, the power of both the image and the familiar. In one glorious sequence, director Roscoe Dexter (Douglas Fowley) is unable to shoot a scene due to Lina’s inability to understand the concept of a microphone, but she’s essentially the face of Monument Pictures, so everyone endures her terminal incompetence. And among Singin’ in the Rain’s seemingly endless enchantments is a sincere appreciation of the technical ingenuity and hard work that goes into making the pictures, even as the film notes how these technicians are often left forgotten in the eyes of the studio.
Donen works with seasoned cinematographer Harold Rosson and editor Adrienne Fazan, a favorite of Vincente Minnelli, to give the film an unhurried but dazzlingly energetic and inventive pace, but the importance of Kelly as co-director cannot be overstated. Of course, each musical number, all but one pilfered from old studio musicals, blazes across the screen with inimitable finesse and a barrage of bold, swoon-worthy colors, and Kelly, O’Connor, and Reynolds show astounding physical abilities, whether it be feet tappin’ or face scrunchin’. The more subtle feat, and arguably more powerful, though, is how Kelly relates the story of his own life as a burgeoning performer through the film and also supplies a loving example of how advanced techniques offer a broader canvas for artists to explore their forms of expression.
This particular contribution from Kelly is most strongly felt by two opposing sequences. One, early on, depicts how Cosmo and Don came up together through the stage and then the studio system, enduring humiliation, boredom, and artistic stagnation. It’s played for laughs (and well), but later Kelly offers a similar but richer portrait via “Broadway Melody Ballet,” where his advancement from Broadway neophyte to seductive expert is set to a glorious whirlwind of white tuxes, glowing marquees, and sultry tangos. If, as François Truffaut suggested, the artist “makes himself interesting and places himself on display,” Kelly offers himself here with such visual and auditory ravishment to send the most hardened realist into fits of delight.
Based on a script and story by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, Singin’ in the Rain is, in the end, a film about its own making and the trials that lead to progress in any endeavor. As such, the passage of time is of some interest, especially in terms of what constitutes popular cinema. In the film, The Dueling Cavalier is a swashbuckling adventure, arguably the most universally adored of silent genres, and becomes a musical comedy, which was largely considered the most popular genre at the time of Singin’ in the Rain’s release, and it’s worth noting that, to this day, adventures, musicals, and comedies are still considered the most lucrative genres.
That’s not a huge surprise. After all, three genres take as their focus, in their most basic forms, the unrelenting thrill of physical feats captured in glorious, clear motion. That much is clear from Charlie Chaplin’s body being at odds with the cold, exacting movement of machinery in Modern Times, Errol Flynn prancing and jumping across grand rooms and halls in The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling in Donen’s Royal Wedding.
Many things reinforce the enduring greatness of Singin’ in the Rain, but its most charming element is the filmmakers’ love for and dedication to the basic tenants of cinema as pure enchantment, and an open indulgence of all the bells and whistles that have been allowed it to grow into something bigger and (arguably) better over the decades.
Image/Sound
Warner’s 4K disc is a significant upgrade over the studio’s superlative 2012 Blu-ray. The exaggerated lighting of the film’s backstage world sparkles like never before, glinting off of foreheads and teeth with dazzling intensity, while the rich greens, pinks, and reds practically jump off the screen thanks to the HDR boost. The “Broadway Melody Ballet” sequence in particular is a highlight of the new transfer. The disc comes with the Blu-ray’s lossless mixes in 5.1 surround and the original mono, both of which sound crystal clear, masterfully balancing the boisterous soundtrack against the dialogue and exaggerated Foley effects.
Extras
Warner ports over some, though not all, of the extras from its 2012 Collector’s Edition Blu-ray. Chief among the inclusions is the audio commentary, which is a deep dive into the origins of Singin’ in the Rain, its production, and its release and profound impact on the movies. Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, and Stanley Donen are among the participants, as is Baz Luhrmann, who speaks largely about the film’s influence on his work and other modern musicals. The two featurettes on the making of the film and the impact of the film on singers, actors, and choreographers of all stripes are consistently engaging.
Overall
Warner Bros. gives its greatest musical yet another substantial home-video upgrade with a gorgeous 4K disc that maximizes the film’s visual and auditory ravishments.
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