Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Second viewing at least, the previous one having occurred earlier than 1987, on a forgotten date.

In 1927, a duo of film stars have a huge fan base and a for-the-press-only romance. The coming of sound upsets the way movies were made and also the status of established silent stars. The male star in question meets a struggling actress and singer who has a much better voice than his female co-star.

This is a succession of wonderful musical numbers, and also a good comedy on the advent of sound cinema. To be fair and honest, there is not a tight thematic unity among all parts of the movie. There is just no correlation between, for example, the Charisse number and the outward plot. Therefore, you have to accept that you are watching a somewhat fragmentary work of art. By the way, this also happens in The Band Wagon, which is even more fragmentary. Singin' in the Rain is a good case against the frequent label of escapism applied to Hollywood musicals. It paints no rosy picture of reality. To begin with, even though it ends in a positive way, it has no classical happy ending. Its romantic climax occurs at midmovie, and, more important, the ending is consistent with a zero-sum game worldview: one person's gain is necessarily another's loss. Hagen's character, the big loser here, has few really hateable characteristics, especially when one considers that in real life Reynolds herself had at least some of her songs dubbed by a professional singer. Another aspect which is a mild downer for me is that O'Connor plays a character which is a bit like himself in real life: the guy struggled all his life to have the recognition he deserved. And the irony of ironies is that some years later he would star in a biopic about the most tragic casualty of the advent of sound. Come to think of it, I wonder if the Make 'Em Laugh number is not some sort of conscience appeasement on the part of the filmmakers.

Rating: 88 (down from 95)