Do Do Do Do

It's the 60th anniversary of Singin' In The Rain, and just in time for that event I've read Singin' In The Rain: The Making Of An American Masterpiece by Earl J. Hess and Pratibha A. Dabholkar.  There have been plenty of books that tell stories about the film, but this is the only one to look at the whole experience from conception to classic. It's published by the University Press of Kansas and the authors are academics, which makes it a bit dry in places, and sometimes repetitive as they tell the same story from a different angle, but the movie deserves the scholarly rigor with which they do their research.

The film is universally acknowledged as the greatest of all film musicals. (I'm a Fred Astaire man, but I'd agree SITR has never been topped.) It even regularly appears on lists of the top ten films of all time.  Yet when it was planned, Arthur Freed, head of the famous Freed musical unit at MGM, was almost too embarrassed to tell his screenwriters, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, what the concept was.

Of course, that was mostly because Freed wanted a musical built around the old hit songs he and partner Nacio Herb Brown had written twenty years earlier. And that was the entire idea.  No plot, no stars attached, no director, just a trunk full of songs, now go write the film.  Comden and Green toyed with many ideas but finally settled on something fitting and, as it turned out, brilliant.  Many of the songs were hits from the earliest days of talkies, so let's make the movie about the transition from silents to sound.  And once they got the idea of a the lead being dashing movie star Don Lockwood, who'd sing and dance to show he was up to the challenge, Gene Kelly became the obvious choice.  He also was the man, along with partner Stanley Donen, to direct.

Freed originally wanted Oscar Levant to play Cosmo Brown, Lockwood's sidekick.  Levant was doing a good job on the picture Kelly was shooting at the time, An American In Paris, but there was a downside--he couldn't sing or dance. Couldn't really act much either, except be his dour self.  So eventually hoofer Donald O'Connor, a minor star at the time, got to step up into the big leagues.  Veteran character actor Millard Mitchell, who often played tough guys, got the part of genial studio head R. F. Simpson, a character based on Freed himself.

None of the lead female roles went to big names either.  Kelly had made something out of unknown Leslie Caron in American In Paris, so perhaps the thinking was he could do the same for Debbie Reynolds as love interest Kathy Selden, even if she had little experience and was not a top-notch singer or dancer. (It's not clear if she was everyone's choice from the start or forced on Kelly by Louis B. Mayer, but I tend to believe the former story.) For the Vamp in the big ballet, they picked another up-and-comer, Cyd Charisse, who'd soon prove herself as the lead in another Freed unit classic, The Band Wagon.  In the villain's role of Lina Lamont, the nasty actress with the grating voice, Comden and Green wrote a part for old pal Judy Holliday. But Holliday was too big a star to play second fiddle at that point, so it went to Jean Hagen who'd understudied Holliday on Broadway in Born Yesterday.  Hagen got the only Oscar nomination in the cast.

The numbers make up half the film but most of the shooting schedule. In fact, some of the "straight" scenes were shot whenever time was available in-between the days spent on all the dancing.  The film even borrows a few shots from Kelly's old Three Musketeers for the film within the film, and if you watch closely you can see co-star Lana Turner for a split second instead of Jean Hagen.  The number that took up the most time and money by far--almost a quarter of the budget--was the "Broadway Melody Ballet." While the result is quite enjoyable, it does stop the narrative cold for a good thirteen minutes--the feeling then was every musical needed a big number.

The book also explains how the dances, though joyous, were grueling to film.  After Debbie Reynolds shot "Good Morning" she collapsed (as some stories have it) and had to see a doctor.  Donald O'Connor's big solo "Make 'Em Laugh" (one of the few numbers written for the movie, and was recognized as a ripoff of Cole Porter's "Be A Clown") was so exhausting that he had to stay in bed for three days, and then when he discovered there was a technical problem, had to shoot the number all over again. And when Gene Kelly shot the famous title number, he was suffering from a sinus infection and the flu.

Kelly was a harsh taskmaster, often losing his temper during shooting.  Perhaps he'd bitten off more than he could chew, starring, choreographing and directing along with Donen.  He drove relative newcomer Reynolds especially hard, though years later she appreciated his lesson in proper preparation.  Ultimately, though, everything Kelly did was to make the film work.  He even cut his own dance solo to "All I Do Is Dream Of You" when previews suggested it slowed down the story, even though it was apparently quite well done. (Unfortunately, the footage no longer exists.)

All the effort was worth it. The Freed unit created the film for which they are best remembered.  It was a solid hit in its day, but maybe was simply too enjoyable, as it was not recognized by the Oscars, while An American In Paris the year before had won six, including Best Picture.  But since then, its reputation has only grown--boosted especially by the MGM That's Entertainment compendiums in the 70s.

It was the height of the MGM musical and the height of Gene Kelly's career.  In some ways, he never recovered.  He did some decent work after, but this was the film everything had been leading toward, and perhaps he had nowhere to go but down.  In later years, he was identified with the film, especially the title number.  It wasn't his personal favorite (he preferred On The Town) or his favorite solo (he preferred the Newspaper Dance from Summer Stock), but he was always gracious when people wanted to talk about Singin' In The Rain, even if it may have occasionally grated.  In his later years he knew the film would be his monument, and as an expression of joy, it's hard to surpass.

PS  In the legacy chapter, they mention the Broadway version of Singin' In The Rain.  It can't really be called a success, but I was disappointed anyway that they didn't mention my friend, Peter Slutsker, who played Cosmo.