Cold War

Singin' in the Rain

pictures

Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for budget of $2.54 million, released April 10, 1952 by MGM and grossed $3.6 million, Technicolor 35mm negative, 1.37:1 screen aspect ratio, mono sound, 103 mins.; Laserdisc released 1991; restored theatrical print from original 3-strip Technicolor negatives released 1992; DVD released 1997 with remastered Dolby digital sound

Production:

Directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly

Written by Betty Comden, Adolph Green

Produced by Arthur Freed

Original music by Nacio Herb Brown, Lennie Hayton

Cinematography by Harold Rosson

Film Editing by Adrienne Fazan

Sound recording by Douglas Shearer

Special Effects by Warren Newcombe, Irving G. Ries

Choreography by Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen

Orchestration by Wally Heglin, Conrad Salinger, Skip Martin

Vocal arrangements by Jeff Alexander, Roger Edens

Cast:

Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood

Donald O'Connor as Cosmo Brown

Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden

Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont (and as the singing voice of Debbie Reynolds)

Millard Mitchell as R. F. Simpson

Cyd Charisse as Dancer

Douglas Fowley as Roscoe Dexter

Rita Moreno as Zelda Zanders

Madge Blake as Dora Bailey

Kathleen Freeman as Phoebe Dinsmore, Lina's diction coach

Bobby Watson as Don's diction coach

Betty Royce as the singing voice for "Would You?"

Notes:

Singin' in the Rain was first conceived as a "catalogue" picture by Arthur Freed for MGM in 1949. He had written the song 20 years earlier with the composer Nacio Herb Brown for the Hollywood Music Box Revue in 1927, a stage show of showgirls and songs and spectacular sets of the type made famous by the Ziegfeld Follies. After the sound revolution swept through Hollywood in the wake of the 1927 Jazz Singer, Irving Thalberg hired Freed and Brown to write music for MGM's first revue musical, Broadway Melody, in 1929. Freed had worked as a mood pianist in silent films when he first moved from New York to Hollywood in 1925 (like Cosmo) and helped Thalberg (like R. F.) and the MGM studio (like Monumental Pictures) make the transition to sound. The characters of Lina Lamont (like Judy Holliday), director Roscoe Dexter (like Busby Berkeley), Dora Bailey (like Louella Parsons) were based on real people. The song "Singin' in the Rain" and other Freed-Brown songs would be used in repeatedly in many MGM pictures, starting with Hollywood Revue of 1929. Arthur Freed became a leading producer of musicals at MGM, putting together a talented group known as the Freed Unit after it made The Wizard of Oz in 1938. When MGM purchased the entire backlist or "catalogue" of songs from Freed and Brown in March 1949, the song "Singin' in the Rain" became the property of MGM and Freed proposed featuring his song in a backstage-type musical film remake of the 1928 Excess Baggage that was set in vaudeville era. Freed hired Betty Comden and Adolph Green in May 1950 to write the story for the film. Comden and Green had been the writers for On the Town that starred Gene Kelly in 1943. They decided to set the story in Hollywood precisely during the transition to sound when the Freed-Brown songs were originally written. They watched old movies with Stanley Donen who was hired as the film's director and who had just finished co-directing On the Town with Gene Kelly. The final draft of the script was completed August 10, 1950, with Kelly signed as the star for what was written as primarily a singing film as soon as he finished An American in Paris in January 1951.

The film went into production by March 1951, and photography began June 18, 1951. But Gene Kelly caused significant changes in the script. He envisioned the film as primarily a dance film and wanted the dancer Donald O'Connor as his sidekick Cosmo. Kelly's role expanded to co-director, choreographer, actor, singer, dancer. He had two new songs written: "Make 'em Laugh" to feature O'Connor's solo talents, and a big production song medley that would include modern dance and ballet, similar to what he had done with director Vincente Minnelli in An American in Paris. In that film, the big production number based on George Gershwin's modern song was 17 minutes long and cost more that the all of the rest of the film. The film was a success and became one of MGM's top-grossing musicals ($4.5 million). Kelly was given permission to do the same thing for Singin' in the Rain. Because Debbie Reynolds could not dance, Kelly hired Cyd Charisse for the big number that would cost $600,000 and take two weeks to film, involving airplane engines blowing a 50-foot scarf that coils around Kelly and Chrarisse as they perform an abstract ballet piece as part of the "Broadway Melody" medley.

Kelly changed the film from a traditional catalogue musical to a new type of integrated musical, with songs and story tightly woven together, mixing romance and drama and comedy with modern dance. Kelly and the writiers insisted