Singin' in the Rain

Director: Stanley Donen

Overview

Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the Toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions on screen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can't stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans. Watching these intrigues from the sidelines is Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), Don's best pal and on-set pianist. Cosmo is promoted to musical director of Monumental Pictures by studio head R. F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) when the talking-picture revolution commences. That's all right for Cosmo, but how will talkies affect the upcoming Lockwood-Lamont vehicle "The Dueling Cavalier"? Don, an accomplished song-and-dance man, should have no trouble adapting to the microphone. Lina, however, is another matter: put as charitably as possible, she has a voice that sounds like fingernails on the blackboard. The disastrous preview of the team's first talkie has the audience howling with derisive laughter. On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin' in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM's catalog of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs -- You Were Meant for Me, You Are My Lucky Star, The Broadway Melody, and of course the title song -- the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/02/2012
UPC:	0883929266777
Original Release:	1952
Source:	Warner Home Video
Region Code:	1
Time:	1:43:00
Sales rank:	1,450

Special Features

Disc 1 - Commentary by Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Stanley Donen, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Baz Luhrmann and Rudy Behlmer Three Documentaries: All-New Singin' in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation, plus Musicals Great Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit at MGM and What a Glorious Feeling: The Making of Singin' in the Rain Song Excerpts Outtake Stills Gallery Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gene Kelly	Don Lockwood
Donald O'Connor	Cosmo Brown
Debbie Reynolds	Kathy Selden
Jean Hagen	Lina Lamont
Millard Mitchell	R.F. Simpson
Cyd Charisse	Dancer in the Fantasy Sequence
Rita Moreno	Zelda Zanders
Douglas Fowley	Roscoe Dexter
Madge Blake	Dora Bailey
Margaret Bert	Wardrobe Woman
Jeanne Coyne	Girl Dancer
Patricia Denise	Actor
John Dodsworth	Baron de la May de la Toulon
Richard Emory	Phil
Charles Evans	Actor
Dan Foster	Assistant Director
Jack George	Orchestra Leader
Stuart Holmes	J.C. Spendrill III
David Kasday	Kid
Judy Landon	Olga Mara
William Lester	Actor
Carl Milletaire	Villain
Dorothy Patrick	Actor
Russell Saunders	Fencer
David Sharpe	Actor
Julius Tannen	Man on Screen
Jimmy Thompson	Male Lead in "Beautiful Girls" Number
Wilson Wood	Vallee Impersonator
Dennis Ross	Don as a Boy
Bill Lewin	Bert
Don Hulbert	Actor
Dawn Addams	Lady in Waiting
Mae Clarke	Hairdresser
King Donovan	Rod
Kathleen Freeman	Phoebe Dinsmore
Joi Lansing	Beautiful Blonde
Elaine Stewart	Lady in Waiting
Bobby Watson	Diction Coach
Lynn Bernay	Actor
Shirley Jean Rickert	Actor
Morgan Jones	Actor

Technical Credits

Stanley Donen	Director
Gene Kelly	Director
Fred Brown	Songwriter
Nacio Herb Brown	Score Composer
Betty Comden	Songwriter,Original Story,Screenwriter
Randall Duell	Art Director
Roger Edens	Songwriter
Adrienne Fazan	Editor
Arthur Freed	Score Composer,Producer
Cedric Gibbons	Art Director
Al Goodhart	Songwriter
Adolph Green	Songwriter,Original Story,Screenwriter
Lennie Hayton	Score Composer,Musical Direction/Supervision
Hoffman	Songwriter
Jacque Mapes	Set Decoration/Design
Warren Newcombe	Special Effects
Walter Plunkett	Costumes/Costume Designer
Irving G. Ries	Special Effects
Harold Hal Rosson	Cinematographer
Edwin B. Willis	Set Decoration/Design

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Singin' in the Rain: The Movie
1. Scene 1 [1:35]
2. Scene 2 [3:45]
3. Scene 3 [2:27]
4. Scene 4 [3:18]
5. Scene 5 [1:51]
6. Scene 6 [2:21]
7. Scene 7 [4:11]
8. Scene 8 [3:00]
9. Scene 9 [2:59]
10. Scene 10 [1:39]
11. Scene 11 [3:41]
12. Scene 12 [2:20]
13. Scene 13 [2:09]
14. Scene 14 [3:19]
15. Scene 15 [2:48]
16. Scene 16 [4:37]
17. Scene 17 [1:49]
18. Scene 18 [3:23]
19. Scene 19 [2:11]
20. Scene 20 [1:44]
21. Scene 21 [4:13]
22. Scene 22 [1:49]
23. Scene 23 [3:47]
24. Scene 24 [1:52]
25. Scene 25 [4:47]
26. Scene 26 [1:33]
27. Scene 27 [1:59]
28. Scene 28 [2:24]
29. Scene 29 [1:50]
30. Scene 30 [2:57]
31. Scene 31 [1:28]
32. Scene 32 [3:11]
33. Scene 33 [1:47]
34. Scene 34 [5:08]
35. Scene 35 [1:36]
36. Scene 36 [2:44]
37. Scene 37 [2:29]
38. Scene 38 [1:41]
Disc #2 -- Singin' in the Rain: Special Features
1. Producing the Best [5:06]
2. MGM: The Broadway Melody [4:08]
3. The Wizard of Oz [3:41]
4. Mickey and Judy [2:55]
5. Recruiting Talent [4:08]
6. Meet Me in St. Louis [5:03]
7. Ziegfeld Follies [3:24]
8. The Class Unit [3:29]
9. Executive Suites [2:22]
10. Annie Get Your Gun [2:09]
11. On the Town [6:41]
12. Artistically Special [2:42]
13. An American in Paris [7:26]
14. Oscar and the Appreciator [4:56]
15. The Band Wagon [8:18]
16. Singin' in the Rain [6:32]
17. It's Always Fair Weather [3:24]
18. Things Change [2:21]
19. End Credits (Singin' in the Rain) [4:58]
20. All Here for Gigi [2:12]
1. All I Do Is Dream Of You from Sadie McKee (1934) [1:44]
1. Beautiful Girl from Going Hollywood (1933) [4:08]
1. The Broadway Melody from The Broadway Melody (1929) [4:25]
1. Broadway Rhythm from Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935) [9:20]
1. Good Morning from Babes in Arms (1939) [2:25]
1. I've Got a Feelin' You'r Foolin' from Broadway Melody of 1936 [5:35]
1. Should I? from Lord Byron of Broadway (1929) [2:38]
1. Singin' in the Rain from The Hollywood Revue of 1929 [6:19]
1. Would You? from San Francisco (1936) [2:53]
1. You Are My Lucky Star from Broadway Melody of 1936 [6:14]
1. You Were Meant for Me from The Broadway Melody [2:25]
1. Temptation from Going Hollywood [2:04]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Singin' in the Rain: The Movie
   Play Movie
   Scene Selections
   Special Features
      Commentary by Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Co-Director Stanley Donen, Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adoph Green, Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and Author/Historian Rudy Behlmer
      Singin' in the Rain: Raining on a New Generation
      Theatrical Trailer
   Languages
      Spoken Languages
         English
         Português
      Subtitles
         English (For The Hearing Impaired)
         Français
         Español
         Português
         Subtitles: Off
Disc #2 -- Singin' in the Rain: Special Features
   Musicals Great Musicals
   What a Glorious Feeling
   Excerpts From Features Where the Songs Originated
      Play All
   You Are My Lucky Star Outtake
   Gallery
   Scoring Stage Sessions
      Play

Editorial Reviews

Gotta dance! And sing, and jump for joy (especially if there's an available puddle): That's the usual reaction to Singin' in the Rain, considered by many to be the greatest American musical ever made. A charming, often quite realistic look at the difficult transition from silent to sound cinema at the end of the 1920s, this sly backstage story has far more going for it than the brilliantly giddy, love-soaked Gene Kelly dance scene that will remain forever lodged in Hollywood's collective memory. It features a deliciously witty and original script by Betty Comden and Adolph Green; a hummable score consisting of period songs by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown; and, of course, high-flying choreography that ranges from vaudeville hoofing to ballroom to ballet, courtesy of Gene Kelly and director Stanley Donen. Kelly was simply born to play the egotistical but lovable Don Lockwood, star of the silent screen, who falls hard for a sweet chorine (Debbie Reynolds) he meets while trying to escape from some overly enthusiastic fans. Jean Hagen, who does a show-stopping turn as Lockwood's gorgeous but vocally challenged and vindictive costar, actually dubbed Reynolds's singing voice -- the exact reverse of what happens in this most delightful of all movie musicals.

Barnes & Noble - Karen Backstein

Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain is usually lumped together with the other MGM "songbook" musicals of its era, An American in Paris and The Band Wagon. In contrast to those two outstanding works of music and motion, however, Singin' in the Rain had an additional layer of importance and appeal as one of Hollywood's relatively rare feature films about itself. The Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown songbook is on one level the center of the movie, but it's also a backdrop for a humorous and delightfully stylized look back at the crisis that engulfed the movie mecca and its inhabitants once synchronized sound came to films. The musical was made in 1952, only 25 years after the beginning of the series of events depicted and satirized in the script, so recent in time that there were still plenty of old studio hands (including sound department head Douglas Shearer) who had firsthand memories of the actual events. The fit was natural for the music, too, since Freed and Brown had been on hand (and even onscreen) for the arrival of sound to MGM in 1929. The film is full of delightful in-jokes about its subject and the people who lived through the era: Jean Hagen's Lina Lamont is a burlesque of silent-movie sex symbol Clara Bow, whose decidedly urban style of diction never really fit her image or what the public wanted, while Millard Mitchell's R.F. Simpson was a gently jocular satire of Freed himself, who could never quite visualize the elaborate musical numbers whose scripts and budgets he was approving as producer. Donald O'Connor's Cosmo Brown was an onscreen stand-in for men like Franz Waxman and dozens of other musicians, who moved from writing arrangements or conducting the major theater orchestras to heading the music departments of the studios. The resulting musical, in addition to offering a brace of memorable songs and performances (with a startlingly sultry featured spot for Cyd Charisse in the "Broadway Melody" sequence, as a bonus), gave audiences a short-course pop-history lesson about how the movies learned to talk, sing, and dance.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder

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