There Was a Reason They Named It Singin’ in the Rain
While it is possible that MGM thought that the highlight of the movie would be the ballet starring Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly, they were wrong. The high point of the movie was a unique concept that turned an old song into an iconic image. We are going to provide you with two movie versions of the song: the version used in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and the version from the 1952 movie. Both have good vocalists; both have good arrangements. One has been all but forgotten; one is the stuff that dreams are made of (with apologies to The Maltese Falcon).
In 1929, Hollywood had found a new toy–the technical ability to synchronize sound and moving pictures, making it possible to create a motion picture that could imitate a show seen on the stage. One of the first applications was the production of musicals. The earliest movies were nothing more than a series of song and dance numbers with various shots of lead singers and choral support (with and without dancing). What the audience saw was not nearly as important as what the studio learned. In short, the studio’s were experimenting, and the public was paying to watch the experiments. Just as we learn in the 1952 movie plot, studios needed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the new techniques. How do we capture sound; where do we place the microphones? Where do we place the cameras; how many will we use? Will a long shot give us enough detail? The first piece of embedded music is Ukulele Ike (Cliff Edwards) using his ukulele to sing his version of “Singin’ in the Rain.” You will note the stationary position of the camera, the careful movement of the singer. Then the choral music starts; the dance routine is static and the movements are deliberate in order to reduce the chance of “smear.”
In four short years, Busby Berkeley, a transplanted dance director from Broadway (Rodgers and Hart, A Connecticut Yankee, 1927) would transform the world of movie dance and turn it on its head. He would use high, overhead shots to create geometric patterns, very similar to what we get when looking into a kaleidoscope. This work was visually pleasing but separated the numbers from the movie’s story line. The Warner Brothers success in the 1930’s could not be maintained; and by 1948 or so, Warners shut down its musical department, causing all of its performers to seek employment at other studios. One of those performers was a 15 year old named Debbie Reynolds.
MGM under the guiding hand of Arthur Freed continued to learn how to make musicals throughout the 1940’s into the early 1950’s, giving us such movies as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Lady Be Good (1941), For Me and My Gal (1942), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Du Barry Was a Lady (1943), Girl Crazy (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Harvey Girls (1946), Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), Good News (1947), The Pirate (1948), Easter Parade (1948), Words and Music (1948), Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), On the Town (1949), The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Royal Wedding (1951), Show Boat (1951), An American in Paris (1951), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953), Brigadoon (1954), Kismet (1955), Silk Stockings (1957), Gigi (1958) and Bells Are Ringing (1960).
Singin’ in the Rain was directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly; according to Wikipedia, an early draft of the musical number, “Singin’ in the Rain” was “to be sung by Reynolds, O’Connor, and Kelly, emerging from a restaurant after the flop preview of The Dueling Cavalier, to celebrate the idea of changing the film into a musical.” The number was eventually done by Gene as a solo; as he kisses Debbie goodnight and she asks him to take care of himself, she wasn’t kidding. Gene was ill and had a fever (according to Wikipedia, his temperature was 103 degrees). Camera angles had been pre-set, real water was used, the choreography was carefully rehearsed. But most importantly, the entire tempo and style of the song had been transformed by Lennie Hayton to fit the singer, the song and the setting. The character’s happiness is about a girlfriend, not a movie; and his delirious rapture had to be captured in song and dance. Well done, everyone!