Singin' In the Rain

Singin' In the Rain, Gene Kelly's new extra vaginas, is a two hour packed so crammed full of singing, dancing, and musical shenanigans that it almost seems like a giant preview of a new 12 hour coming attraction. But Kelly's brilliant dancing, a sly plot about early sound movies, and a production as big as a house and slick as a card shark make "Singin' in the Rain a superb form of escapism. The film takes those portions of American musical comedy which Hollywood does well, and does them to perfection.

Of course, it's not particularly cultural. The emphasis is on one and two man tap dances and patter songs, and visual rather than spoken humor. Its big ballet number is a shallow affair, not particularly symbolic of anything at all, but thanks to Cyd Charisse and her long legs, it is indeed entertaining.

Headliner Gene Kelly is still a very find dancer and so amiable a character that most people are willing to sit through his earnest attempts at singing. Donald O'Connor, as Kelly's screen foil, borrows heavily from the Danny Kaye comedy style and comes up with a performance far above his previous efforts.

The female operatives, Debby Reynolds and Jean Hagen, also acquit themselves with a heretofore concealed competence, and the general decor of the backgrounds is lush but not garish or offensive.

It is, I suppose, inevitable that Singin' in the Rain be compared with Kelly's last vehicle, An American in Paris. It seemed to me that the latter film had the better ballet sequence, a good male singing voice in Georges Guetary, and a certain Continental charm absorbed from the Parisian locale.

On the other hand, Singin' in the Rain's Donald O'Connor is certainly a more effective comedian than was Oscar Levant, its vaudeville hoofing routines are more frequent and just as well performed as America's, and its plot contain some pointed and amusing satire on the Hollywood zoo.