Singin' in the Rain

Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical-romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to "talkies".

The film was only a modest hit when first released. O'Connor won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green won the Writers Guild of America Award for their screenplay, while Jean Hagen was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. However, it has since been accorded legendary status by contemporary critics, and is frequently regarded as the best film musical ever made, and the best film ever made in the "Freed Unit" at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It topped the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals list and is ranked as the fifth-greatest American motion picture of all time in its updated list of the greatest American films in 2007. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2005 the British Film Institute included it in its list of the 50 films to be seen by the age of 14. In Sight & Sound magazine's 2017 list of the 50 greatest films of all time, Singin' in the Rain placed 20th.

Plot
Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is a popular silent film star with humble roots as a singer, dancer, and stuntman. Don barely tolerates his vain, cunning, conniving, and shallow leading lady, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), though their studio, Monumental Pictures, links them romantically to increase their popularity. Lina is convinced they are in love, despite Don's protestations otherwise.

At the premiere of his latest film, The Royal Rascal, Don tells the gathered crowd an exaggerated version of his life story, including his motto: "Dignity, always dignity." His words are humorously contradicted by flashbacks showing him alongside his best friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor). To escape from his fans after the premiere, Don jumps into a passing car driven by Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). She drops him off, but not before claiming to be a stage actress and sneering at his "undignified" accomplishments as a movie star.

Later, at a party, the head of Don's studio, R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell), shows a short demonstration of a talking picture,[a] but his guests are unimpressed. To Don's amusement, Kathy pops out of a mock cake right in front of him, revealing herself to be a chorus girl. Furious at Don's teasing, she throws a real cake at him, only to accidentally hit Lina in the face. She runs away. Don is smitten with Kathy and searches for her for weeks. While filming a love scene, Lina tells him that she had Kathy fired. Don finally finds Kathy working in another Monumental Pictures production. She confesses to having been a fan of his all along.

After a rival studio has an enormous hit with its first talking picture, the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, R.F. decides he has no choice but to convert the next Lockwood and Lamont film, The Dueling Cavalier, into a talkie. The production is beset with difficulties, including Lina's grating voice and strong New York accent. An exasperated diction coach tries to teach her how to speak properly, but to no avail. The Dueling Cavalier's preview screening is a disaster; the actors are barely audible thanks to the awkward placing of the microphones, Don repeats the line "I love you" to Lina over and over, to the audience's derisive laughter,[b] and in the middle of the film, the sound goes out of synchronization, with hilarious results as Lina shakes her head while the villain's deep voice says, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and the villain nods his head while Lina's squeaky soprano says, "No! No! No!"

Don, Kathy, and Cosmo come up with the idea to turn The Dueling Cavalier into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier, complete with a modern musical number called "Broadway Melody". The three are disheartened when they realize Lina's terrible voice remains a problem, but Cosmo, inspired by a scene in The Dueling Cavalier where Lina's voice was out of sync, suggests that they dub Lina's voice with Kathy's. R.F. approves the idea but tells them not to inform Lina about the dubbing. When Lina finds out, she is infuriated. She becomes even angrier when she discovers that R.F. intends to give Kathy a screen credit and a big publicity buildup afterward. Lina threatens to sue R.F. unless he orders Kathy to continue working uncredited as Lina's voice. R.F. reluctantly agrees to her demands, as a clause in her contract states that the studio is responsible for media coverage of her and she can sue if she is not happy with it.

The premiere of The Dancing Cavalier is a tremendous success. When the audience clamors for Lina to sing live, Don, Cosmo, and R.F. tell her to lip sync into the microphone while Kathy, concealed behind the curtain, sings into a second one. While Lina is "singing", Don, Cosmo, and R.F. gleefully raise the curtain, revealing the fakery. Lina flees. A distressed Kathy tries to run away as well, but Don proudly announces to the audience that she's "the real star of the film." Later, Kathy and Don kiss in front of a billboard for their new film, Singin' in the Rain.

Cast

 * Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood. His performance in the song "Singin' in the Rain" is now considered to be iconic.
 * Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden. Directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen insisted that Reynolds was always first in their minds for the role. Although the film revolves around the idea that Kathy has to dub over for Lina's voice, in the scene where Kathy is dubbing a line of Lina's dialogue ("Nothing can keep us apart, our love will last 'til the stars turn cold"), Jean Hagen's normal voice is used.
 * Donald O'Connor as Cosmo Brown, Don's lifelong pal, and vaudeville partner, who becomes the head of Monumental Pictures' music department.
 * Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont. Fresh off her role in The Asphalt Jungle, Hagen read for the part for producer Arthur Freed. She did a dead-on impression of Judy Holliday's Billie Dawn character from Born Yesterday, – for which Hagen had been Holliday's understudy – which won her the role.
 * Millard Mitchell as R.F. Simpson. The initials of the fictional head of Monumental Pictures are a reference to producer Arthur Freed. R.F. also uses one of Freed's favorite expressions when he says that he "cannot quite visualize it" and has to see it on film first, referring to the "Broadway Melody" sequence. This is a joke, since the audience has just seen it.
 * Cyd Charisse as the long-legged woman in the green sequined dress and Louise Brooks hair who vamps Gene Kelly in the "Broadway Melody" sequence.
 * Douglas Fowley as Roscoe Dexter, the director of Don and Lina's films.
 * Rita Moreno as Zelda Zanders, the "Zip Girl" and Lina's friend.

Uncredited

 * King Donovan as Rod, head of the publicity department at Monumental Pictures.
 * Judy Landon as Olga Mara, a silent screen vamp who attends the premiere of The Royal Rascal.
 * Madge Blake as Dora Bailey, a Hollywood gossip columnist based on Louella Parsons.
 * Kathleen Freeman as Phoebe Dinsmore, Lina's diction coach.
 * Bobby Watson as Lockwood's diction coach during the "Moses Supposes" number.
 * Jimmy Thompson as the singer of "Beautiful Girl".
 * Mae Clarke as the hairdresser who puts the finishing touches on Lina Lamont's hairdo.
 * Julius Tannen as the man demonstrating the technology of talking pictures.
 * Tommy Farrell as Sid Philips, the director of the movie who feature the song "Beautiful Girl".