California Dew, Backlot Milk & Rain
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
directed by Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults
The "Broadway Melody" sequence that prefaces Don Lockwood's ascension to talkie star (and also the end of the movie) is an odd stumble on the way out the door. Gene's pastel-shaded dramatics with the fictional gangster's moll feel "modern" just to the point of outdatedness, and, like most tributes (this to musicals past), it simply goes on too long. But one thing I always liked in "Singin' in the Rain" was a soaked Gene Kelly handing a passerby his umbrella. The man uses the umbrella immediately, in a grumpy huff, and it accounts, in shorthand, for the movie's boisterous homage to the sad story of the silents' decline (conveyed, pretty fairly, in Lina Lomant's sympathetic and helpless outrage). One guy's love affair is someone else's rainy day, and the film is sweet to both sides.
directed by Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults
The "Broadway Melody" sequence that prefaces Don Lockwood's ascension to talkie star (and also the end of the movie) is an odd stumble on the way out the door. Gene's pastel-shaded dramatics with the fictional gangster's moll feel "modern" just to the point of outdatedness, and, like most tributes (this to musicals past), it simply goes on too long. But one thing I always liked in "Singin' in the Rain" was a soaked Gene Kelly handing a passerby his umbrella. The man uses the umbrella immediately, in a grumpy huff, and it accounts, in shorthand, for the movie's boisterous homage to the sad story of the silents' decline (conveyed, pretty fairly, in Lina Lomant's sympathetic and helpless outrage). One guy's love affair is someone else's rainy day, and the film is sweet to both sides.
posted by NPK at 9:22 AM
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