| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952) |
| Director | Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen |
| Writer | Adolph Green, Betty Comden |
| Lead Actor | Gene Kelly |
| Cast | Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Cyd Charisse |
| Genre | Comedy, Musical, Romance |
| Release Date | April 11, 1952 (United States) |
| Duration | 1h 43m (103 min) |
| Budget | $2.5 million (estimated) |
| Language | English |
| IMDb Rating | 8.3/10 |
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Possibly the most upbeat movie ever made, this musical spoofs the period when Hollywood movies switched, painfully, from silence to sound. Suddenly, voices mattered, acting styles changed, and careers soared or crashed.
The memorable cast (Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen), directed by Kelly and Stanley Donen, all played characters caught in the crunch. Writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green work endless gags over the clumsy transition to mikes and synch sound as the studio decides to remake a silent, costume melodrama as a musical. Hammy star Kelly makes the conversion, but Jean Hagen (as the classic dumb blonde) can’t because of her tin voice and insufferable ego.
Reynolds is the naïve young talent who comes to the rescue unselfishly supplying her voice. As Kelly’s comedy sidekick, O’Connor has a show-stopping number (“Make ’Em Laugh”), but the signature moments belong to Kelly (in the title routine) splashing his way to immortality.
An inventive, over the top dance musical, Rain holds up: Deliberately corny, it’s as delightful today as it was in those Korean War years. Oddly enough, only Hagen got any Oscar attention. Quality films abounded in 1952, including High Noon, Rashomon, The Quiet Man, Viva Zapata and Come Back, Little Sheba.
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