A Star Was Born W/ Debbie In "Singin' in the Rain"

I don't think so, OP.

Vivien was a star, Debbie was a chubby-faced blond.

It was this movie's 70th Anniversary and no one thought to make a tribute for it at the Oscars? Why the hell did we get Pulp Fiction's 28th anniversary over this?

I forgot, Pulp Fiction is liked in the black community. The blacks do not care about Singin' in the Rain hence why the show didn't feature it because it was catered towards blacks.

R1 Debbie was one of the last great stars of MGM. Along with Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood (??was she MGM?)

I really enjoy seeing this movie. So uplifting.

The Godfather was allowed to have a tribute at the Oscars because it's full of violence and thuggery which black people can relate to. Although even then, they had to pick a rando no-name black to introduce it and urbanize it further to make it truly palatable for black audiences.....because the Oscars this year was all about the blacks.

I tried watching it for the first time while on a plane and had to turn it off because it was so stupid.

I CAAAANTSTANDIM…

OP, I have just been alerted by some other DLers that you went out of your way to trash Judy Garland in your sorry excuse of a review. You ought to be ashamed. I am alerting Judy's fanbase so everyone can know how conceited you are.

The cast had more talent than Calvin Coolidge ... put together.

In what world does OP think it's okay to post a review dissing Judy Garland in a gay forum where Judy Garland is a pet favorite?

He didn’t exactly criticize Garland, he just said that he thought that the Broadway Melody show stopper was better than the Born in a Trunk show stopper, and only half as long…

Fathom events and TCM are screening this movie on Sunday, April 10, I already have my tickets, should be quite a show

How was the stage version ?

Without even seeing it, I know it could not compare to the movie

Will we finally get some accurate anecdotes about Stanley Donen's sex-life now that his ex-wife is dead?

Did they do the rain on stage ?

OP is correct about Judy's overly long trunk song. But he is dead wrong about his Doris Day comment.

I agree, Doris Day often gets a bad rap but if you actually watch her movies she’s pretty decent

Donen had five ex-wives,

I always get Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds confused.

A few years ago, it was screened at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic performing the score. Amazing! I'd seen it dozens of times, but nothing compared to seeing it with that orchestra, and just the whole vibe at the Bowl. If it ever comes back to the Bowl (and you live in L.A.), I highly recommend it.

"And I caaaaan't stand him..." Maybe this great bit will put some smiles on some faces...

Good morning commenters and trolls alike!

One of the few films I call, when seeing them, my favorite movie of all times, and yes, Singin’ is great entertainment, lot of fun, the best musical ever made while being hilariously funny at the same time. It contains what are arguably the best performances of its principals (Jean Hagan’s Lina Lamont is one of the greatest comic creations ever to be captured on film). One could go on and on marveling every aspect of the making of this one – from art direction to editing and so on. But what makes it so good and profound, is that every aspect of it is committed to promoting a very articulately manifested - (if well disguised at the same time) – point of view of its makers.

I’ve once saw Stanley Donnen on tv, and he said something that went like this: “Goddard once said that cinema is 24 frames of truth a second. He was wrong – it’s 24 frames of a lie”. This film is a celebration of the Art of Cinema (particularly the art of making musicals) as a form of deceiving, and the need to be deceived in order to cope with the harsh realities of every day life. People lie constantly here – from the first frame of the film (“Dignity, always dignity”), to the fake romance Don and Lina are supposedly having, to the pretentious front little Kathy is putting on – and these are only the first few moments of the movie. What separates the sophisticates from the fools is only the degree of the denial they’re in. Lina totally believes the lies. Don knowingly stages them (asking Kosmo to tell him how great he is when he’s down).

The musical numbers are a glorification of this need – you’re in love and it’s raining – isn’t it a great opportunity to sing and dance? Want to reveal your emotions to a sweetheart? The only way to do so is to use an empty soundstage and create the perfect setting and have the perfect score played for you. Your new talkie has just bombed – sing your way out of this gloomy situation! (By the way, many years ago, through the wonders of VCR, after countless times I saw it on the big screen, I spotted another proof to its precise making in this scene. Kelly, O’Connor and Reynolds are depressed. They go from the living room to the kitchen. They’re TALKING. They’re still in a “realistic” form of being. So when they go through the door there’s a cut. When they go back, SINGING, the camera moves smoothly, passing through the wall – they’re transferred into another dimension).

The happy-ending is possible only when the circumstances are so unique that a musical–like situation can happen in a “realistic” setting – have the studio orchestra, playing on an opening night, ready to oblige your whims - and isn’t it easy to win your girl’s heart back?

But moments of pure truth can happen every now and than – when this Art of making false dreams somehow, miraculously, works – something clicks and there you have it. So when finally we see the new and improved version of The Singing Cavalier, the voice that so perfectly fits Lina’s image is supposedly Kathy’s, but it’s not Reynolds’ voice but Jean Hagan’s own real voice we’re hearing, for the first time in this film, coming out of Hagan’s mouth. For when lies are perfectly staged, the truth shines through.

Reply 24, great comments! I was amazed to read that curmudgeonly critic Pauline Kael considered "Singin' in the Rain" Hollywood's best musical. I agree. The satire is just as sharp as those musical numbers!

The Moses Supposes dance routine was great, and Donald O’Connor really shone. He made it look easy and fun, whereas Kelly looked more labored…

Big dyke ya know.

Shinging in the rain

I hated the soppy romance between Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly in SITR. I liked LIna Lamont a lot better than Reynold's character.

R16 With the stage version there is a story the the crew hated the star Tommy Steele so much that they used to urinate every night in the water tanks used in the main number.

[quote]…Doris Day often gets a bad rap but if you actually watch her movies she’s pretty decent…

You must not have seen MIDNIGHT LACE.

R31 Yes, even dogs snarl and growl at Doris when she carries on in that movie.

[quote] MIDNIGHT LACE.

High gloss rubbish with a shrieking blond.

Doris' five minutes of shrieking in her Hitchcock movie were almost bearable. But she is ear-splittingly painful in the latter high gloss movie.

The "Moses Supposes" number's pretty brilliant, and yeah, that's where Donald O' Connor outshines Gene, as that's Donald's dance style. Ton of fun stuff in this movie. AND how the hell did Gloria Grahame beat Jean Hagen for Best Supporting Actress. Gloria's a great performer, but her role in "The Bad and the Beautiful" was incidental... she even dies off-screen. And southern accents weren't noir queen Gloria's strong suit.

Singing in the rain, my favorite movie still

It's seems surprising today to learn that SITR was not that big a hit back in 1952. It got excellent reviews, did good business and made a profit, but it was not the blockbuster one would imagine it to have been. My first exposure to it was on television in the mid-1960s as part of NBC's Monday Night at the Movies, but I didn't see it in color until years later.

Moses Supposes and Make ‘em Laugh were the two numbers written especially for the movie, the rest were out of the Freed/Brown catalogue.

Check out this very interesting article, complete with film clips, discussing the songs in the movie

R30, I read Coppola had a difficult time with him in Finnian’s Rainbow. His leprechaun was supposed to be shy but Steele would not play it that way and was really a handful on set.

[quote] AND how the hell did Gloria Grahame beat Jean Hagen for Best Supporting Actress. Gloria's a great performer, but her role in "The Bad and the Beautiful" was incidental... she even dies off-screen.

I call it “the Shirley Fonda Syndrome” – named after Henry’s fifth five who admitted in an interview, she was the one voting for the Oscars instead of her husband – and she wasn’t the only one. That’s why actresses playing sidelined Hollywood wives had an advantage – see also Lee Grant and especially Beatrice Straight.

reply 39, interesting! And some say Richard Burton never won the Oscar because he fucked/over too many Hollywood wives, who had long memories, along with their husbands!

Wouldn't Richard Burton fucking the wives make them vote FOR him?

Richard Burton was a fuck 'em and leave him type, and on to the next one... ever wonder why Lauren Bacall was so catty toward him?

Bacall was such a phony.

How come Stanley Donen made this charming, clever, colorful musical and then grabs an ancient homosexual, an Oscar winner and an imitation Doris Day to make a black and white, ham-fisted, unfunny comedy like this?

Donen's career was a long series of hits and misses.

Donen's career reached the top and had a weird decade in homosexual London.

I am NOT convinced he didn't prefer cock to clitoris.

Donen started off at the top, but then his bad taste and unfunny sense humor seem to take over for most of his career

Beautiful scene transition.

Most Hollywood careers are a series of hits and misses...

RRRRRROUND TONES

What is the story about Donen and Gene Kelly?

Kathleen Freeman is so great in her only scene, with Jean Hagen: "Cahhhhn't." "Caaaaaaaaan't."

Donen and Kelly first met during the Broadway production of Pal Joey, and became collaborators and friends during the production of Best Foot Forward in 1941. Their relationship has been described as similar to that of the characters Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown in Singin' in the Rain, with Kelly as the star performer and Donen as his trusted sidekick. Kelly described Donen as being like a son to him and Donen initially idolized Kelly, while still finding him to be "cold, egotistical and very rough." Although Donen has credited Kelly for "jump-starting his career as a filmmaker", he has also stated that MGM producer Roger Edens was his biggest promoter. Many people believe that Donen owes everything to Kelly and Kelly biographer Clive Hirschhorn has described Donen as having "no particular identity or evident talent...and was just a kid from the south who wanted to make it in show business." However it is also true that a sixteen-year-old Donen came to New York with no connections or friends and after only two auditions landed a role on Broadway with one of its most successful directors. Donen has stated that he moved to Hollywood of his own accord, however other sources claim that he followed Kelly, who then helped him get his first job. Kelly would sometimes embarrass and patronize Donen in public, such as berating Donen for not being able to keep up with his dance steps during the rehearsals for Cover Girl. Donen has admitted that he did not consider himself to be a very good performer. Despite Donen's growing resentment of Kelly he was able to compartmentalize his personal feelings and professional attitude during their collaborations. Tensions between the two exploded on the set of It's Always Fair Weather. Donen had recently had a major hit with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and did not want to make another film with Kelly. They fought on the set for the first time, with the now more confident Donen asserting himself. Donen almost quit the film and his friendship with Kelly ended. During the making of It's Always Fair Weather, Donen's self-confidence was high due to having just made two hit films: Deep in My Heart and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, while Vincent Minnelli's Brigadoon (which Kelly was closely involved in and had wanted to direct) was a flop and Kelly's own ambitious film Invitation to Dance was completed in 1954 but was not released by MGM until 1956, and was then financially unsuccessful despite having won the prestigious Golden Bear at the 6th Berlin International Film Festival. Kelly's problems at that time also included unsuccessfully attempting to branch out into dramatic acting with The Devil Makes Three and Seagulls Over Sorrento, both of which had flopped, as well as his marriage to Betsy Blair beginning to fall apart. During the shooting of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Donen often complained about his budgetary constraints preventing him from having better sets or the luxury of shooting on location, while Brigadoon had a much larger budget. In later years Donen would state that he had nothing nice to say about Kelly. At a 1991 tribute to Comden and Green, Kelly said in a public speech that Donen "needed to grow up with" but added "I needed Stanley at the back of the camera." He also described Donen as being thought of as his whipping-boy at MGM. Although Donen often complained that Kelly never gave him enough credit for their work, Kelly did credit him for the Jerry the Mouse and "Alter Ego" dance sequences. In 1992 Donen said "I'm grateful to him, but I paid back the debt, ten times over. And he got his money's worth out of me." Betsy Blair claimed to be "surprised and bemused" by Donen's bitterness towards Kelly in later interviews.

The equality of contributions of Donen and Kelly's collaborations is debatable. David Thomson has written about "the problem in assessing career: who did what in their collaboration? And what is Donen's real standing as a director?" Thomson goes on to hypothesize that "nothing in his career suggests that Gene Kelly could have filmed himself singing in the rain with the exhilaration of Donen's retreating crane shot." However set reports state that Kelly rode the camera boom between shots and during camera set-ups. Donen has stated that "by the time you hash it through from beginning to end ten million times, you can't remember who did what except in a few instances where you remember getting an idea." Composer Saul Chaplin said that "Gene was the prime mover and Stanley an eager and talented pupil." During the shooting of On the Town, all memos and correspondence from MGM to the production were addressed exclusively to Donen, and not to Kelly. However, actress Kathleen Freeman stated that when people visited set of Singin' in the Rain to relate their experiences during the silent era, they would ask to speak Kelly. Singin' in the Rain art director Randall Duell has stated "Gene ran the show. Stan had some good ideas and worked with Gene, but he was still the 'office boy' to Gene, in a sense, although Gene had great respect for him. But they made a good team, because they were very compatible." Kelly also became heavily involved with the Singin' in the Rain script during its third draft, which is when the structure of the script in progress began to resemble the finished film.

Jane Powell should have played Debbie's role. After brilliantly starring opposite Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding, I never understood why MGM didn't assign the role to Jane.

Stanley's directed a few of my favorite films: Funny Face, Charade, and Two For the Road. And The Pajama Game, which I'm sure Donen's energy is what makes this film fun, rather than stodgy Broadway transplant/co-director George Abbott, who wanted a filmed play with the stage cast.

Are you saying that the Pajama Game film isn’t a filmed play with (all but one of) the original cast?

Love CHARADE and TWO FOR THE ROAD. And FUNNY FACE is one of the few musicals I can stomach. WEST SIDE STORY (the original) and FUNNY GIRL are the other ones.

Well, Abbott didn't want Day, and I'm sure it wasn't his idea to film one major dance sequence outdoors... Donen brings his talent to both The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees.

Also like "Indiscreet" and "Bedazzled."

I still think Donen was a hack with bad taste, but not nearly as bad as Blake Edwards’.

Debbie Reynolds said this about Gene Kelly:

"The camera closed in. Gene took me tightly in his arms . . . and shoved his tongue down my throat."Eeew! What was that?" I screeched, breaking free of his grasp and spitting. I ran around frantic, yelling for some Coca-Cola to cleanse my mouth. It was the early 1950s, and I was an innocent kid who had never been French-kissed. It felt like an assault. I was stunned that this thirty-nine-year-old man would do this to me."

Was she really that innocent a flower? She was stunned that a much older actor would want to tongue kiss her? I wonder how Gene Kelly reacted to her spitting and running off to "cleanse" her mouth with Coca-Cola. Anyway, what he did was typical Lots of actors use the tongue in kissing scenes. I guess some actresses don't like it much, but hey, what do they expect?

In "A Shot in the Dark" Elke Sommer, as the provocative maid Maria Gambrelli, proclaims, "I am innocent .... of murder."

Same goes for Debbie....

Stewie and friend—

Debbie came from a strict family, so this doesn't surprise me. Also, she admitted much later that sex wasn't enjoyable for her, much of her life.

R62, I don't think it was because she was an "innocent flower" but her reaction might have had to do with something terrible that happened in her childhood. I recall her telling a story when she was a kid some older kids in the neighbourhood tried to molester her, and her brother or someone had to come and save her.

Debbie originally wanted to be a PE teacher. Nuff' said.

She was only 18 when they shot this film.

Well, she never had a problem with my tongue.

She would have been really good at it…