With a run time of an hour and two thirds, Erini was awake and active during the entire movie. Then again, it's rather difficult to get bored with Singing in the Rain. Donald O'Conner won a Golden Globe for his role as Cosmo, and that man has talent! His acting, singing, and dancing was something that rivaled his co-star Gene Kelly, if not outdid him. Erini, my wife, and myself were all watching in amazement, when we weren't laughing, during his number Make Them Laugh. The plot is interesting since it's a bit of modern historical fiction. While Monumental Pictures was a fictitious company, they accurately inserted Warner Brothers production, "The Jazz Singer." When that 'talkie' hit the screens, it truly was the death knell for the silent film. All studios did change over to audio synced films, just as they all switched to colour a few years later, and just as Hollywood is now making the leap to digital filming.
I did enjoy the chaos that surrounded the pre-screening of "The Dueling Cavalier." As someone that has worked on the technical side of productions, I know what can go wrong, and that pre-screening followed Murphy's Law with exactness. The microphones picking up ambient sounds, actors forgetting their lines and going along with whatever they feel is good, and of course, sound cue mix ups.
An ironic bit of the movie was the foreshadowing for Debbie Reynold's career. In the movie, her character thinks it would be folly to do a voice over for the movie, since she couldn't possibly see any future in it. While we don't know what happened to Kathy Selden, Debbie Reynolds went on to have success on screen such as in The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Yet, she has also had a great success with voice work as well. Some of her roles include Charlotte from Charlotte's Web (1973), Lulu Pickels (Grandma) from Nickelodeon's Rugrats, and even Nana Possible from Disney's Kim Possible. From beginning to end, Singing in the Rain is a joy to watch, simply because of the fact that you can see these people were enjoying themselves. I would have to watch the commentary track to confirm that statement, yet every song, every dance, and even the costumes showed concerted effort on most everyone involved in the production.
Maybe I'm taking it a bit far, but the fact that my daughter found this musical enjoyable, and that it has been referenced or parodied in numerous films and television shows as early as Alfred Hitchcock's 'North by Northwest' and as recent as Glee.
I wonder if Erini will have a new appreciation for the scene in Robots when Bender is "Singing in the Oil."
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