Release Year: 1952

Genre: Comedy, Musical, Romance

Directors: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

Writers: Adolph Green, Betty Comden

Stars: Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor

Let's cut to the chase: When it comes to movie-musicals, there's Singin' in the Rain, and then there's everything else.

Strike that.

There's Singin' in the Rain, then there's the Grand Canyon, then there's a 700-foot moat, then there's a pack of hungry wolves, then there's another Grand Canyon, and then there's everything else.

Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on March 27, 1952, Singin' in the Rain documents the movie industry's bumpy transition from silent films to "talkies." Featuring songs by legendary producer Arthur Freed, its cast is a Who's Who of old Hollywood luminaries: Gene Kelly. Debbie Reynolds. Donald O'Connor. Jean Hagen. These guys and gals are the real deal.

Not content to just sing, dance, and act his way into Hollywood history, Kelly also choreographed and co-directed the film with Stanley Donen. Singin' in the Rain was the pinnacle of Kelly's career. It's not only the gold standard for Hollywood musicals, but also a witty, wickedly funny satire of Hollywood. The screenplay, by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, won the writing duo a Writers Guild of America Award in 1953.

Singin' in the Rain raked in an impressive $1,729,345 worldwide and was re-issued twice: once in 1974 and again in 1992. It's been adapted for the stage numerous times, both on Broadway and in London's West End, and it was also one of the first films screened in Communist China (source). Roger Ebert, who knew a thing or two about movies, claimed that watching Singin' in the Rain was a "transcendent experience, and no one who loves movies can afford to miss it" (source).

The movie was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Score for composer Lennie Hayton and Best Supporting Actress for Jean Hagen. And while Hayton and Hagen both went home empty-handed on Oscar night, the American Film Institute later ranked Singin' in the Rain as the greatest movie-musical of all time, and the fifth greatest movie in any genre of all time.

In short, no movie education is complete without Singin' in the Rain. Or, as Time Out London proclaims, "If you've never seen it and don't, you're bonkers" (source).

Answer: Gene Kelly. That's it. We're done here.

But seriously, Kelly's iconic "Singin' in the Rain" sequence teaches you everything you need to know to make a timeless, enduring movie-musical classic for your Film Studies class at NYU. As Kelly's wife, film historian Patricia Ward Kelly, explains, "[It is] so contemporary. It isn't attached to any particular time…You see such a broad range of style of dance…You see a lot of gymnastics and things that have influenced hip-hop and break-dancing. People don't look at it and say, 'Oh that's really old and tired.' They look at it and say, 'Oh I'd really like to do that' or 'I can do that'" (source).

Film History 152: The Sound Era

Singin' in the Rain is also a snapshot of a pivotal time in cinema history. It may be a comedy, but it touches on real drama that went down in 1920s Hollywood, when movie studios turned to talking pictures, and silent film stars who couldn't roll with the changes got left in the celluloid dust. In fact, many of the characters in Betty Comden and Adolph Green's script had real-life counterparts. As AllMovie's Bruce Eder asserts, Singin' in the Rain is "a short-course pop-history lesson" for filmmakers and film fans alike (source)

Don Lockwood Unchained

For a traditional movie-musical, Singin' in the Rain is refreshingly self-aware. According to Empire Online, the movie "appears ageless through its sky-high level of film literacy. Boasting more filmic references than a Quentin Tarantino scrapbook, Rain is chocker with Hollywood skits and spoofs… mounted with love and affection. With its network of allusion and pastiche, Singin' in the Rain is a postmodernist film before postmodernism was invented" (source).

In other words, Singin' in the Rain includes more pop culture references than an episode of Family Guy. And by skewering its own industry with an affectionate wink, Singin' in the Rain is a pretty progressive flick. It isn't just timeless; it was also ahead of its time.

This Ain't Your Grandma's Musical

Sadly, it was also the end of an era.

Singin' in the Rain, along with other Arthur Freed films like An American in Paris (1951) and The Band Wagon (1953), isn't like most musicals. It features an original, brand spankin' new concept, written specifically for the big screen. It's also an integrated musical, meaning characters don't suddenly, and nonsensically, burst into song for no good reason; instead, song and dance numbers come about organically and incorporate props that are already in the scene. Cool, right?

Right. At least for a little while.

Then Hollywood went right back to its old ways, adapting Broadway plays for the silver screen. The problem is, by this time, after a solid thirty-year run, the "golden age" of movie musicals had maxed out its lifespan. As Roger Ebert points out, younger audiences wanted fresher fare that pulled from new music like The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night and Pink Floyd's The Wall (source). The current generation of moviegoers didn't want their parents' recycled productions, man.

Soon enough, the old-school movie musical fell off the map. But Singin' in the Rain endures. With its iconic song and dance numbers and clever, satirical story, it was one of a kind. It's no wonder that, in 1989, the Library of Congress's National Film Preservation Board added Singin' in the Rain to its registry in honor of its cultural significance. 

As the movie's tagline goes, "What a glorious feeling!"