Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Directors:  Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
Cast:  Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell

Finally reviewing my favorite movie of all time!  My friend was kind enough to burn me a copy, so here we go!

THE PLOT:  Everyone thinks the musical is about rain.  Well, that's not entirely true.  "Singin' in the Rain" is the title song and the ending movie, but those are only two scenes in which rain appears.

Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) is a huge Hollywood star in 1927.  His co-star, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), is loud, annoying and has a voice like metal on a chalkboard.  Don and Lina play an on-screen romantic couple..  In real life, their studio, Monumental Pictures, has linked them romantically, but in reality, Don hates Lina and Lina loves Don.  They're working on a new picture, The Dueling Cavalier, which turns out to be a total flop.  So, Don, his girlfriend Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) and his best friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) decide to make The Dueling Cavalier into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier.  Completely original, I agree.  But here's the thing:  Lina can't sing or dance for brains ("She can't act, she can't sing and she can't dance.  A triple threat"), so Don and Cosmo, who spend the entire movie acting like a couple of frat boys, decide to dub Lina's voice with Kathy's.

Well, we all know from any stoner movie that any plan by two male characters who are best friends fails, or at least turns sour.  Such is the case here.  Lina threatens studio boss R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) and tells him that Kathy must dub her voice all the time.  R.F., Don and Cosmo move forward under the guise that they are going along with what Lina wants (Kathy gets mad at Don because she doesn't know that they're doing this), and then at the end, everything gets solved and then Don and Kathy share a kiss.

THE REVIEW:  I absolutely LOVE this movie because A. it's a musical. B. it's Gene Kelly. C. it's Donald O'Connor.  I was disappointed that Donald's lines in the film seemed to decrease from many to little to almost none, but his iconic "Make 'em Laugh" is amazing.  Donald was smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day at the time, and he pulled off his iconic wall jump somersault with ease.  Gene Kelly performed the fantastic "Singin' in the Rain" number with a 103-degree fever.  And Debbie Reynolds, despite having been chastised by Gene (always known as a bit of a dictator on set) for her poor dancing and singing (her voice was actually Jean Hagen's voice singing, and Jean Hagen's talking voice was not her real voice), does an awesome job on "You Were Meant for Me" dancing with Gene.  Everyone did such a great job despite their shortcomings, and for that heart and determination, I give this film a 5 out of 5.  It truly deserves to be my favorite film.