Singin' in the rain [DVD]

The seemingly eternal freshness of “Singin’ in the rain” may be the result of an unusual degree of improvisation involved in its making. More than most musicals this was a team effort - a coming together of talents striving to overcome the limitations that they saw in the material and given space in which to move. In the process they not only produced one of the finest of movie musicals but also one of the best Hollywood-on-Hollywood movies - an intelligent and affectionate satire on the coming of synchronised sound. It is also a high point of what Richard Dyer calls the Utopian musical of the fifties which erased the distinction between the narrative and the musical numbers, the ultimate management of the contradiction between realism and fantasy inherent in the genre. Features catchy tunes, lively choreography with the athletic grace and Irish charm of Gene Kelly, engaging performances and hilarious jokes. Gene Kelly was co-director, choreographer and actor in this spectacular musical and in 1989 it was one of the first twenty-five films selected by the US Library of Congress for its National Film Registry of significant films.