I remember the words spoken to me over the phone in 1990. The husky and melodic voice seemed to come straight from a movie screen, even though it was a bit older. You spoke to Stanley. What did he have to say? I knew I had Gene Kelly when I saw that.
I was a field-tripping movie journalist, working for both the FT and the BBC, searching for stars and stories in Hollywood. I talked to Stanley Donen about a feature about Singin' in the Rain, and it came to my mind. I was using that interview to get a new one. Gene Kelly was the film's other director and star. He wouldn't let his ex-partner have the last word.
Three decades after my trip yielded a quick-turnround radio doc and a Kelly piece for the FT, it's cut to 2021. A bunch of audiocassettes fall out when I open a cupboard door in a room I am clearing. I cry out when I see them: they have become friends in my memory tank. Gene! You are landing on top of Donald. Is that you as well? Stanley, be careful, you are cracking your protective shell.
Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. Donen Alamy says it was a true collaboration.
How is that? 70 years ago, Donen, Kelly and Team MGM cracked the carapace of the traditional screen musical. The 1952 song-and-dance film has been voted the greatest ever. Because it is a masterpiece of wit, melody and invention built atop the peak already achieved by Kelly-Donen in their first collaboration as directors, and because the songs, script, stars and shooting style are better integrated than in.
The faint whiff of greasepaint and proscenium was present in the gifted gadabouts of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The age of monster musicals creaky with size or schmaltz, and the age of teen shows with disco flair.
Integrated. That is Donen's favourite word for the film's achievement. It was a true collaboration. Everything was organised from the beginning. The musical sequence in the film had more music than the non-musical one.
It was through-composed. As close as Hollywood got. Maybe it was a musical that was more than a musical. Gene Kelly, balding at 77, toupee-less and careless of it, husks on me in his Rodeo Drive home. Musicals can make more social comment than drama. When sound came in, we took the art form of cinema. We told the truth about it.
Donen remembers that sometimes the true collaboration was achieved by harsh discipline. Kelly cracked the whip according to Debbie Reynolds.
Kelly splashes through the rain with her co-stars.
She tells me that she will never know why she was put in Singin' in the Rain. Why wouldn't they cast her? I was an inexperienced 17-year-old and Kathy Selden was her character.
Kathy is the girl brought in to voice-dub the Kelly character's screechy co-star, trying to survive the coming of sound. The Kathy character has to dance and sing.
Reynolds recalls that Mr. Kelly told him to do a time step. I could do that. He said to do a Maxie Ford. I asked what kind of car it was.
Kelly says that she couldn't dance. She was bright and could fake it. I put the taps in for her.
Reynolds says she was worked until her feet bled in the film's most exciting singing-dancing scene. It was late in the night to rehearse. We had been on the couch 40 times. She, Kelly and O'Connor tip over the couch. Gene was not happy. We had to make a decision on the shot. I took two days off.
Kelly disagrees with the bleeding feet. Whole cloth. I did not see it. Nobody else did. She was a hard worker.
O'Connor and Kelly leap off chairs.
Donald O'Connor recalls the different but equal difficulties of the "Make 'Em Laugh" number, which included a dance up a wall and back somersault, but didn't have a solo number for him.
Donen and Kelly asked Arthur Freed to write a new song, since most of the other numbers were in his catalogue. Donen says that his character from The Pirate was similar to his. Freed gave them the same song with different lyrics. Donen says that they went ahead.
The wall-and-somersault dance was O'Connor's only rehearsal. The wall was on concrete. With the backflip, they want me to commit suicide. So sad. We did it in one day. Everyone on the set applauded me when I came back three days later. I was told that we fogged the camera. You will have to do it again.
Reynolds says Kelly is a great dancer.
Singin' in the Rain has flaws. Do we need a long jazz ballet at the end, with ingénue Reynolds replaced by Cyd Charisse? Was Reynolds upset? I am a tap dancer, not a ballerina. I am a hoofer. Cyd Charisse was a great dancer. I wouldn't have a reason to grieve.
Kelly admits that it doesn't fit the rest of the numbers. It is a diversion. But it works.
Singin' in the Rain is a musical that was largely created with used material. Almost every song was back-catalogue. The title number by Freed, who was a leading MGM musicals producer in 1952, is included. The classic movie musical sequence is a result of the movie Singin' in the Rain.
Donen says that the idea was that of a man who is in love and is happy and alive.
It was not easy to get the idea on the screen. Kelly couldn't make the bridge into the song from the preceding love scene until Roger Edens came up with the little vampire. Do-de-do-doo, do-de-do-doo.
Gene Kelly is singing in a living room. I died and went to heaven. He says that the vampire set him on. We shot the number in a day and a half after 10 days of rehearsals. It was difficult.
Kelly in the dance scene that went straight into cinema's hall of fame spawned countless spoofs and tributes.
Donen says that it was done with black tarpaulins. There were wires on the poles. We shot in the summer. The water was warm and hot. The story goes that Kelly had a cold. He did. I recall a slight fever.
All of the information was put into the legend. The scene went straight into the hall of fame. Millions of people who have seen both of them may not have seen Kelly's original.
That is a myth, made from homage and after-history. When we are lucky, add the poetic handprints. Let the last word be given to Deborah Reynolds by the musical's director.
It was an unforgettable number because of the rain, a street, and a lamppost.
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