A Wonderful Pair

Gene: ohhhh 'Shortcut Suzy.'
Rita: ohhhh 'Hard Way Maguire'...
......We're a fine pair.
Gene: A wonderful pair.
Rita: Aren't we, though?

Cover Girl (1944), Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly

Halfway House: Moses Supposes

halfway house halfway through the day, we stop a movie 'bout halfway through... what do we see?



As you may have noticed, I tend to get hung up on film structures and timing. Not sure why but I live for opening scenes, I'm totally enthralled by filmmakers who can stick landings (i.e. the ending -- so difficult) and sometimes I just get hung up on random timed ideas like 20:07, first and last or Halfway House.

Using Singin' in the Rain for a screenshot series is kind of like cheating because every single thing about it is delightful.

"AAAAAAAAA" Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly sing, 51
minutes into the most purely pleasureable 102 of film, ever.

I love the "Moses Supposes" number for the electricity of the dancing but I always thought it was so weird that the boys decide to bury their vocal coach in random props to end the number.

Now I propose that this pile-up is merely a neat coded illustration of the movie's generosity. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly literally can't stop themselves from entertaining you. In most movie musicals "Moses Supposes" would be an unquestionable highlight. Here it's just a break inbetween (and simultaneously about) the movie's best recurring gag: Lina Lamont's inability to speak. Consider and marvel that "and I caaaann't stand 'em" comes immediately before this dance number and Lina and Don's hilariously disastrous 'Recording in Session' immediately follows it. This movie is all about piling it on. No breaks. Unless they're wildly entertaining dance breaks.

It's not an "AAAAAA". It's an "A+"

Gene & Jerry.

Jose here with a question...


Who's your favorite real person/animated character duo? (Even Paula Abdul and that cat from the "Opposites Attract" video count...)

April Showers, Singin' in the Rain

april showers, evenings @ 11

If someone invokes the title Singin' in the Rain you're probably instantly transported to memories of the arguably the most famous dance in film history, as Gene Kelly joyously splashes through the streets, a fool in love grin plastered all over his face. But the greatest thing about Singin' in the Rain is that you don't even have to wait 67 minutes and 48 seconds for the title song and the joy it imparts. You don't even have to wait twenty seconds.


Singin' in the Rain is so generous of spirit that it just hands you the joy the moment the MGM lion stops roaring. And it hands you the title song as soon as the stars names have flashed on their umbrellas in its wicked fun gleefully literal intro.


Here's your stars. They're dancing and singin' in the rain. After all, why make the audience wait? If your movie is overflowing with classic sequences, perfect moments, and exuberant performances you can get away with a lot. There's no need to worry about peaking too early, outstaying your welcome.


It's bliss from frame one on. The bliss increases exponentially. Once Gene (♥) starts splashing around again sixty-seven minutes later, it's become the happiest movie of all time.
*

Cyd Charisse (1921-2008)

The cinema's greatest legs are dancing up to heaven today. Cyd Charisse will get there quickly: the length, the extension, the body flight! She'll be there in two or three grand jetées. When I think of Charisse, my heart usually leaps straight to Brigadoon. It appears in my mind's eye far more often than its fairytale time table of once every 100 years.

I don't think there was a screen romance in my childhood movie loving that felt as sympatico as the one between Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, two phenomenal musical stars and raven haired beauties. How they swooned over each other. I can hear Gene breathily singing to/falling for her right now...

The mist of May is in the gloamin', and all the clouds are holdin' still.
So take my hand and let's go roamin' through the heather on the hill.
The mornin' dew is blinkin' yonder. There's lazy music in the rill,
And all I want to do is wander through the heather on the hill.

I fell in love right along with him, and in both directions, too. They remain one of my favorite screen couples. Cyd, who was 87 years old and one of the last surviving goddesses of the screen musical's heyday, was born Tula Ellice Finklea. Old Hollywood always changed the names to add glamour, simplicity and marquee snap. She will be missed.

MMWAM: Singin' in the Rain

The following review, while appearing on The Film Experience blog, is decidedly not the opinion of Nathaniel Rogers or The Film Experience blog, but belongs solely to his crusty guest contributor, JA of My New Plaid Pants. Its appearance here does not indicate any approval, agreement, vetting, endorsement, or anything of the sort, or perhaps even coming close, by Mr. Rogers and his fine establishment.

Y'all voted to make me watch a musical. And I did.


So this is what is thought of as The Greatest Musical Ever Made, huh? Two hours of shameless mugging and buffoonery? Singin' in the Rain is a disgrace to the "talkies" - I kep hoping some intertitles would pop up and shut these morons up...

Wow, that'd be a downer, eh? If I actually came on here roaring like that? Scared ya, didn't I? He gone and done it; he's gone deranged, you thought. Well relax your furrowed brow, turn away that business-end of your hammer and take that alcohol-soaked rag out of the wine bottle; I couldn't keep up the hate-charade for even one paragraph. Hell, the truth is, I had to do some household chores at the exact half-point of watching the film and I couldn't dry the dishes fast enough to get back to the movie.

So yes, it is true. Singin' in the Rain was an absolute pleasure, a joy, to watch. It's harder to write about things when you sorta kinda wholeheartedly like them, though. Where's the fun in that sort of nonsense? One's critical faculties turn to "durrr" when faced with something so effortless, so enjoyable. But I owe y'all all a review, something beyond "durrr," so let's look at it.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when my hateful, rage-filled defenses were broken down by the film. When I first laughed out loud, and realized it was inevitable that I was probably gonna love this movie. It was with this woman:

"She's so refined. I think I'll kill myself."

Nothing melts this cynical heart quicker than some good suicide humor.

And I'll just come right on out and say it: I kinda wanted to make shameless, dirty love to Gene Kelly. What a pip!

Sexy scar alert!

I was afraid at the start that he'd slide into ham territory; see, one of my main problems with musicals is that I get a little... uncomfortable... when somebody's trying so very hard to, well, Make Me Laugh (yeah... I'll get to Donald O'Connor is just a minute...). It's why I feel nauseous whenever I go to stand-up - if you can see the desperation in their eyes, the wild-eyed terror to please, I want to crawl out of my skin. But I guess there's a reason Gene Kelly was such a big star - who'd have thunk it? - never do you see the seams; never does it feel like he's trying. Effortless.


And as many times as I've seen the "Singin' in the Rain" number, in all sorts of contexts other than within the actual film, seeing it now, in the right context... I get why it's so revered. It's one of the most magical things ever put on screen. My eyes actually kinda welled up, it made me so happy.

Now as for Donald O'Connor...


I have to say he worried me at first. He was the frantic yang to Kelly's yin, all slapsticky buffoonery... but then, about midway through the "Make 'Em Laugh" number as I became progressively worried for his safety - he had to have some bruises after filming that thing - I realized he was actually sending up the hamminess I so fear. He was taking the shtick so far over the top that I breathed a sigh of relief - this movie was definitely smarter than I was afraid it wouldn't be.


As for Debbie Reynolds, well, she was just a doll. No, I mean that literally. Her resemblance to a plastic doll was uncanny and, frankly, slightly terrifying. Tell me if you can spot anything different here from above:


I thought not! Mutant! Plastic baby woman!

I kid. I kid because I love. She too could be described as a "pip." But alas, my heart will always truly belong to another...


Yes, my long sordid history of falling for the villain continues... Jean Hagen as the ditzy (but then not so ditzy, but then mostly ditzy again) villainess star seeking to go all Ursula the Sea Witch on Debbie's voice is and will always be my ain true love.


Give 'em squeaky-voiced hell, Jean!

And because being pervy amuses me, I did find myself wondering at some of the weird subtext within the film. If a dance between two people falling in love symbolizes their, uh, let's just say "courtship" - and I'm pretty certain that's a pretty surefire way to read it:


Then what exactly was going on with the "Good Morning" scene?


Mmmhmm. Heathens!

There was a load of subtext bubbling under the surface of the film between Kelly and O'Connor's characters; I'm sure it's been written about by now, though, so I'll have to go do some digging, check that out. Anybody got anything?


What exactly what Moses supposing anyway?

If I had one problem with the film, it came right at the end: why couldn't they tell Debbie (I just realized I'm calling all of these actors by their own names instead of their characters) what they were going to do when they forced her to stand behind the curtain and sing for Jean Hagen?


It seemed a needlessly cruel route to go that added a dash of false melodrama to what had proceeded so naturally up until then. I guess it was just because Debbie looked cute with tears in her eyes:


Still, I smiled as he brought her back to the stage (after semi-creepily screaming for the crowd to stop her from escaping) and they duetted us out on a happy high.


Here are some other random things that entertained me, but I don't know enough about the context on which the film was riffing, my musical knowledge being so lacking, as to really comment upon (all y'all who know such thing, please feed me your knowledge in the comments!):


Spider Woman rocked! I wanted more of her.


The weird costume song. Apparently this was something that was actually really featured back in musicals back in the day? And Singin' was making fun of it, I guess? The only time I remember seeing this happen was that INSANE scene in The Women when the film slid to color and the most ridiculous outfits I'd ever seen were suddenly paraded out - that scene seemed even more over-the-top then this one. Also, I'm convinced this model was a man:


Those giant pearls are totally hiding an adam's apple.

I don't know what the hell was going on here:


But Gene Kelly sure did look fine dressed all in black.


I know I'm forgetting some things, but I'll let y'all remind me what you find great about Singin' in the Rain in the comments.

And a hearty thank you to everyone who participated in the voting, and has checked out what I've had to write whilst here at The Film Experience. But my biggest, heartiest thank you goes to Nathaniel, for allowing me to pollute his blog with my ramblings once again. I'd be lying if I said I was a little worried I might find myself locked out after not adoring West Side Story completely! But no, he's a generous and kind soul. Thanks, Nat! And thanks everybody! Look for me over on the wrong side of the tracks next time around...
..

It's ONJ Day

Today is the birthday of my childhood icon Olivia Newton-John. One of my dearest friends argues in utmost seriousness that Olivia's voice is what we'll hear the angels sing with in heaven. Who am I to argue? Maybe it's because she was the first celebrity I ever truly loved but she still sends me.

I really don't know why she isn't more celebrated these days --even if it would be in a shallow nostalgia way. At the very least she deserves her own theme night on American Idol given that far less famous singers have had them and her discography is loaded with #1 hits.

Since this is a film site here are five movie related goodies for you. Clockwise from top left for these first four: "Suspended in Time" from Xanadu (1980) one of my all time fav flicks and Olivia songs; "Take a Chance" with John Travolta (check out the hairspray'ed 80s 'dos) from their unfortunate attempt to rekindle the Grease magic with Two of a Kind (1983); "Those Summer Nights" with Travolta again from Grease (1978); and a comedic number with Gene Kelly from a TV special where they adapt "Makin' Whoopee" (yes, the song that makes us all think of my beloved) into "Makin' Movies"





And this schmaltz fest you just gotta take in... It's ONJ with Bette Midler, Meryl Streep, Cher and Goldie Hawn singing "What a Wonderful World". Put that many film divas (+ Olivia) in the same room and it sure is. The angels are already singing



AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THIS POST WAS OVER...
I'm also noticing on IMDB that Olivia is in talks to reprise her last film role for a television series. That'd be Bitsy Mae Harling an ex-con lesbian biker (I'm not making this up) from the strange, countrified, and intermittently funny Sordid Lives. The movie has developed a mini cult of sorts, due in large part to its fun cast which also includes Beth Grant, Bonnie Bedelia, Beau Bridges and Leslie Jordan