Singin' in the Rain

Story

Set during the transition to sound, the film industry is having trouble adapting. Silent movie stars Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) are forced to change their upcoming film into a talkie; but Lina doesn’t have the voice for it. Rising actress, Kathy Seldon (Debbie Reynolds) has a beautiful singing voice. In a series of acrobatic dances, bright songs and humorous mishaps Don, Kathy and Cosmo (Donald O’Conner) attempt to save the film.

Why we chose it

An enduring film, with fantastic choreography and music. Not only is it a classic romantic comedy plot itself, featuring a love triangle and a series of misunderstandings, Singin’ in the Rain examines a key point in film history, the transition to sound, which has had a massive impact on the way we ingest stories today – now we expect films to have sound!

Where it came from

The film was conceived based on a back catalogue of songs written for MGM, so the film was written to fit the songs (now called a jukebox musical). Most of the songs were written when ‘talkies’ (films with sound) were taking over from silent films, so the writers (Betty Comden and Adolph Green) decided to set the film in the same period.

Where it went next

The film was selected for preservation as culturally significant by the National Library of Congress in 1989. The song Singin’ In the Rain remains a song in popular memory, and the image of Gene Kelly dancing with an umbrella in the rain continues to be an iconic image often recreated in modern films including La La Land (2016) and Beauty and the Beast (2017).