| | |  | Musicals | Home » » » Singin' in the Rain | | | | | | | Description: | | Decades before the Hollywood film industry became famous for megabudget disaster and science fiction spectaculars, the studios of Southern California (and particularly Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) were renowned for a uniquely American (and nearly extinct) kind of picture known as The Musical. Indeed, when the prestigious British film magazine Sight & Sound conducts its international critics poll in the second year of every decade, this 1952 MGM picture is the American musical that consistently ranks among the 10 best movies ever made. It's not only a great song-and-dance piece starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and a sprightly Debbie Reynolds; it's also an affectionately funny insider spoof about the film industry's uneasy transition from silent pictures to "talkies." Kelly plays debonair star Don Lockwood, whose leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) has a screechy voice hilariously ill-suited to the new technology (and her glamorous screen image). Among the musical highlights: O'Connor's knockout "Make 'Em Laugh"; the big "Broadway Melody" production number; and, best of all, that charming little title ditty in which Kelly makes movie magic on a drenched set with nothing but a few puddles, a lamppost, and an umbrella. --Jim Emerson | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell | | Director:
| Gene Kelly | | Format:
| Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC | | Language:
| English, French | | Subtitle:
| English, French | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | | Run Time:
| 103 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| June 06, 2000 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 352 reviews |
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- Good | | | $49.99 | New | | | $125.00 | Collectible
- Mint | | | $199.00 | Used
- Good | |
| New | |
| $6.27 | New | | | $6.27 | New | | | $6.31 | New | | | $14.99 | New | | | $22.37 | New | | | $23.98 | New | | | $28.90 | New | | | $49.99 | New | |
| Used | |
| $5.97 | Used
- Good | | | $5.98 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $6.14 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $6.29 | Used
- Mint | | | $6.31 | Used
- Mint | | | $6.33 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $6.75 | Used
- Good | | | $6.84 | Used
- Good | | | $6.99 | Used
- Mint | | | $7.99 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $8.90 | Used
- Mint | | | $9.96 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $9.99 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $14.88 | Used
- Good | | | $15.90 | Used
- Good | | | $16.47 | Used
- Good | | | $18.00 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $18.50 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $18.95 | Used
- VeryGood | | | $18.99 | Used
- Good | | | $35.61 | Used
- Good | | | $38.94 | Used
- Good | | | $199.00 | Used
- Good | |
| Collectible | |
| $125.00 | Collectible
- Mint | |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 What Else Can You Say?Aug 30, 2010
I find nothing not to love about this determinedly unpretentious musical comedy from MGM. Sure, it's hammy. Yes, the "Broadway Melody" goes on too long, especially the out-of-place ballet that seems nothing more than an ego trip for Gene Kelly. Nobody in this movie is any great shakes as a singer. The songs are random and don't advance the story. Still, the comedy bubbles along nicely in the Hollywood-transitions-to-sound plot. Jean Hagen as the shrill silent beauty Lina Lamont and Cyd Charisse as the emerald-clad femme fatale in a nightclub keep me in stitches. Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly dance up a storm in their early career montage and "Moses Supposes" numbers. Newcomer Debbie Reynolds holds her own in the relentless "Good Morning." Somebody's having an acid-trip good time with the colors and costumes, especially in the "Beautiful Girls" sequence, which borrows heavily from Busby Berkeley's 30s-era choreography at Warner Brothers ("Big Lebowski" fans take notice). And of course there's the title song and dance. Plenty of catchy popular songs to carry around in your head for the next several days, plenty of giggles and belly laughs, and some of the best dance you'll ever see on film. Pop it in your DVD player on a cloudy day and, no matter how tone deaf you are, you'll be singing in the rain too.
perfectJul 29, 2010
The item was delivered earlier than expected, arrived exactly as described (NEW), and a perfect transaction. Thank you!!!!!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 SINGIN IN THE RAIN DVDJul 27, 2010
I THOUGHT THIS WAS GOING TO BE NEW. BOX/CASE WAS BROKEN AND IN HORRIBLE CONDITION. THIS WAS SUPPOSE TO BE A GIFT. I CANNOT GIVE THIS IN THE CONDITION IT IS IN.
"Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes... erroneously."May 02, 2010
- Lina Lamont (after being kissed by her leading man in a scene): "Oh, Donny, you couldn't kiss me like that and not mean it just a teensy-weensy bit."
- Don Lockwood: "Meet the greatest actor in the world. I'd rather kiss a tarantula!"
- Lina: "Oh, you don't mean that."
- Don: "I don't... hey, Joe, bring me a tarantula!"
As much as it pains me to admit it - primarily because Fred Astaire is my favorite hoofer - Gene Kelly's SINGIN' IN THE RAIN probably is the finest musical ever put on cinema with, in my opinion, THE WEST SIDE STORY and Astaire's TOP HAT and THE BAND WAGON just coming up short. Set in the early days of Hollywood, just as movies were transitioning from silent to talkies, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN deserves all the good, good rep it's garnered down the decades. It features marvelous dancing and singing and, damn, it's so funny. The sequence featuring a preview showing of THE DUELLING CAVALIER ("100% All Talkie"), as technical difficulties get the better of the poor picture, is hands down one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen - "No! No! No!" "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Not to mention, the sly digs at the film industry are as timely and on-point today as they were back in 1952. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and, for whatever reason, LES GIRLS, are my two favorite Gene Kelly flicks.
Gene Kelly stars, co-directs, and choreographs. But it's not all about Gene Kelly. Other folks have a hand in. Donald O'Connor matches Kelly tap for tap as the wiseacre sidekick Cosmo Brown and he provides one of the film's best moments in the slapsticky and marvelously physical musical number "Make 'Em Laugh." Debbie Reynolds, perky Miss Burbank of 1948 and still a teenager when this film was made, exudes freshness and a sort of girl-next-door sexy that makes even jumping out of a cake seem wholesome.
Meanwhile, Jean Hagen hijacks scenes and submits possibly the best dumb blonde performance I've ever seen (sorry, Judy Holliday). Hagen is brilliant as self-absorbed silent film siren Lina Lamont whose screechy, nerve-jangling voice doesn't bode well for her next feature picture which is currently being converted into a talking picture. Her adoring fans, of course, had never heard her speak in public before. Lina's constant leading man Don Lockwood (Kelly) despises her and fears that the upcoming talkie - featuring Lina's voice - will sink his career. But then Don's former song-and-dance partner, Cosmo, comes up with a dilly of an idea...
"Dignity, always dignity" is Don Lockwood's response when interviewed about his life. In a gala opening of one of his movies, Don recounts his "dignified" backstory to the adoring public, even as the accompanying flashbacks give the lie to all that dignity. What this sequence accomplishes is to let you in right away that the tone would be very much tongue-in-cheek and breezy and even a tad subversive.
You look at what Kelly and O'Connor do in this movie and you marvel at the athleticism and sheer fitness level mustered up. About this movie I could toss all sorts of superlatives at the wall, and most of them will stick. There's a joyous energy present throughout, and a sense of grace and high-spiritedness and spontaneity. There's the tight and witty screenplay. And for period buffs, the painstaking recreation of time and place. Kelly and the crew worked their tails off to ensure historical authenticity. And if you're a movie buff, this is a homage to the golden age of cinema... and a wicked bursting of bubbles. Old song standards are dusted off and reinterpreted, and I'm particularly digging the exuberance of the musical performances in "Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)," in O'Connor's dynamic "Make 'Em Laugh" and in "Good Morning" and the title song itself, and the lotsa fun "Moses Supposes" (really the only original song here).
This is the 2-Disc Special Edtion and its loaded bonus features are by themselves worth the money: alternating audio commentary with Debbie Reynolds, Donald O'Connor, Cyd Charisse, Kathleen Freeman, Co-Director Stanley Donen, Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and Author/Film Historian Rudy Behlmer; 2 documentaries: "What A Glorious Feeling" (35 minutes, hosted by Debbie Reynolds as she fondly looks back at the film) and "Musicals Great Musicals: The Arthur Freed Unit at MGM" (a focus on producer/song lyricist Arthur Freed's film works; 86 minutes); excerpts of 12 Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown songs from the originating movies (including Ukelele Ike's rendition of "Singin' in the Rain" from THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929); the deleted "You Are My Lucky Star" outtake (4 minutes) as Kathy Selden (Reynolds' character) serenades a billboard of Don Lockwood's; "Scoring Session Music Cues" - original recordings of the songs in the movie, including multiple takes and material either dropped or revised in the final film; a list of the awards the film won; a listing of the film's cast & crew; "Singin' Inspirations" is a pretty awesome option which, if prompted, will play additional hidden footage and feed you more fun facts about the film; "Reel Sound" is a brief text feature which touches on "several major transitional films made as the silent era turned to sound" (mentions THE JAZZ SINGER and THE BROADWAY MELODY); the theatrical trailer; and a Stills Gallery.
To top it all off SINGIN' IN THE RAIN looks visually stunning, being a vibrant technicolor extravaganza from MGM. Or as Kathy Selden describes Don Lockwood in his wardrobe: "You looked so dazzling in your green knickers, yellow sweater, and orange beret." I guess, another way to put it is like this: Dignity, always dignity. What a riot.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 O-k-a-y...........Apr 17, 2010
Well, let's just say it wasn't horrible, but I could have spent my entire life without seeing it and been just fine. LOL.
There were some short funny moments, and if you haven't seen the movie yet I don't want to spoil them for you. There were a couple of l-o-n-g dance numbers, some of which I found to be strange (if you don't like the strange numbers in White Christmas you probably won't like these). My favorite part of the movie was the title number 'Singing in the Rain'. Gene Kelly was a really good dancer, but I thought Donald O'Connor was just as good, if not better. Mr. Kelly and Mr. O'Connor almost looked as if they were being held up by strings their dancing was so effortless, and Mr. O'Connor could do some pretty neat tricks with his face too. Unfortunately, some of the love scenes were pretty 'gaggy', and my family and I couldn't help laughing out loud. The costumes (for the most part) were pretty cool, and I especially liked the matching sweater and socks set Mr. Kelly wore. :D The bonus features were nothing to write home about and most of them seemed to be about the MGM instead of the movie itself. If you're hoping to get bonus and behind the scenes footage common to today's movies, you'll probably be disappointed.
All in all, I'm glad I borrowed it from my library for only 50 cents and didn't pay full price for it.
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