Singin' in the Rain on the big screen

Singin’ in theRain(1952) recently received a national limited release in cinemas around the country.  It’s a movie that revives that old-time enthusiasm and appreciation for the entertainer.  We have a lot of celebrities nowadays, but fewer multi-talented and trained-by-experience entertainers.

It’s often called one of the best movie movies ever made, and this may be only in part because  of its clever parody of the crisis in Hollywood when silent movies shifted to sound; in large measure it is because of the musical numbers which serve a dual purpose.  They certainly move the plot along, as is the function of a musical number, but each number is also a stand-alone piece that can be lifted from the movie and appreciated as a pure moment of vaudevillian showmanship.  Many of them are “big” numbers, like “Make “Em Laugh”, “Good Morning”, the “Gotta Dance” sequence, and the iconic title song number with Gene Kelly splashing in the studio soundstage streets.

The cinema audience with whom I watched the movie reacted to the big numbers with murmured, almost awed, “Wow, that was good.”

This, despite the audience not being what I would easily identify as a crowd of old movie buffs.  Indeed, though I do believe most were at least familiar with the movie—I judged that the majority of them were middle aged or senior citizens, with only a few younger parents with children—the overall impression I got was that most had perhaps not seen the movie in a very long time.  They seemed surprised by the plot turns. 

Of course, in any group of movie goers, some people will laugh in places we do not expect them to, and remain silent in other spots that we might think are uproariously funny. 

“Haven’t you seen that movie before?  Don’t you have it?” I was asked before I headed out to the warehouse-cum-gulag-styled-construction cinema, as I am in infrequent visitor there.  As any classic film fan can tell you, when it comes to seeing an old favorite on the big screen, as it’s meant to be seen—no, we really haven’t seen it before.  The colors are captivating.  I never noticed before the movie poster in the background during the scene where Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor are standing outside the theater—one of them featured William Haines.  Few non-classic film fans today will know who he was.  Did the public remember his film career in 1952 when this film was originally released?  Was this a tribute by the industry he abandoned because he refused to hide his homosexuality?

I noticed wrinkles in Cyd Charisse’s stockings when she drapes one beautiful gam over Kelly’s shoulder.

The most fascinating effect for me were the scenes set inside a theater, where the camera pulls back and we see row upon row of audience.  Watching this scene in a modern cinema that has stadium seating, it looked as if the last row of the movie “audience” was the first row in our cinema audience.  I felt as if were in the same theater as the movie characters, that I was in one of the back rows of the same theater.

I enjoyed the intro and outro by Ben Mankiewicz—which I think are very helpful for general public audiences not as familiar with classic films—and marveled along with the audience, his mention of Donald O’Connor requiring hospitalization after his frenetic “Make ‘Em Laugh” number, O’Connor’s being a four-pack a day smoker at the time.  (The recent passing of Debbie Reynolds also brought soft exclamations of appreciation when her name appeared on screen.)

The information served to underscore the effect the audience had of this being a celebration of the entertainer – someone whose work on screen is not necessarily only a product of special effects or any movie magic we have become accustomed to, i.e. a packaged performance in a modern movie that tries to impress us with “reality.” 

For this film, and this showing, the audience readily marveled at the talent and the exhausting work of the entertainer, not just as part of a splashy show, but as an individual who for that golden, ethereal moment, stands out from the piece.  A show stopper.

“Wow…that was good.”

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Come back next Thursday when we trail the marvelous Jean Arthur in a silly romp through Depression-era Easy Living(1935).

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Requiescat in pace - Debbie Reynolds

For her wonderful talents, for her humor, for her dedication to the preservation of Hollywood film history, and for her heartbreak at the loss of her daughter, we pay tribute to Debbie Reynolds, but we do not say goodbye.  We can still visit Tammy, and Molly Brown, and all the rest of them.  They, like her memory, will always bring a smile.

The Automat in the Movies

It's 1934, the worst year of the Great Depression, and Joan Crawford goes to the Automat in Sadie McKee because she can't afford better.  She can't even afford the Automat, scraping just enough nickels for a cup of coffee.

But The Little King, who is rich, and a king, also goes to the Automat in 1934 in Sultan Pepper, just for a lark, for the fun of it.

The Horn and Hardart Automat of New York City seems to bear the dual reputation of being a place of stark frugality and also a place of playful ingenuity.  It was nothing if not egalitarian.

It's fun to see it pop up in classic films from time to time.  Jean Arthur, down on her luck as Joan Crawford was, visits the Automat in 1937 for Easy Living, but finds rich boy Ray Milland slumming there, not unlike The Little King.  She determinedly tries to eat in the middle of riotous food fight.

By 1950, in Mister 880, which we discussed in this previous post, Burt Lancaster and the feds are trying to track Edmund Gwenn down for counterfeiting, and the Automat here seems less stylish, and more utilitarian.  A place where counterfeiters might hang out.

By 1956 and The Catered Affair, a serious young couple played by Debbie Reynolds and Rod Taylor discuss marriage.  Again, the Automat seems even more dour in this setting than it did for poor Joan Crawford in the depths of the Depression.  Perhaps it was no longer novelty and just another cheap cafeteria?

In 1962 in That Touch of Mink, Doris Day has a conversation with Audrey Meadows through the open food service slot, and because Doris is unemployed, pal Audrey, who works there, slips her food.  Here the Automat is fun again, and we don't take the hunger pangs seriously. 

For more on the Automat have a look at this brief documentary on YouTube.  Someone also put up a series of movie automat scenes, starting here.  Apparently one of the first, if not the first, was The Early Bird (1925).  The Automat had been around since 1912.  It closed in 1991.

Come back next Thursday for part six of our year-long monthly series on the classic film fan, and we'll have a look at John Greco's new book, Lessons in the Dark, a collection of essays from his blog Twenty-Four Frames.

Let Them Eat Cake

Hollywood in the studio era has left us a few thousand bushels of images of its stars, both on and off the set.  One of the most recurring images, which always amuses me, is of stars eating cake.  Usually on set.  Often on somebody's birthday.  Above, Charles Boyer, Ann Blyth, and Jessica Tandy take a break from A Woman's Vengeance (1948 - discussed in this previous post) and in my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.  The occasion is Ann's nineteenth birthday.

 

Both Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell shared an April 1st birthday.  I wouldn't guess they always spent it together, but on this day it saved MGM from having to buy two cakes.

 

Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Joan Blondell, Lina Romay and director Victor Fleming on the set of Adventure (1946 -"Gable's Back and Garson's Got Him!" - you knew that was coming, didn't you?)  It appears to be Joan's birthday on this one, and she's actually got two cakes there, unlike the unfortunate Debbie and Jane, who had to share one.

Joan Crawford wields a sense of humor and an ax on a cake wishing her luck on her latest film Strait-Jacket (1964).  Back in the day, they had cake to celebrate the start of filming, the end of filming, and probably the middle of filming.   

 



Katharine Hepburn, as skinny as she was, clearly made cake a staple of her diet. Here she is riveted on director Vincente Minnelli's birthday cake, wishing he would hurry up and cut it. Robert Taylor lines up for his piece.  This is the set of Undercurrent (1946).  Something about birthday cake sort of unravels the mystique of Film Noir, doesn't it?

Myrna Loy with an enormous cake.  Beats the heck out of me what the occasion was, but it's clear all these people ever did was eat cake.  They did not work very much at all.  They just showed up to the studio every day for cake.

"I'm ready for my close-up"? -- No-o-o.  It was, "I want the piece with the flower on it."

 

Barbara Stanwyck, Eric Blore, Herbert Marshall, probably on the set of Breakfast for Two (1937).  Another hard day at the salt mine.  Pass the dessert plates.

 

"Quiet on the set!" they'd yell, "We're trying to eat our cake!"