Singin' in the Rain

The songs came before the story. Producer Arthur Freed wanted a musical built from the MGM catalogue he had written with Nacio Herb Brown, and Betty Comden and Adolph Green had to find a plot for it. Only two numbers were written for the picture, Make ’Em Laugh and Moses; the title song came from MGM’s Hollywood Revue of 1929. The film’s best joke was repeated behind the camera: in the scene where Kathy dubs Lina’s voice, Debbie Reynolds’ own voice did not work, so Jean Hagen dubbed Reynolds. Reynolds was 19 and had no dance training; at the end of a 14 hour day on Good Morning her feet were bleeding. Stanley Donen directed alongside Gene Kelly. At the Academy, Jean Hagen was nominated for actress in a supporting role and Lennie Hayton in the music category then called scoring of a musical picture; neither won. The National Board of Review put it on its ten best list for the year. A good fit if you accept numbers that stop the story rather than advance it, and a long ballet in the middle that becomes its own show. Not for viewers who want the coming of sound told seriously: the studio jokes about its own past and the era’s technical mishaps.