Summary
Kathy, Cosmo, and Lockwood become more and more excited about the prospect of turning the failed movie into a musical when suddenly they realize that they have been up all night talking about what to do and it is now morning. Outside it is raining, and the trio sings a cheery song and does a tap routine about the fact that they accidentally stayed up all night called “Good Morning, Good Morning.” They dance around Lockwood’s house, dancing happily together. They suddenly grab raincoats and hats and begin dancing with the rain gear. They then abandon the rain gear to do more tapping before collapsing on a couch in laughter. Lockwood is abruptly struck by a disheartening realization: They cannot do a musical because Lina has to be in it and she cannot act, sing, or dance.
Cosmo is struck by an idea, and asks Kathy to sing. She does, and Cosmo directs her to stand behind him and sing while he mouths the words along with her. Lockwood is confused and Cosmo explains that he thinks they should dub Kathy’s voice for Lina’s in the movie. Lockwood doesn’t like the sound of it, as he believes that if Kathy dubbed Lina’s voice, she “wouldn’t be seen” and would be compromising her own career. Kathy insists, however, that this decision will not affect her career and that she will only be dubbing for Lina on this one film, The Duelling Cavalier. Seeing that Kathy is willing, Lockwood agrees and the trio gets excited about pitching the idea to Simpson the following day. Kathy kisses Lockwood and proclaims, “Don, you’re a genius!” Cosmo jokingly remarks that he is the one who thought of it, and Kathy plants a small peck on his lips, and he falls off the couch comically.
The scene shifts and we see Lockwood kissing Kathy on her front stoop and wishing her goodnight. They stand under an umbrella, as it is still raining, and Kathy tells Lockwood to take care of his throat and that the rain is unusual. “From where I stand, the sun is shining all over the place,” Lockwood says to Kathy, kissing her. She goes into her house and Lockwood walks out into the rain and motions for his driver to drive away without him. When his car leaves, Lockwood begins singing to himself and walking down the street. He then lowers his umbrella and lets the rain fall on him, shrugs about getting wet and begins to sing the title song, “Singin’ in the Rain.” Overjoyed by his new romance and the prospect of saving his movie career, Lockwood climbs up on a lamppost and hangs off it, singing about how he is “laughing at clouds” and undisturbed by the inclement weather. He continues to walk down the street, smiling and holding his head up towards the rain triumphantly. As the song continues, Lockwood breaks into a jubilant tap dance, getting soaked all the while, standing under gutters and splashing around in puddles. Suddenly he encounters a cop who looks at him curiously about his unusual behavior. The song ends.
The following day, Lockwood and Cosmo pitch their idea to Simpson, who thinks it’s a great idea, but worries about Lina’s reaction to having Kathy do her dubbing. “I guarantee ya, Lina won’t even know she’s on the lot!” Lockwood insists, which puts Simpson’s mind at ease. The men then try and think of a new title for the film now that it is a musical. They pace around the room brainstorming, when Cosmo is struck with the idea to change the name to The Dancing Cavalier. Simpson likes the idea and wants to talk about the modern musical numbers that they will add to the film. Cosmo pitches an idea: now the protagonist is a Broadway dancer who, one night, is reading The Tale of Two Cities backstage and gets hit by a falling sandbag in the wings, which leads him to believe that he is in the 18th century. With this addition to the plot, Cosmo argues, they can use both contemporary and period dance styles alongside one another. Simpson loves the idea.
The scene shifts and we see Kathy singing along with an orchestra into a microphone. She sings beautifully and Lockwood sits nearby watching her admiringly. We then see Lina singing the song into a device, her voice much more unpleasant than Kathy’s. The scene shifts yet again to Lina and Lockwood acting out a scene, Kathy’s voice being dubbed in for Lina’s. The camera zooms in on Lina’s face as she sings, but Kathy’s voice comes out, and the screen gradually becomes black-and-white, to show that we are now in a screening room, where Simpson, Cosmo, and Lockwood all watch the film together. Simpson declares that the film is “perfect!” and stands triumphantly, declaring that after the film is released, he plans to give Kathy more opportunities.
Lockwood then tells Simpson that there are still a few more scenes to shoot before the film can be released, one of which is a modern song called “Broadway Melody,” about “a young hoofer who comes to New York.” As Lockwood gestures towards the movie screen in the screening room, the scene shifts and we see Lockwood singing “Broadway Melody.” It is a rousing traditional song about the bright lights of Broadway, and Lockwood begins singing it vigorously with a hat and cane, standing alone in a spotlight. As the camera zooms out, a number of marquee lights turn on, for casinos and hotels and other Broadway establishments, and a giant crowd of dancers files in. Lockwood appears again, this time dressed as the bright-eyed hoofer newly arriving in New York. He dances through lines of dancers all meant to be New Yorkers. He walks along a moving sidewalk, and walks into a stage set of a building marked as a Talent Agency. He knocks on several agents’ doors and does small dance routines for each. The first two “agents” slam their doors on him, but the third shakes his hand and wants to do business with him, leading him through a nearby door and onto the set of a dancehall meant to look like a speakeasy.
A crowd of dancers in the speakeasy begins to sing and dance along with Lockwood, and the number eventually turns into another Lockwood tap dance. It is exceedingly athletic and impressive. At one point he slides towards the outstretched leg of a woman dressed as a 1920s flapper in a green dress. She blows cigarette smoke out her nose and stares at Lockwood with a seductive gaze, his hat balanced on her foot, which she raises above her head. Lockwood takes his hat off her foot and they go off to dance while several gangster-looking men watch them from the table where the woman was sitting. Lockwood and the woman dance, the woman moving seductively and blowing more and more cigarette smoke in his face. They dance until the gangsters lure the woman away, holding Lockwood back from following her. He is then swept up in the speakeasy once again.
Analysis
The idea to make the film into a musical is the idea that can save the failed talkie. Having stayed up all night fretting about the future of his career, Lockwood is re-invigorated by the realization that the failed movie is salvageable. Even though he is not a great actor—his hammy antics ruined The Duelling Cavalier—he is a great singer and dancer and can therefore turn the movie into a musical by relying on his old vaudeville chops. Thus, it is the recycling of old forms and the performers’ experience with vaudeville, a popular theatrical form that predated film entirely, that allows them to salvage their film careers. The tension between Lockwood and Kathy when they first met was about their stubborn belief that their respective performing styles were superior—he was snooty about silent film acting and she was snooty about her love of the stage—but now they come together around their shared love of the musical, which combines both of their skills, and their desire to put the musical on screen.
This section of the film includes the iconic title song, a charming scene of bald-faced optimism and cheery forward thinking. Having dropped Kathy off at her apartment and made a plan for how to save the terrible movie he recently made, Lockwood feels emboldened to walk through the unusually rainy Los Angeles streets without an umbrella. The gist of the song is that he is so overjoyed by his situation that he feels impervious to the rain, a weather condition that irritates and bothers most. He is so elevated by his love for Kathy and his excitement about making a movie musical that his life itself turns into a musical, and he dances down the street, getting wetter and wetter. With music and tap shoes, the world can become a magical and imaginative place, a fanciful playground in which to celebrate happiness. When one is happy, the title suggests, one’s cares slip away and one is immune to the unpleasantness of life.
Gene Kelly is an exceptionally likable and adept performer, which adds to the charm of the whole film, and especially the title number. Debbie Reynolds, who plays Kathy, and Donald O’Connor, who plays Cosmo, are also wonderful musical performers, and their upbeat and virtuosic dancing and singing help to lift up the movie's somewhat simplistic plot, and keep it moving. The story of Singin’ in the Rain can have high stakes, but it is never especially complicated, which leaves a lot of room for light-hearted and enjoyable musical numbers. Sentiments are simple and can be changed quickly; one minute a character is sad and the next they are dancing. Gene Kelly is an athletic and impressive dancer as well as a charismatic and likable leading man, which imbues the film with a positivity and high-spiritedness that uplifts the viewer.
While the film might have a rather thin plot, it makes up for it through the sincerity of the characters’ emotions and their heartwarming personal journeys, seen perhaps most vividly in the music. The viewer doesn’t know much specifically about Lockwood and Kathy’s love for one another apart from their charmingly combative meet-cute, but their love is palpable and expresses itself in the musical moments that they share. While a film drama might communicate aspects of characters and relationships through the use of dialogue and more complicated dynamics, Singin' in the Rain communicates the most when it is being straightforward and sincere, when a rather simple emotion is being expressed musically. The title song, “Singin’ in the Rain,” might be a dance number, a vehicle to demonstrate Gene Kelly’s exceptional talents, but it communicates a great deal about Lockwood’s blithely cavalier attitude and his uplifting love for Kathy. The fact that it is contrived and unrealistic makes it feel all the more heightened—as though the world is much more magical than anyone knows. Similarly, when Lockwood listens to Kathy sing a beautiful love song in the studio, he looks at her with affection in his eyes, and she sings the song for the movie as if to him; the lines between the fictional and the real, the movie and real life, are blurred. The virtue of the musical is that it can bring such magical moments to life, that it can stage the idealized romantic world, one in which the rain isn’t bothersome and in which a song is a profession of the truest love.
Another notable element of the film is the fact that many of the musical numbers in Singin’ in the Rain are scenes from a film within a film, and that the film is a period piece. “Broadway Rhythm” is a musical number in the musical film that the team is making and it is a song about show business, and it does not look that different from Singin’ in the Rain. Gene Kelly is a character playing a character, but not much about his demeanor changes. Additionally, the viewer is watching a 1950s movie about the rise of the movie musical in the 1920s. Thus we see a 1950s representation of a 1920s speakeasy, set on a Hollywood sound stage. In this way, the film is as much a period piece about Hollywood as it is a musical, which takes it even further from realism. The lines between eras and decades, between fantasy and reality, between music and speech, dancing and walking, are all blurred, making for a heightened and singular viewing experience.
