Today’s movie is “Singin’ in the Rain,” a 1952 musical starring and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen. 

This film follows three Hollywood performers in the midst of the translation from silent films to “talkies.” The all-star cast includes Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor. 

Plot 

Don Lockwood is a silently popular movie star that started as a dancer and singer in the Vaudeville Circuit as a stuntman and transitioned into a Star. Singin’ in the Rain (1952) creates a face romance between Lockwood and Lina Lamont to create public interest in their films. The problem is that Don cannot stand Lina, a crass, vain, and unlikeable woman that happens to look good on film.

When Don is overwhelmed by the horde of some overenthusiastic fans that rips his jacket. He jumps into a nearby passing car that Kathy Selden drives. He is infuriated but intrigued when Kathy tells him she’s a stage actress and takes a jibe at his film work. He again runs at Kathy at a party organized by R.F. Simpson, the head of their movie studio. Simpson seems excited to show a brief part of the new “talking” picture, although it does not appear to impress anybody.

After Don learns that Kathy is a chorus girl, he teases her. Infuriated, she throws a pie at him but instead hits Lina, who has the studio fire her immediately. Don and Kathy will run into each other when she’s working on another film, and they fall in love. However, they have to keep the romance a secret because Lina would disapprove of it.

When The Jazz Singer (the first talking picture) becomes a huge hit among the audience, Simpson considers converting the movie Lina and Don make into a talkie. However, the production of the first talkie turns calamitous because of Lina’s horrible voice using a microphone and because Don lacks Credibility as a drama actor. Don’s career hangs in the balance after a disastrous test screening.

When they lament the talkie’s failure at Don’s house, Cosmo Brown (Don’s Best Friend) comes up with the idea that may salvage it. Cosmo suggests they overdub the granting voice of Lina with Kathy’s. He also convinces Simpson to rename the movie The Dancing Cavalier instead of The Dueling Cavalier. The film concurs and starts working on making the movie a musical.

Lina is infuriated when she learns that Kathy will dub her voice. The fury further intensifies when she discovers that Don and Kathy have a romantic relationship. She tries sabotaging the relationship. When she finds out that Kathy will receive the screen credit for the performance, Lina blackmails Simpson to withhold the credit. She then develops a power play to silence Kathy.

The film achieved tremendous success in its premiere. However, the audience asks Lamont to sing live. This forces Simpson to hastily improvise. Lina lip-syncs on stage with Kathy singing from behind a curtain. However, as Lina sings, Simpson, Cosmo, and Don pull the curtain behind her, revealing her deception to the entire audience. Mortified, Lina flees the stage. When Kathy tries running away, Lockwood stops her. He introduces her as the film’s main star to the ecstatic audience.

Kathy and Don perform a live love song. In the film’s final shot, Cathy and Don Kiss passionately at the front of a giant billboard that advertised a film named Singin’ in the Rain that would star Kathy Selden and Don Lockwood.