| Singin' in the Rain | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | |
| Written by | |
| Suggested by | "Singin' in the Rain" |
| Produced by | Arthur Freed |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Harold Rosson |
| Edited by | Adrienne Fazan |
| Music by |
|
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release dates |
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Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2.54 million[1] |
| Box office | $7.2 million[1] |
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American musical romantic comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds, and featuring Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Rita Moreno and Cyd Charisse in supporting roles. It offers a lighthearted depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s, with the three stars portraying performers caught up in the transition from silent films to "talkies".
Arthur Freed conceived the idea of the film based on the back catalogs of songs written by himself and Nacio Herb Brown. Because many of the songs had been written during the transition from silent films to "talkies", writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green decided that was when the story should be set. When the story morphed into that of a romantic hero with a vaudevillian background surviving the transition period in Hollywood and falling back onto his old song-and-dance habits, Kelly, who was chosen for the lead along with Donen, responded enthusiastically to it. The film was released after a premiere at the Radio City Music Hall on April 11, 1952.
The film was only a modest hit when it was first released. Today, however, it is often regarded as the greatest musical film ever and one of the greatest films ever made.[2] It topped the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals list, ranked as the fifth-greatest American motion picture of all time in its updated list of the greatest American films in 2007, having ranked as the tenth-greatest in the original 1998 list, and Kelly's rendition of "Singin' in the Rain" ranked third in their list of the greatest film songs. In 1989, Singin' in the Rain was one of the first 25 films selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3] In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in its list of the 50 films to be seen by the age of 14. In 2008, Empire magazine ranked it as the eighth-best film of all time. In Sight & Sound magazine's 2022 list of the greatest films of all time, Singin' in the Rain placed 10th.[4] Previously, it had ranked fourth in their 1982 list and tenth in their 2002 list.
- ^ a b "Singin' In The Rain (1952)". The Numbers. Retrieved July 18, 2020.
- ^ Haley Jr., Jack: That's Entertainment!, Frank Sinatra segments. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1974
- ^ "Entertainment: Film Registry Picks First 25 Movies". Los Angeles Times. September 19, 1989. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
- ^ "The Greatest Films of All Time". BFI. December 1, 2022. Retrieved December 15, 2022.