Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Natey & Katy are two friends who love movies and love talking about them. Join them on their cinematic journey!
Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Make 'Em Laugh: A "Singin' in the Rain" Review
What makes "Singing in the Rain" an enduring masterpiece, even decades after its release? Join us as we uncover the magic of this classic musical with our special guest, Ali, a passionate cinema student and musical enthusiast hailing from Iran. Ali shares his unique perspective on why this film shines brightly on his list of top 100 movies. We explore the remarkable transition from silent films to talking pictures, along with the unforgettable performances by Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. Ali also dishes out some fascinating behind-the-scenes tales, like Gene Kelly's rumored illness during the iconic rain scene and his reputedly demanding directorial approach, particularly with Reynolds.
Despite its occasional cheesy, Hallmark moments, we find ourselves enchanted by the film's timeless charm and rate it five out of six stars. Listen in as we discuss the joy "Singing in the Rain" brings and peek into next week's tantalizing topic: a riveting analysis of a scene from "Good Will Hunting" featuring Robin Williams' brilliant performance. Don't forget to explore more of our special guest, Ali Khamseh's musings and film discussions on his YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/@AK88Studios, and his podcast, "Last Thoughts of a Busy Mind" (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-last-thoughts-of-a-busy-mind/id1523314436).
Hello everyone and welcome to another brand new episode of Nadine Katie. At the movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nadie, of course, and on today's show is not Katie. Katie is not here. She decided not to watch the movie that we're talking about today. And yes, I did still say we, because today I have another special guest on the show to talk about the movie we're going to be reviewing. And special guest, go ahead and introduce yourself uh, hello everyone.
Speaker 2:my name is ali. I am a man in his 20s that has a weird obsession with musicals from the 1950s and 1960s and 1940s. I am from Iran. I am a cinema student, I'm an amateur filmmaker and I also do very long-winded videos on YouTube about movies that nobody cares about but myself.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2:Do you have any podcasts or any shows that you have? That you do. I do have a podcast. It's a personal journal. I talk about just weekly life on it. I've been doing it since 2020, so it's been going on for a few years. It's not really centered around movies, but it is sometimes about movies. Funnily enough, I've talked about Shmikago and Shmigidun there which, singing in the Rain, actually played a part in Shmigidun.
Speaker 1:Nice. Well, speaking of Singing in the Rain, that is the movie we're going to be reviewing today. But before we can talk about our likes and dislikes, I have to go over the synopsis. A silent film star falls, just as he and his delusionally jealous screen partner are trying to make the difficult transition to talking pictures in 1920s Hollywood. Singing in the Rain stars Gene Kelly, donald O o'connor, debbie reynolds and gene hagan. So I sent you my movie list, the list of movies that we're doing imdb top 250 movies of all time. But what you? You said already that you are interested in musicals, but what about Singing in the Rain? When you saw that list, you're like this is the one I have to talk about. What intrigued you the most about it?
Speaker 2:Well, Singing in the Rain. I do have my own list of top 100 movies. Singing in the Rain is on there and it's the only musical that's on there, because I love that movie so much. The fact that it's a movie that is actually one of the first colored movies, talking about the first time sound was introduced, at the same time being a jukebox musical that has all the ingredients of becoming an instant classic, just appeals to me in a way.
Speaker 2:First of all, Gene Kelly, massively charismatic guy I just who doesn't love Gene Kelly? And then you have Donald O'Connor on top of that massively charismatic guy. Then you have Debbie Reynolds in probably her first major motion picture next to two giants, and she manages to hold her own, sometimes surpassing them. It's just a movie of all of these little elements coming together and creating an experience that genuinely is very unique even amongst uh, old golden age musicals everyone knows the songs singing in the rain the the iconic gene kelly dancing in the rain, which I don't know if you knew this, and I don't know if any of the listeners knew this.
Speaker 1:Apparently I don't know if this is 100 true this could just be a rumor, but apparently gene kelly was suffering from a cold while he was doing that scene and so he was dancing around in the water, in the puddles and not feeling well at the same time. But you couldn't tell, because he is just that iconic of just a classic actor.
Speaker 2:Everything about that scene is great, Not only Gene Kelly's dancing, the music choice itself is great. It's a jukebox musical. They could have chosen a hundred different songs, but Singing in the Rain is just a perfect song for that movie. And then you have the camera, which of course Gene Kelly himself was co-directing the movie, so he himself knew how to direct the movie. He did something else that I'm completely forgetting that Michael Crawford was an actor.
Speaker 1:Apparently he directed Hello Dolly.
Speaker 2:Hello Dolly. Yes, sorry, I've confused that with Bye Bye Birdie, because in my head Michael Crawford and Dick Van Dyke are the same they're not but in my head, they're the same people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean Gene Kelly? Obviously they're not, but in my head they're the same people. Yeah, so I mean gene kelly, obviously. Um, donald o'connor was was brilliant in this. He reminded me a lot of you could kind of switch him and danny k together, because they have that same kind of they do the funny faces, they sing, they dance, and I think danny k would have done a great job in this film as well.
Speaker 1:But then, going back to debbie reynolds, debbie reynolds is just, you know, again, an iconic classic and and, like you said, she really does hold her, hold her own against gene kelly who behind the scenes apparently was like a perfectionist, really wanted everything just right, and I didn't know. He kind of co-directed this film. So it makes sense that he wanted everything just right. But I also heard again another rumor possibly he was very hard on Debbie Reynolds about getting her dances, her dance, just right, and even so to the point where there might have been days where she left the set with bleeding feet because of how strict of a dance instructor he was. Have you ever heard anything about that?
Speaker 2:I've heard that about Ginger Rogers in Broadway Melody of 1940, that when she danced with Fred Astaire she left with bleeding feet. I haven't heard that about singing in the rain. To be honest, I knew that Gene Kelly was hard on her and you can actually see it in her face how determined she is, especially during the good morning scene when she has to dance with both O'Connor and Gene Kelly and there is a effortlessness in like Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor's face, because they are just classic trained musical actors. They know how to dance and sing at the same time. Debbie Reynolds has to prove herself next to these two.
Speaker 2:So there's off, there's obvious determination on her face. Like that scene specifically, you can see how determined she is to show these two people that, oh, I can stand next to you and I can even outshine you. And again, speaking of the musical scenes, I know Singing in the Rain itself, dancing in the Rain is probably the most famous scene, but the musical isn't short of iconic scenes. Good Morning is another one of them. I love Donald O'Connor's Make them Laugh, which is a peak physical comedy in my opinion, when you can sing and dance and do all of those weird comedy stunts.
Speaker 1:It's a great scene.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean just running up the walls and falling over the couches, it's just. I mean, like you said, it's just. Those moments are the ones that you remember the most. Again, obviously, the Gene Kelly dancing, but yeah, donald o'connor, um, and, and just, it's just a star-studded cast and it just speaks volumes that it's in the double digits on the imdb list, it's number 88 on the top 250 movies of all time. And so it's right in between citizen kane, which katie uh, my co-host, and I, katie, talked about last week, and then after that is Good Will Hunting with the late Robin Williams. And so it's right in between the epitome of classic film, citizen Kane, and what some might consider a modern day classic, good Will Hunting, with that fantastic performance by Robin Williams. What's good about this show is that we talk about the likes. So I think we praised it enough. We said enough of the things that we liked about it. Is there anything that sticks out to you that you may not like about Singing in the Rain?
Speaker 2:I think that's something I probably have to say about all Golden Age musicals. They were made with a very specific mindset of bringing joy to a post-World War audience. But in doing that and focusing just on that, the story can come off as underbaked. I think the villainous characters just tend to be very the co-actress I'm so sorry I couldn't remember her name the one with the very nasally voice that Debbie Reynolds dubs over, which is very funny when you think about it, because Debbie Reynolds himself was dubbed over for the movie. It's not her actual singing voice.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, I didn't know that either.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's kind of funny that Debbie Reynolds isn't even the one singing in the movie. That's awesome. The thing is that the story itself is a little bit underbaked. I think the characters are charming and interesting, but they don't really have much motivations outside of doing what the script wants them to do. I know this is probably us, as a modern audience, looking back at another time's story conventions, but at the same time this movie is at the same age as Sweet as Well, of success. So great character work was already being done in 1950s. And that's the biggest problem I have with the movie. It just doesn't have enough good of a story to stick it. But that's not why you watch it. Nobody watches Singing in the Rain for the story and the story is just a reason to go from musical scene to musical scene, which is a detriment. I'm not going to lie. It's the reason a lot of people, I think, don't like Golden Age musicals. Even people who do like musicals, Musicals in general are divisive. Golden Age musicals are even more divisive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it goes to what my co-host, katie, says all the time. If you were watching it back when it was released, you might enjoy it a lot off as cheesy. You can see one golden age musical, then you seen them all.
Speaker 1:that, that kind of feeling it's kind of like Hallmark movies. You know you watch one Hallmark movie, then you've basically seen every single Hallmark movie that's ever existed. Another thing that kind of goes hand in hand with that is that some of the things don't age well. Is that some of the things don't age well? Case in point Gene Kelly's character. Coming on to Debbie Reynolds' character so quickly, in today's society might be seen as semi-stalkerish, kind of creepy, kind of over-the-top masculinity. Not saying I agree with that, but you can see how some people would say this movie hasn't really aged that well and so and and the whole reason that debbie renzel's character gets upset is kind like in most movies there's like a real reason why the female character gets upset at the male character.
Speaker 1:But to me, re-watching this, I'm like why is she that upset? She agreed to do what he wants her to do. Yeah, it's just, it's a silly premise and so. But again, like you said, you don't watch, you don't think of singing in the rain and you're like man that acting. That story was so great. That's not what you think about. You think about the catchy lyrics, the fun dancing, just the fun that you can see that they're having on the screen. That's the what, that's what's most important and I think that's what's so iconic about this film. So is there anything else that you know any like? Final thoughts about Singing in the Rain. Before we give this a rating.
Speaker 2:I mean to be honest, this is the thing about Singing in the Rain that makes it special. As you said, when you see a Golden Age musical, you've practically seen most of them. Just switch Gene Kelly for Fred Astaire. You've seen around 90% of musicals that came out the 40s. And there is a reason Singing in the Rain sticks out. It's not just that. I mean Gene Kelly himself did An American in Paris and Fred Astaire has done a million great musicals Swing Time, top Hat but the reason Singing in the Rain sticks out is that it is so distilled to its core glory of Golden Age musicals. It's just that there is nothing else to it. Everything is distilled to its most base form and most perfect form.
Speaker 2:Singing in the Rain is where Golden Age musicals kind of became the best they can be. Afterwards there were a lot of good movies. I'm not saying there aren't good Golden Age musicals, but there is no movie like Singing in the Rain. It became a beast that trumped all over all other golden age musicals. It's what golden age musicals were kind of leading up to, and afterwards they just kind of disappeared, sort of. Because when we get to the 60s you got cabaret and then you got fiddler on the Roof, and then nobody heard from Golden Age Musicals until we got to La La Land.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they kind of moved away from just fun silly to okay, now we're going to try to tell really important, serious messages through weird out-there musicals like Cabaret. But obviously Fiddler on on the roof is another classic musical, but it does deal with a lot of, I guess, not really darker themes but more like serious themes, like tradition and family, which are important things to talk about.
Speaker 1:But like you watch singing in the rain, you just forget everything. It's like that's what movies are supposed to do. It's supposed to make you forget about all the bad, and you just forget everything. It's like that's what movies are supposed to do. It's supposed to make you forget about all the bad, the dark, the serious things in life and just sit and watch Gene Kelly dance with an umbrella, donald O'Connor make funny faces and run up walls and Debbie Reynolds just be Debbie Reynolds. I mean, that's what music is supposed to be about. So those are our thoughts on singing in the rain.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and give this movie a rating. So the way we do our rating system is our first season. We did every single marvel movie and tv show in chronological order. Yeah, it was. It was a big task but a lot fun, and so we decided to do six stars. But we did infinity stones at that point, because there's six, infinity stones, and so we've just stuck with the whole six. One out of six stars. So what would you give Singing in the Rain? One out of six stars.
Speaker 2:I mean to be honest. This might be a little bit excessive, but this is how much I actually love the movie. Five out of six. The one star I take off is because of how it's aged.
Speaker 1:But aside from that, five out of six stars well, I think we just became best friends because I'm gonna give it five out of six stars as well for those exact same reasons. I I do think that if you watch it today, it hasn't aged well. It's very cheesy, it's very Hallmark driven in a way, but you know what it's singing in the rain and who cares. So that is our thoughts. Thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so glad we were able to work this out.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me Again. I'm so glad we were able to work this out. Thank you for having me Again. I'm so glad that I was talking about Singing in the Rain. It's just watching it again, talking about it. It's fantastic. I can't explain how good it feels.
Speaker 1:Well, tell our listeners how they can find your shows.
Speaker 2:Well, if you go to YouTube under AK88 Studios, you can watch me ramble on about again movies nobody cares about. But if you want to listen to me and not see me, you can search for the Last Thoughts of a Busy Mind on your podcast platform of choice.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much, and I've already revealed what Katie and I are going to be talking about next week, but just for the fun of it, here is clip from goodwill hunting. Take a listen, wonderful stuff.
Speaker 3:You know little things like that, yeah, but those are the things I miss the most, the little idiosyncrasies that only I know about. That's what made her my oh, and she had the goods on me too. She knew all my little peccadilloes. People call these things imperfections, but they're not. Oh, that's the good stuff. And then we get to choose who we let into our weird little worlds. You're not perfect sport, and let me save you the suspense this girl you met. She isn't perfect either, but the question is whether or not you're perfect for each other. That's the whole deal. That's what intimacy is all about. Now, you can know everything in the world sport, but the only way you're finding out that one is by giving it a shot I can't wait for katie and I to talk about it.
Speaker 1:The. The iconic performance alone by robin williams is just worth a watch of goodwill hunting. So I'm gonna end with a quote from singing in the rain. Lena, she can't act, she can't sing, she can't dance a triple threat.
