Singin' in the Rain
The movie that got me into movies
I don’t remember the first time I watch Singin’ in the Rain. I do remember the second time, I was around 10 years old. I had gotten a DVD as a present from my older sister, and I dressed up to watch it alone. I put on what little I had to pass as a suit.
After I finished the movie, I went downstairs in my childhood home and I think my mom asked what I had done and chuckled at my response. Really, this should have been a strong indicator of what I might choose to do in my life. I’m writing this now in Los Angeles. Not the Hollywood that Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown blow into in the film, certainly no (decidedly no {unh uh}). Though not far removed all the same.
I live less than 15 minutes from where Wyatt Earp died. I go to church where Charlton Heston did when he was shooting DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Hollywood is ever new and ever, ever reaching for the old. When I arrived here, it was winter. My dad and I raced down the Santa Monica pier proclaiming “This is the furthest west I’ve ever been.” I don’t quite remember who won.
When I had arrived in 2019, there were still deep echoes of the silent era depicted in this film. Hollywood and Highland, the place most tourists are magneted to because of the street and the Mann’s Chinese theater (which is now the TCL Chinese theater) was then designed specifically after the Babylon depicted in Griffith’s Intolerance, though where the set it depicted stood now houses The Vista Theater, owned now by Quentin Tarantino.
There still are those deep echoes of the silent era, but it really takes extra listening now. What’s easier to hear is the sound of the era of this film’s production time. You can find artifacts now at the Academy Museum at Fairfax and Wilshire, you can see any number of classic Hollywood fare in their two cinemas, or you can go into the multiplex of the TCL Chinese and find the two prop tablets of the Ten Commandments from the aforementioned movie sitting away from the entrance, often unobserved. I was fortunate (in a way) enough to intern for Robert Evans in the months before his death (I never met or spoke to him). His office, though, still held the scrawled inscriptions of Otto Preminger on the electrical board from when the office had been his.
Without Singin’ in the Rain, I wouldn’t have moved here to Los Angeles. I wouldn’t have met Norman Lloyd, who told me the love story between he and his wife. How he was as sharp as he was at 104, I don’t think I’ll ever know. How he lasted 2 years after I met him, I’ll likely never know either.
The movie itself, well I’m not sure I can write much new about it. I can eulogize its creators, so many, I’m sure now on this side of my 2nd watch, totally uncredited as was part of the understanding in the film industry in 1952. Somehow as I write this Zelda Zanders (Rita Moreno) walks among us holding the knowledge and experience of her many decades that followed this film.
I should though like to highlight the central song. From the music of Nacio Herb Brown and the lyrics of Arthur Freed, the song had existed long before the film. In fact, it had been in movies for 23 years preceding the film. Leading up to this film which bears its name it had been on celluloid around 20 times including in The Babe Ruth Story, as danced along to by Babe interrupting his would be beau in a nightclub performance.
But here I sit, in Los Angeles, in large part because I saw the bright colors and the taps. And I wonder, had I seen some other musical would I have wanted to go into filmmaking? Would I have wanted to write? Another film that won’t be included in any editions of this collection, Raiders of the Lost Ark, did inspire me to write my first dialogue based script, but this movie. Well it didn’t make me want to write a movie, it made me want to live inside of it. To spend time with Cosmo and Don. It made me want to learn to tap dance so I could keep up with them, something I still haven’t done well over a decade later.
I have a lot of little sayings for myself to sort of guide myself through life and to help me understand it as the days get tough. One is “Dance through life, and when it gets hard just dance harder.” It is likely because of this film to even have my brain assume life would be easier when dancing. Maybe one day I’ll be able to keep up with Don, Cathy, and Cosmo.
This is an essay I wrote for a homemade blu ray edition I’m planning to make of this movie. I will be writing other essays for other films, but I thought I would start here. Should you like more information on that project, please let me know.
Simply a joy to read, as always. Love when you write my friend :)