Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds
Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
This movie is hard to find, well, at least to rent. My old store had a copy, but we closed and no other store around the area had a copy. It was even hard to find online! Luckily, I found a copy and immediately took it home. The reason I had to see it, was because A) it was a musical and B) it was AFI's #6. And I had watched at least the rest of AFI's top 10, so I had to finish it up. Luckily, this movie is pretty good as far as musicals go, but I don't think I'll ever be watching it again!
The story is rather dull, it's another Hollywood insider story. The world has just been introduced to talking pictures with The Jazz Singer. And unfortunately, that puts Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont on the spot to transition from silent movie stars to bona fide sound actors. What really kills them is Lina's god awful voice. It's straight from Staten Island or Jersey or a mix of both. So of course, Gene Kelly gets Kathy Selden (Debbie Reyonolds) to be the voice of Lina. All is well until Lina finds out and hilarity ensues. It's really not a bad story, just that the movie is so light-hearted and completely unrealistic towards it. Which is fine, because the movie isn't a serious movie at all. It's a comedy, so I have no qualms with that, but near the end I felt so bad for Lina Lamont, but the movie did not. She turns into this evil and diabolical queen bee who wants to sabotage Don and Kathy's romance and careers. But she ends up being the one eating their dust. I know it's supposed to be light hearted, but the movie never gives Lina a happy ending and I felt a tiny bit sad.
But that's not what's great about the movie. The music and especially the choreography, are what makes this movie great. There's so much good dancing, especially by Kelly, that it's quite unbelievable what he can do. It's fun to watch no doubt, and your left kind of wondering what happened to these kind of dance numbers, they seem so simple, but hard to pull off (Although to be quite honest, I really am looking forward to that guilty pleasure, Step Up 3D. It's just looks like all kinds of ridiculous!). So in the end I did enjoy the movie, but I don't think I'll be watching it again.
Rating: Rent It!
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