Synopsis

In late-1920s Hollywood, silent-film star Don Lockwood and his partner, Cosmo Brown, face professional disaster when audiences discover that Don's leading lady, Lina Lamont, has an unbearable speaking voice. As the studio scrambles to convert its next picture into a musical, aspiring actress Kathy Selden is recruited to dub Lina, bringing Don, Kathy, and Cosmo into a comic struggle over love, ambition, and the future of movies.

Factoids & Trivia

• Most of the songs were drawn from earlier MGM musicals and other preexisting material. The only songs written specifically for the film were "Make 'Em Laugh" and "Moses Supposes."

• The title song was not new to the movie. It had originally appeared in the 1929 MGM musical *The Hollywood Revue of 1929*, making its use especially appropriate for a story about Hollywood's transition from silent pictures to sound.

• The famous rain dance was filmed on an MGM backlot over seven days. The artificial downpour was needed for approximately six hours each shooting day to create the heavy, visible rainfall seen on screen.

• Donald O'Connor completed the physically demanding "Make 'Em Laugh" number in a single day. The routine combines singing, tap dancing, acrobatics, and deliberately exaggerated comic movement.

• The nearly seventeen-minute "Broadway Melody Ballet" was designed as a miniature musical within the musical. Its elaborate sets and shifting styles give the film a large-scale fantasy sequence distinct from its more comedic numbers.

• The movie was released on April 11, 1952, after production and retakes took place during 1951.

• The Library of Congress added *Singin' in the Rain* to the National Film Registry in 1989. AFI later placed it fifth on its 2007 list of the greatest American films and ranked it first among its greatest movie musicals.