Singing in the rain he turns 70: because his stars hated Gene Kelly

For many, it is the best musical of all time. One that does not age with the passage of time, the passage of the years and the appearance of different formats, VHS, DVD, Blue-ray and even streaming platforms. Singing in the rainby Stanley Donen e Gene Kellycelebrates 70 years of its glorious premiere.

Consultations with specialists or the general public determined that the musical starred alongside Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds to be there, at the top of everyone’s consideration, on the list of the best. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it as the fifth greatest film of all time. And it was voted the 10th best film of all time by Weekly entertainmentbeing the highest rated musical.

But, and whenever there is a but … It wasn’t all joy on the shoot set.

Here are some questions left by the film, about a silent film artist falling in love with a showgirl, when trying to switch from silent film to sound film, and who has the famous Don Lockwood scene (Gene Kelly, you’ll see, quite a tyrant on the set, despite his eternal smile) dancing, yes, in the rain.

The shooting of Crazy veil from Broadway ballet had to stop for several hours when it was discovered that Cyd Charisse’s pubic hair was visible through her disguise.

The last shot of the issue Good morningwith Don, Kathy and Cosmo falling on the sofa, spectacular, it didn’t require one, not two, not five, not ten, not twenty, not thirty: it took 40 shots until everything went chronometrically well.

“The scene

The studio technicians had to cover two city blocks outdoors in the backlot with tarpaulins, darken them for the night scene, and then equip them with overhead sprinklers to allow Gene Kelly to dance to the title number. But there was a severe water shortage in Culver City the day the sequence was shot. For decades, many thought the number was actually shot indoors, on a street set built inside one of MGM’s large studios.

The first time they tried to film the sequence Singing in the rain They did it in the late afternoon. But sadly, the homeowners in the area had just come home from work and turned on their lawn sprinklers, so there wasn’t enough water pressure for the “rain” to work. They finally shot the sequence the next day, early enough that everyone was at work and the water pressure was adequate for the shoot.

Gene Kelly was ill: his temperature was 39 ° 4 when he filmed the scene.

Debbie and Donald, against Gene

Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds admitted they didn’t like working with Gene Kelly, as Kelly was a belittled and tyrannical type. O’Connor said that for the first few weeks he was terrified of making a mistake and being scolded by Kelly.

Debbie Reynolds commented many years later that the two hardest things she ever had to do was shoot this movie and survive the birth. Carrie Fisher (the actress who was Princess Leia in Star Wars, died one day before his mother, in 2016). The filming experience was particularly unpleasant, due to the harsh treatment of him by a perfectionist Gene Kelly. But decades later, Kelly expressed remorse for his behavior: “I haven’t been nice to Debbie. It’s a miracle you still talk to me.”.

It’s just that Debbie Reynolds had no professional dance experience. I had never danced before rehearsals began. Fred Astaire, who was in an adjacent dance studio to her, found her crying under a piano and assured her that all her hard work was worth it.

So why did you accept the role of Kathy? She warned that she couldn’t dance when she was asked to be her in the movie, and Gene Kelly decided that she could teach her how she had done her with Frank Sinatra in sail the anchors (1945). Reynolds had been a gymnast, so she was familiar with physical movement.

After finishing the number of Hello, Debbie Reynolds had to be taken to her dressing room, because she had burst blood vessels in her feet. And despite her hard work, Kelly decided to dub the sound of her feet …

At just 19 when she was cast in the film, Debbie was living with her parents and commuting to the set by herself. She had to wake up at 4 in the morning and take three different buses to the studio. And sometimes, to avoid the trip, she just slept on set.

But Reynolds would later open up: “I learned a lot from Gene Kelly. He’s a perfectionist, the most exciting director I’ve ever worked for. And he’s got a good temper. He’d yell at me from time to time and make me cry, but it took a lot of patience to work. ” with someone who had never danced before. It’s amazing that I can keep up with him and Donald O’Connor. “

With Debbie Reynolds passing away on December 28, 2016, Rita Moreno, who played the role of Zelda, is the last surviving star of the film.

Donald Duck Climbing Walls

Sequence Make them laugh was created because Gene Kelly felt Donald O’Connor needed a solo number. As O’Connor noted in an interview, “Gene had no idea what kind of number it was supposed to be.” The two met and brainstormed in the rehearsal room and came up with a compendium of jokes and things O’Connor had done. for years, many in their vaudeville days. O’Connor recalled: “Whenever I had a new idea or remembered something that had worked well for me in the past, Gene would write it down and gradually build the whole number.” .

So for that number of Make them laugh, Kelly asked Donald O’Connor to relive a trick he had done as a young dancer: run up a wall and complete a somersault. The number was so physically demanding that O’Connor, who smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, ended up in a hospital bed for several days. He suffered from fatigue and painful burns. Unfortunately, an accident ruined everything that was filmed, so after a short break, O’Connor agreed to dial … again.

Donald O’Connor remembered him this way: “I used to smoke four packs of cigarettes a day then and climbing those walls was a crime. We did it on a concrete floor. I went back to the set three days later. All the technicians have cheered me. Gene Kelly cheered, told me it was a great number. That’s when he told me what had happened, “we have to do it.” Tomorrow too. Nobody had checked the camera aperture and they fogged the whole movie . “

A microphone was hidden in Debbie Reynolds’ blouse so that her dialogue lines could be heard more clearly. During one of the dance numbers, she hears her heartbeat.

The working day was sometimes extended to 19 hours.

The original film negative was destroyed in a fire.

The script was written after the songs, so the writers had to come up with a plot where the songs fit.

The sequence of Broadway ballet It took a month to rehearse, two weeks to shoot and cost $ 600,000, nearly a fifth of the total budget.

Gene Kelly choreographed her dance scenes with Cyd Charisse, to hide the fact that she was taller than him. To keep the height difference from being obvious, Kelly arranged the routine so that the two were barely standing when side by side, always leaning or leaning away from each other.

Singing in the rain it was Gene Kelly’s letter to terminate his contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. It’s just that the studio had never allowed its star to play lead roles in other films, like them and them (Boys and dolls). Kelly was so hostile while filming Singing in the rain that MGM released him from his exclusive contract.