1952’s Singin’ in the Rain established Debbie Reynolds as a Hollywood icon and gave us some of the most memorable song and dance routines in movie history. Although only a modest hit at the time, it went on to be nominated for two Oscars and remains one of Hollywood’s most popular and fondly remembered musicals. Here are some more on- and off-screen stories from its production.
COPYCATS
Not long before shooting was due to begin on Singin’ in the Rain, the movie’s directors, Stanley Donen and its star Gene Kelly, suddenly realized that Kelly’s co-star Donald O’Connor didn’t have a solo number. Together they approached the movie’s songwriters, Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, to ask them to produce a last-minute addition to the film that would give O’Connor a chance to shine—something along the same lines as Cole Porter’s Be A Clown, the comic centerpiece of his 1947 musical The Pirate. The song they came up with was Make ’em Laugh—which Donen later described as “100 percent plagiarism.” Freed and Brown, it seems, had taken their inspiration a little too literally, and turned in a song that was essentially a carbon-copy of Porter’s. Nevertheless, the song was used and went on to become one of the movie’s best-remembered numbers.
TALL STORY
As well as being co-director of the movie, Gene Kelly was of course its head choreographer, and as such was responsible for arranging and rehearsing all of its dance routines. That gave him creative control over his memorable “Broadway Melody” sequence, in which he appeared opposite the notably long-legged Hollywood actress and dancer Cyd Charisse. At just over 5’6” tall, however, Kelly was the same height as (if not a little shorter than) Charisse—and with her dancing in a pair of high-heeled shoes, their different statures could easily prove a problem on screen. As a result, Kelly choreographed their entire three-minute routine in such a way that neither one of them is ever seen standing upright, and whenever Charisse appears on screen alongside Kelly during the dance, she is always seen tilting towards or away from him to make their height difference less obvious.
HOT WATER
Various Hollywood legends claim that Kelly’s entire Singin’ in the Rain number—in which he dances to the movie’s title song amid a pouring rainstorm—was filmed in either just one day or even in just a single take. Alas, that part of the story isn’t true. The sequence took several days to film (during which time the wool in Kelly’s suit shrank quite considerably in the wet conditions, making it appear visibly tighter and ill-fitting in the later shots). One true tale, however, is that on at least one of the days this sequence was filmed, Kelly was shockingly ill. Despite making the entire dance look effortless, Kelly was at one point during the Singin’ in the Rain scene suffering from a fever of 103º!
BLOOD ON THE DANCE FLOOR
As a director and choreographer, Kelly was well known as a perfectionist, and would often demand numerous takes to ensure that all of his and his co-stars’ dance sequences were flawless. His quest for the perfect take proved especially telling in the famous Good Morning number in Singin’ in the Rain, in which he, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds perform a lengthy dance sequence in perfect unison, culminating in them somersaulting over a couch. Kelly reportedly demanded the trio perform this sequence more than 40 times on camera, leading Reynolds—who was just 19 at the time—to limp away from the set at the end of a 14-hour day with her shoes filled with blood.
HARD TIMES
Unlike her co-stars—and despite her flawless performance in Singin’ in the Rain—Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer, and all of her on-screen dance moves, and routines had been learned just weeks ahead of shooting in intense rehearsals under Gene Kelly’s strict supervision. It may look effortless on-screen today, but the entire experience was a punishing one: Reynolds later commented, “The two hardest things I ever did in my life are childbirth and Singin’ in the Rain.”