April Showers: "Singin' In The Rain"
Saturday, April 20, 2013 at 10:47PM 
Dancin’ Dan (or, as you might know me from the comment section, denny) here, with a special Dance on Film edition of April Showers for your weekend.
You all know the feeling, right? The project you’re working on is sunk because one of your partners is an idiot (a beautiful, blonde idiot with a nasally squawk of a voice). After a late night brainstorming session with two of your other partners, you come up with a brilliant solution to your problem. How do you celebrate?
If your immediate answer to that question was not “take the partner that I have a crush on home, then wave the cab away so I can walk home in the rain, giving away my umbrella to some random stranger on the street,” don’t worry. It just means that you’re not a Hollywood star of the silent screen played by Gene Kelly in a 1950s musical.
And in real life, such a response would be crazy, most likely getting you nothing but a nasty case of pneumonia. But on the silver screen, it feels perfectly natural, an explosion of joy… a glorious feeling!
Part of the magic of the title number of Singin’ in the Rain is how straightforward it is. It’s just Gene Kelly, an umbrella, a ton of rain, and a sidewalk. No ensemble of dancers, no special effects, no artistic flourishes. Just a beautiful man singing a beautiful song. Even the rhythms of the tap dancing are simple. The direction keeps it simple, too. Over the four minute-long number, there are only seven cuts, each of them coming after a zoom-in or zoom-out; they’re each necessary so that we can keep following the dance as it moves down the street.
It may be movie logic, but it makes sense. Don Lockwood thought he was out. But now he’s got a plan to save his movie and his career, he’s got the girl he loves, and he’s got a plan to bring her along with him. He’s a song-and-dance man who is going to make a musical. He couldn’t be happier. So, being a song-and-dance man, he takes what he has around him and does what he loves. He dances. He even stands right underneath an open pipe, not caring one bit if he gets soaked to the bone. He’s so happy that he finally fully taps into his inner child and jumps into the biggest puddle he can find. Repeatedly. He only stops when a policeman comes by and sternly crosses his arms at him.
But that won’t stop Don. Oh, no. He’s as high as can be. As he explains to the policeman:
I’m dancin’, and singin’, in the rain.”
And then he continues on his way home. He gives his umbrella to a passer-by without one – he doesn’t need it – and keeps walking, happier and happier as he goes.
I hate the rain. But that hasn’t stopped me from breaking out into this song every once in a while when I’m in a good mood and the heavens open up. In fact, once I tried to leap up on a lamppost, Gene Kelly-style. It didn’t go well – it was slippery and the lip I tried to stand on wasn’t very wide – but that won’t stop me from trying again. Why? Because the joy in this sequence, radiating from Gene Kelly’s smile and the flat-out lovely orchestrations, is infectious. We all want a piece of that joy, however small.
My favorite thing about this dance is how playful it is. Gene Kelly has the biggest grin on his face for most of it (all the more impressive considering he apparently had a fever of over 100 when filming this), and when he doesn't, he's pulling faces but somehow not mugging. Just like everything else in this sequence, he keeps it light. He's dancing in the rain, but it looks as though he could just as easily walk on air.
Have you ever tried to reenact any part of this dance in the rain? Let us know in the comments!
Reader Comments (6)
Thanks for posting this! This is by far my favourite scene in cinema. In fact I don't think that there's anything I can write that hasn't been said before, suffice to say this scene is movie magic at it's finest. I too love the scene's playfulness, anyone who's ever been caught in a downpour knows it ain't like this: it's wet, cold, windy, and your umbrella is inclined to invert itself and become completely useless. Despite this, whenever the clouds look ominous, I'm tempted to take my brolly outside and splash around in the hope that it will be as fun as Kelly makes it look. I've tried it. It's not. Yet I keep trying even though I know better, because it just looks like so much fun. I could watch this scene over and over and never get bored simply because it's pure happiness distilled into four minutes of screen time,it's an instant mood enhancer with no crash (not like my other main mood enhancer coffee). I love this scene so much, that I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll never be able to watch A Clockwork Orange. Ever. Singing, dancing, rain and a damn sexy Gene Kelly... what more could you want?!
Hasn't everyone pretended to this dance at least once? It's on of the reasons I got a long black umbrella - to be prepared for any potential Singin in the Rain moments.
A glorious moment in cinema. Kelly's joy makes the rain vanish.
The really great thing about this? Gene Kelly actually had a 103 degree FEVER while doing it.
Andrew K: I pretended this dance about a million times in childhood; and I always carry a long black umbrella, you know, just in case.
Volvagia, I know right? Unbelievable. I often wonder if this scene would have been any different had Gene been in better health. It's so perfect, though, that I'm kind of glad he was crazy/dedicated enough to do it. That can't have been easy.
One thing I didn't mention in the article: I had to rewatch this scene at least a dozen times just for this article because even when I wanted to focus on Gene's face, every single time I ended up watching his dancing feet. And that's AFTER having watched it countless times in the past, whether from watching the movie or trying to teach myself the choreography. He's just that damn good a dancer.