Singin' in the Rain
d. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952
Singin' in the Rain is easily the most famous movie musical of all time, I personally prefer something like Jacques Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort or Roubert Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight, but I would not hesitate to call this film a masterpiece. Singin' in the Rain is the kind of movie that eludes criticism, it so effortlessly and brilliantly succeeds as a fun musical that it seems pointless to call it what it is, "perfect." When the AFI published its outrageous list of the 100 greatest American films (no The Night of the Hunter or In a Lonely Place but Forrest Gump makes the cut), Singin' in the Rain placed 10th and it was one of the few films on the list that actually deserved a spot. The film is a life-affirming celebration of movies as well as a comic portrayal of the transition period between silent and sound film that occurred in the late 1920s. Singin' in the Rain contains what is perhaps the most famous scene in film: Gene Kelly singing in the rain. Everything else in the film is just as great, and almost 55 years after the film was made, I think it's safe to say that it will never date.
