Singin' in the Rain
Surely the most iconic image to come out of Singin' in the Rain—and perhaps the most iconic image to come out of American cinema in the 20th century—is the image of Gene Kelly singing in the rain. The song is a charming one about being so happy and optimistic that not even an unusually torrential Los Angeles rainstorm can get you down. Gene Kelly, the charismatic, graceful, and charming leading man and dancer glides down the street in a trench coat and hat, with his umbrella unexpectedly closed. The umbrella, which ought to protect him from the downpour, becomes his dancing cane as he makes his way down the city street having just dropped off the love of his life at her home. He hangs off a lamppost without a care, he boldly holds his handsome face to look up at the sky and feel the drops of water. The scene has become an iconically romantic and picturesque image for movie-goers ever since.
Talk about movie magic: Gene Kelly is alleged to have had a 103-degree fever while they were shooting the film. You can't tell by his winning smile.
Big Musical Numbers
Throughout, the movie is jam-packed with giant, extravagant, visually-loud and impressive musical numbers, complete with gargantuan set pieces, flashy costumes, and colorful lights. The precedent for flashy musical numbers is set first when Kathy pops out of the giant pink cake wearing a bright pink costume. She gets into formation with a group of identically dressed chorus girls and goes into a Charleston-inspired dance, streamers wrapping around her arms and body. It is a ebullient display of color and light, a dramatic heightening. Later, a musical montage ushers in the era of the talking picture. We see chorus girls singing, rows of disembodied dancers' legs, a soft-eyed crooner singing into a voice amplifier, and finally a lavish musical number about "beautiful girls" that sends up 1920s fashion.
Perhaps the most visually stunning musical number is the elaborate dance sequence, "Broadway Melody." In it, the viewer is taken through a number of different city scenes. When the agent leads Lockwood (playing a naive young hoofer) into a speakeasy, hundreds of dancers in colorful costumes dance in perfect unison and sing together. Then, when the hoofer finds himself in the casino, he runs into the mysterious flapper he has encountered before, and the other patrons of the casino drift away as she and the hoofer walk towards each other. Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, two iconic dancers of their era, dance in dramatic costumes in a giant purple ballroom, a visual feast.
Soundstage
When Don brings Kathy onto the soundstage, the imagery he creates to underscore his profession of love is the stuff of movie magic. We watch as he turns an empty warehouse into a beautiful spring night with the woman he loves. He turns on purple lights to evoke a sunset, an industrial fan to simulate a breeze, a number of red lights to mix with the purple, and the mood is set for his seduction. He manipulates the technology of the movie industry to reflect his imagination, creating a suitably romantic atmosphere. This scene also shows the way that film allows people to tell stories in more heightened and magical ways than they might otherwise be able to do.
Kathy Behind the Curtain
An especially affecting image comes at the end of the film, when Lina greets her public and mouths the words to "Singin' in the Rain" as Kathy sings them from behind a curtain directly behind Lina. At one point, we see the two women from the perspective of the backstage wing. In front of the curtain, the fraudulent Lina is wearing a glittery gown and performing theatrically for the audience. Behind her is Kathy, more modest and simply beautiful, singing straightforwardly into her microphone. This image serves to represent the inherently illusive and deceptive nature of theater and performance, and also to contrast the two actresses, who could not be more different.
