Gene Kelly makes difficult dancing look unforced, and gives it the pleasure of someone moving because he cannot help himself. We rate him highest when the comedy is equally assured, as in Singin' in the Rain.
Fi1m perspective
In the title number of Singin' in the Rain (1952), Gene Kelly makes dancing in the rain seem sufficient reason for a scene. There is no need for an extra joke, and no sense that he is waiting for us to applaud a difficult step. We felt happier watching it because his pleasure in moving was so easy to share. That apparent lack of effort is central to his appeal, though the athletic movement draws on tap, ballet and modern dance.
His film debut, For Me and My Gal (1942), paired him with Judy Garland; by Anchors Aweigh (1945), he was dancing with the animated Jerry Mouse. The experiments were already there before he began co-directing with Stanley Donen on On the Town (1949), taking the musical out onto New York locations. His choreography for An American in Paris (1951) pursued the possibilities of telling a story through movement. Dance could express what a character felt and move the plot along. The everyday clothes associated with his style helped make that seem a natural thing to do.
Singin' in the Rain makes the strongest case for Kelly as both performer and director. With Donen, he turns Hollywood's arrival of sound into practical comic trouble, helped by Betty Comden and Adolph Green's screenplay. His Don Lockwood supplies the assurance, while Donald O'Connor's Cosmo Brown lets us see the exertion that makes a physical joke funny. Nacio Herb Brown's tunes leave room for that playfulness rather than dictating every response. The romance is thin, but Debbie Reynolds gives Kathy Selden enough presence to stand alongside the two men.
His later directing, including Hello, Dolly (1969), offers less of that inventiveness. The useful lesson of the Donen partnership is how much Kelly gains from sharing a film with people whose timing and physical style differ from his own. Reynolds and O'Connor keep Singin' in the Rain from becoming merely a display of its leading man's abilities. Start there, without worrying about acquiring a taste for old Hollywood first.
Biography
Gene Kelly was an American actor, dancer, singer, choreographer and director. He was born Eugene Curran Kelly on 23 August 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and died on 2 February 1996 in Beverly Hills, California.
He made his film debut in For Me and My Gal (1942) and went on to star in and often choreograph or co-direct musicals including On the Town (1949), An American in Paris (1951) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), in which he played Don Lockwood and co-directed with Stanley Donen. Other notable credits include Hello, Dolly! (1969) as director and appearances in Inherit the Wind (1960) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967).
