Stanley Donen (1924 – )
“Sound was still a fairly new thing when I came into movies. And the reason musicals happened is because of sound. They could put music in the picture! That’s how it all began.”
Without a doubt, Singin’ In The Rain (1952) is in my Top 10 Films of All Time. I think it a perfect movie musical and one of the greatest films about making films.
Dancer/choreographer Stanley Donen was the co-director (along with Gene Kelly) of that classic film and other outstanding movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was a gigantic, if underappreciated talent.
On The Town (1949) was his first film (Kelly as co-director). It starred Kelly, along with Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin and Frank Sinatra. His other film musicals include Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954), Funny Face (1957), starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn, and Take Me Out To The Ball Game, starring Kelly, Sinatra, and Esther Williams (1949).
Donen’s work is also associated with Cary Grant. They made four films together: Kiss Them For Me (1957), Indiscreet (1958), The Grass Is Greener (1960), plus Charade (1963), also starring Hepburn. His last film, a sex comedy Blame It On Rio (1984) with Michael Caine and Demi Moore, flopped, but didn’t seem to kill anyone’s career except Donen’s.
Born in South Carolina in 1924, Donen said that he was inspired by the film musicals of the 1930s, especially Flying Down To Rio (1933), which is not a prequel to Blame It On Rio. The breezy, sparkling, delightful Flying Down To Rio starred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He went on to direct Astaire in one of his greatest numbers, the one where he dances on the ceiling and walls in Royal Wedding (1951). It was only Donen’s second directorial offering.
The amazing effect first occurred to Astaire in the 1920s, and finally, in 1951, he and director Donen finally tried to make it work. An entire set had to be built that could move around its axis like a human-sized hamster wheel. Robert Planck, the cinematographer had to be strapped with his camera to a board that revolved at the same pace and angle as the room.
Royal Wedding was first, but this technique was used again in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Poltergeist (1982), and Inception (2010). When Lionel Richie wanted to use the effect in 1986 for the music video of Dancing On The Ceiling, he smartly went to Donen to do the job.
Donen got his big break when he was a teenager in New York City and cast in the chorus of the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Pal Joey in 1940, starring Kelly. He impressed Kelly, who hired Donen as his assistant choreographer for the Broadway musical Best Foot Forward (1941). He then took Donen with him to Hollywood when MGM bought the film rights to Best Foot Forward. Donen was just 19 years old. He continued to choreograph for MGM’s legendary Arthur Freed Unit, which produces most of the studio’s terrific musicals.
Singin’ In The Rain is a love letter, and a zany satire of the awkward years when Hollywood transitioned from silent movies to talkies. It stars Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor. The movie makes use of classic 1920s-era songs written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. Don Lockwood (Kelly) is in love as no other person has ever been in love. He steps out the door and it’s raining but he’s oblivious to the rain. It may be the single finest scene in the history of cinema.
Leggy Cyd Charisse is featured. Before this film, Charisse had appeared in films as a “dance specialty” or as a supporting player since her arrival at MGM in 1944. Her torrid performance as a Louise Brooks-like vamp in the Broadway Ballet was so astonishing that producer Freed was moved to elevate her to star status.
Film technology is part of the plot. The climax involves the start of synchronized sound in the film industry. In the film, studio head R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) shows some sound films at the party where Kelly sees Reynolds for the second time, providing two big turning points at once. There are sequences of actors with diction coaches, just as it happened in reality once sound was introduced in films, and some actor’s careers were jeopardized by having to suddenly master a new skill.
Singin’ In The Rain uses state-of-the-art film technology for 1952. The beautiful Technicolor is emphasized by the fabulously colorful costumes and production design. The sound design is as good as it could be in the early 1950s. The effects are complex, and they are shown off to their best advantage in the rain sequence. Even today, rain machines are frequently employed in a way that it appears to be raining on film, but in reality, it’s just enough coverage to produce the illusion. In the Singin’ In The Rain sequence, Donen made sure that you can see the whole area is getting flooded, and they use Kelly’s umbrella, as torrents of water bounce off of it, to emphasize that no matter where he goes, rain is pouring down on him.
Donen’s relationship with Kelly deteriorated in 1955 during their final collaboration, It’s Always Fair Weather, a bust at the box-office. Probably the original Hollywood musical had begun to lose its box-office clout around 1955. The studio did not release it with its usual publicity blitz. It was inexplicably released as a drive-in double feature with Bad Day At Black Rock (1955). Audiences were not expecting a MGM musical with a rather dark theme; one of three GI’s coming home from the war, vowing a loyal, buddy-buddy reunion, then, upon reuniting years later, realizing they have outgrown one another and have virtually nothing in common.
This film should be seen for Kelly’s dance on roller skates to I Like Me a terrific song written by André Previn, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Kelly had been searching for just the right opportunity to dance on skates in a film for years. Comden wrote she lived close to Kelly in Beverly Hills and that he had purchased skates at a hardware store near-by and that she’d watched Kelly take his daughter skating many times. It’s not a stretch that Kelly spent a lot of hours imagining just where and when he’d do a roller skating number. To demonstrate that the skates were authentic, Kelly swaps flawlessly from “tap” to “glide” at the end of each take.
There is also a very robust and creative “trash can lids” number featuring Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd. With a trash can lid stuck to one foot, the trio bounce up and down a street while still in uniform. Watching Kelly teamed with Dailey and Kidd, the only time the three great dancers appeared together, is enjoyable. It remains underrated and serves as one of the final signs of the demise of the great original movie musical.
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers has nothing to do with Kelly. Produced by the Freed Unit. It was a movie Donen didn’t even want to make, and then insisted if he did there would be very little dancing. Instead he wound up helping Kidd choreograph and shoot the greatest dance scene in history.
After directing Hepburn in her first musical, Funny Face, he directed her in two of the best films of her career, the thriller/comedy Charade, and the bitter romance Two For The Road (1967) with the Albert Finney. Using nonlinear storytelling, Two For The Road is a love story about two drifters who deal with cynicism, suspicion, and adultery during one of their annual road trips around Europe.
Donen’s success started to slip in the 1970s, but he did direct Bob Fosse in The Little Prince (1974), which inspired Michael Jackson‘s own choreography.
Donen never received a signle Academy Award nomination, a shame only slightly righted when he received a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1998. The award was presented to him by Donen fan Martin Scorsese. In his speech, Donen quoted Irving Berlin‘s Cheek To Cheek, which Astaire sang in Top Hat (1935):
“Heaven, I’m in in Heaven, any my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.“
Donen:
“Once upon a time, a lonely boy in South Carolina was sparked by the wonder of movies, captivated by everything from cowboys to comedians to movie monsters. And then I saw Flying Down To Rio, and it changed my life. It just seemed wonderful, and my life wasn’t wonderful. The joy of dancing to music! And Fred was so amazing, and Ginger – Oh, God! Ginger!“
After Donen’s first marriage ended in divorce, Kelly married Donen’s ex-wife, Jeanne Coyne. Donen was married five times and had an affair with Elizabeth Taylor. In later years he was “happily unmarried” to the great actor/director/writer Elaine May.
Donen was 94 years old when his final credits rolled in February 2019.
