Tag: Musicals

A Star Is Born (1954)

James Mason and Judy Garland deal with ups and downs in Hollywood in A Star is Born

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Judy Garland (Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester), James Mason (Norman Maine/Ernest Gubbins), Jack Carson (Matt Libby), Charles Bickford (Oliver Niles), Tommy Noonan (Danny McGuire)

A Star is Born’s story had effectively been told twice already in Hollywood – once under the same title in 1937 and once before that as What Price Hollywood?, directed by none other than George Cukor. But Judy Garland’s husband Sid Luft saw the project was perfect for her. Luft thought the volatile Garland needed a director who could draw the best from her – and who better than Cukor, who worked with actors perhaps better than any other director in Hollywood. Cukor had been worried about repeating himself – but the chance to direct his first musical, first technicolour epic and work with Garland was too tempting.

The story is of course familiar. Esther Blodgett (Judy Garland) is an aspiring singer who – with quick thinking and performance nerves of steel – saves drunken Hollywood star Norman Maine (James Mason) from humiliation by involving him in a musical number at a charity event. When he sobers up, Maine goes to visit Esther to thank her – and is blown away when he hears her singing. Convinced she will be a major star, Maine arranges for a screen test with studio head Oliver Niles (Charles Bickford) and later pitches heavily for her to be considered as a last-minute replacement on the studio’s big new musical when the star drops out. Esther – or Vicki Lester as the studio renames her – becomes a major star when the film is a smash hit. But as her career goes up and up, Maine’s alcoholism and unreliability start to catch up with him and his own career hits the skids.

Cukor’s A Star is Born is a big, charming, impressive film that mixes emotional desperation with moments of joyous celebration. The film was not the box-office bomb it’s often believed to be (although it did do disappointing business) but, worried about its length, the studio cut the film several times during its release. The film we have today is a slightly neutered version, with several scenes reassembled by film historian Ronald Haver using audio, the odd clip and still photographs (it adds an impressionistic section of the film which you can’t imagine Cukor would have cared for) – but Haver did locate several missing musical numbers which add to the film’s impact.

Garland sings all the numbers, and some of her best work ever is in this film. Her late night bar rendition of The Man That Got Away (the performance that wins Norman’s heart) is superb. I love the affectionate spontaneity of Someone at Last, Esther’s recreation to amuse Norman of the sequence she has spent the day filming in the studio. This scene is playful, sweet, funny and has a freshness not all the numbers have.

Some of the other numbers go on too long – and it’s hard to escape the feeling that they are in there solely because of Garland and not because they serve the plot. Because this isn’t really a musical as such, more of a romantic tragedy with the odd tune, with each number a performance. It works superbly because Cukor’s sympathetic direction draws some of her best work from Garland – and a truly superb performance from Mason.

Cukor works particularly effectively with Garland who, in real life at this point, was far more similar to the destructive Maine (she delayed the film frequently with her absences and fluctuations in health). Garland is of course too old for the part – but it doesn’t really matter as she brings it such freshness, naturalness and emotional openness that you can persuade yourself that she’s a young ingénue at least ten years younger than she looks.

Garland was also surely helped by being paired opposite Mason. Not the first choice – that was Cary Grant – or indeed the second, Mason was hired as his professionalism and expertise could deal with Garland’s erraticism. Under Cukor’s direction he gives his finest work on screen here. His turns Maine into someone decent, charming, kind – but overwhelmingly self-destructive. His slightly slurred speech and ability to turn on a sixpence to anger makes for some of the best drunken acting you’ll ever see. But it works especially as we are desperate for Maine to kick the bottle. Because when he’s sober he’s the perfect husband and gentlemen. But Mason uses that to mine the deep tragedy of the character, his intense shame and self-loathing. The later sequences of drunken misbehaviour are heartbreaking (Maine’s drunken interjections at Esther’s Oscar-winning speech are almost unbearably painful to watch), and it’s all powered by Mason’s humanity in the role. It’s a truly great performance.

The film itself is perhaps a little slow and uneven around these performances. The musical numbers – whisper it – frequently slow the action down or grind the plot to a complete halt (none of them add anything to the story at all, and exist to showcase Garland). The film is so tightly focused on its two leads that it never develops any sub-plots to contrast with the main action. There is some light satire on Hollywood studios and their rapacious desire for more money – but not too heavy as the villain here is the odious press man (a weasly Jack Carson) while the studio head is a kindly, affectionate, fatherly figure who would never make a call based on business. The matter of fact way both stars have their names changed (the moment when Esther discovers Norman’s real name is a hilarious throwaway moment) is a neat gag. But the film takes a long time, frequently stopping for another Garland set-piece.

Perhaps the studio instincts were right that the film needed to be tighter – and some of the dialogue sequences reinserted by Haver hardly add much too the plot. Cukor’s direction is calm but assured though and the superb performances of the two leads make the film what it is. It looks fabulous with its technicolour depth, and it carries a genuine emotional force that pays off dramatically by the film’s conclusion. A Star is Born is uneven at times and overindulgent but it has more than enough going for it to reward the viewer.

Gigi (1958)

Louis Jourdan forms an unusual romance with Leslie Caron’s Gigi

Director: Vincente Minnelli

Cast: Leslie Caron (Gigi), Louis Jourdan (Gaston Lachaille), Maurice Chevalier (Honoré), Hermione Gingold (Madame Alvarez “Mamita”), Eva Gabor (Liane d’Exelmans), Jacques Bergerac (Sandomir), Isabel Jeans (Aunt Alicia), John Abbott (Manuel)

In 1958 Gigi was littered with Oscars, winning all nine of its nominations to become one of the most successful films at the ceremony ever. It’s bizarre considering this is a run-of-the-mill musical with all the production values you would expect from an Arthur Freed production, but not really anything special compared to several other films from the same stable. It’s one of those moments when you remember Singin’ in the Rain didn’t even get nominated for Best Picture.

Anyway, based on a book by Collette, Gigi deserved some sort of award for sneaking under the Hays code a story about a young girl training to be a courtesan, and the heartless playboy her family want her to seduce. Leslie Caron is Gigi, while the man who she has a sisterly affection for is Gaston (Louis Jourdan), the man around town bored with all the artificiality around him. Both Gigi and Gaston are heavily guided by their mentors: in Gigi’s case her grandmother, famed former courtesan Madame Alvarez (Hermione Gingold), in Gaston’s his uncle Honoré (Maurice Chevalier) a charming old rake. Everyone wants the two of them to become lovers, but do Gigi and Gaston want the sort of relationship of convenience their mentors expect?

That the film exists at all is a triumph of careful negotiation between Freed and the Hays Code, not usually open to films about high-class prostitutes and their marks. It does make for an occasional bit of confusion from the viewer – and a truncated plot as key ideas are circuited around (or over) – but also marvellous scenes, well written by Alan Jay Lerner, where Madame Alvarez and her sister (and courtesan trainer) Aunt Alicia (Isabel Jeans) discuss Gigi having “matured” to the correct age to become Gaston’s mistress by using unfinished sentences and raised eyebrows.

It makes for a slightly odd viewing experience today, especially with our far more enlightened views of the role women can have in society. The film mines comic material out of Gaston’s jilting of an unfaithful mistress (including Honoré toasting him for having driven the poor girl to attempted suicide after her public humiliation), while the comedic training sequences as Alicia attempts to turn Gigi into every man’s dream of the perfect mistress carries more than a whiff of exploitation today. But the film comes from a different r time, where such matters wouldn’t have occurred to either audiences or film makers.

Theres is a similar vibe in the film’s now most notorious sequence (and its opening) as Maurice Chevalier’s Honoré introduces the film and its world by crooning “Thank Heaven For Little Girls”. It’s a great catchy song (wonderfully delivered by Chevalier) but its lyrics thankful that “little girls get/Bigger every day”, matched with the septuagenarian Chevalier leering at a group of schoolgirls playing in the park, carry more than a whiff of the paedophile today.

While you could say that this is all part of Minelli and Lerner’s intentions – that under the elaborate design of the film, there runs an undercurrent of selfish men carelessly using women for their own entertainment and many women enabling and encouraging this – it’s presented with such lightness, froth and charm that any potential darkness underneath it gets lost all together. Instead, its charming outer confection tends to obscure the difficult morals under the surface and prevents the viewer from engaging with them.

And the film’s design is what it’s really about. The first major musical to be shot largely on location – compare to An American in Paris which recreated the city of romance on a sound stage – its camera work is fairly reserved and focused on admiring the sets and locations more than providing a bit more to really engage the eye with. The design is impressive, mixing art nouveau and Cecil Beaton’s elaborate style, and the sets and costume (all Oscar-winning of course) really impress, even if the opulence ends up becoming overwhelming, not least with the overpowering reds that fill Gigi’s rooms. Minelli’s love of opulence and art ends up crushing the film.

That design also overwhelms the character. It’s telling that among its nine nominations, not a single one was for acting. Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan do perfectly acceptable jobs, but their characters are not particularly interesting. Surprisingly for a musical – one starring Leslie Caron! – there is no dancing either. The film really misses the presence of people like Gene Kelly, the kind of leading man or woman who could carry a film on charisma. The real charisma comes from Chevalier (the one surprise to miss an Oscar nomination), who is so perfect as Honoré, so charming and dry (and who delivers his songs so well) that the film flags dramatically when he is absent (which he is for much of the final act). But the film misses a real heart.

It makes for a film that looks good, but is more a triumph of style and ingenious storytelling than it is storytelling with impact. Its Oscar win is perhaps a tribute to its faultless opulence and big budget spectacle. Because, boiled down to it, it’s a film with a story that hinges slightly on things that aren’t exactly tasteful revolving around people who aren’t very interesting. It has some good songs and moments from the Alan Jay Lerner script, but there is a reason this Best Picture winner has stuck in the collective memory so little, despite its record-breaking haul.

The Greatest Showman (2017)

Hugh Jackman excels in The Greatest Showman, like a Broadway show bought straight to film

Director: Michael Gracey

Cast: Hugh Jackman (PT Barnum), Michelle Williams (Charity Hallett-Barnum), Zac Efron (Philip Carlyle), Rebecca Ferguson (Jenny Lind), Zendaya (Anne Wheeler), Keala Settle (Lettie Lutz), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (WD Wheeler), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (Deng Yan), Paul Sparks (James Gordon Bennett), Sam Humphrey (Charles Stratton)

In early 2018, the whole world seemed to go crazy for The Greatest Showman. A big old-fashioned film musical that wouldn’t look out of place with Gene Kelly in the lead, people went to the cinema again and again to see this escapist song-and-dance epic. Based loosely on the life of PT Barnum (Hugh Jackman), covering his marriage to childhood love Charity (Michelle Williams) and the creation of his Museum of Curiosities (funded through some chicanery with banks), he staffs the museum with “freaks” whom he encourages to embrace their nature and entertain the crowds. The “circus” is a huge success, but will Barnum be seduced by his desire for greater fame and acceptance in the cultural high circles that have no time for his mass entertainment? And how will his fascination with opera singer Jennie Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) affect his marriage?

If you get the idea from that plot summary that this is rather safe and unchallenging plot-wise, you would be right. Structurally this doesn’t offer anything more than hundreds of musicals before it – a hero aims for the stars, loses his roots on the way, only to triumphantly rediscover them and remember why he got into this business in the first place. Yup that’s your classic Hollywood plot here. And it doesn’t matter a damn.

Because The Greatest Showman, like the shows Barnum offered the crowds, knows exactly what it is: an old-fashioned Hollywood musical, shot like a classic piece of Broadway spectacle, crammed to the gills with hugely exciting and dynamic musicals performers ripping through a series of impressive songs and some stunningly choreographed numbers. Who gives a damn if you’ve seen the story before, when it’s so well done, the actors so engaging and the highlights on the way to brilliant to watch. Come to this with your mind set for the West End, and you’ll love it. Expect to see La La Land and you are in for a disappointment (or a pleasant surprise!)

Gracey’s film is unashamedly old-fashioned, and shot with a confident stillness that puts the actors, dancers and singers front-and-centre rather than the flourishes of a director. In contrast to some over-directed musical numbers, Gracey is happy to place the camera so we can see all the numbers perfectly. And why wouldn’t he when all the actors can dance as well as this? I want to see every step of the intricate choreography (that would have thrilled Kelly) from Jackman and Efron in The Other Side. I want to see every step of the thrilling group dance number From Now On. I want to marvel at Efron and Zendaya soaring through the skies on trapeze ropes in Rewrite the Stars.

It’s a musical that chose its cast carefully, requiring that they should all be capable of the sort of feats of physical and musical perfection that we all enjoy watching on Strictly every week. In all this, the snubs of the critics seems neither here nor there – hilariously the film always commentates on its own terrible reviews in advance (!) in the character of James Gordon Bennett, a humourless snobby theatre reviewer – it’s a film that is shot in the arm of pure entertainment.

I mean you’d need to have a heart of pure cold not to feel some serious emotions during Jackman and Williams’ beautiful rooftop ballet during A Million Dreams. What I particularly liked about this was its unabashed, carefully designed artificiality – like a blast of 1950s Minnelli musicals, this uses painted backdrops and studio locations to beautiful effect to create a larger-than-life, theatrical world of hyper reality. It really helps you to get even more swept up by it all.

But then you also get swept up from having an actor as charismatic as Hugh Jackman in the lead. Oozing charm and grace from every pore, Jackman is riveting in the role, his grin a mile wide, his skills as a singer and (most especially) a dancer shown off to stunning effect. He turns moments that could have rogueish qualities into sweetness, he is impossible not to root for. Sure as an actor he’s not stretched with the conventional arc Barnum has, but does that matter when he is giving this all he has. It’s a hugely, overwhelmingly enjoyable performance of pure charisma that I can’t imagine any other actor in Hollywood having the chutzpah to pull off. It’s so skilled that he never overwhelms the film but you could move the whole performance into a 1,000-seater theatre and it would still work perfectly.

The rest of the cast all lift their considerable game to match the commitment and expertise of the lead. Williams showcases her own musical talents, while Efron and Zendaya have a truly affecting romance at the heart of the film (while also being considerably compelling musical performers). Rebecca Ferguson has the least rewarding role (and is also dubbed for the high soprano singing), but does a decent job as someone you could imagine turning Barnum’s head. The rest of the cast playing assorted circus performers create a truly family atmosphere, with Keala Settle and Sam Humphrey particularly fine.

You could argue that the film – with its message of acceptance and lack of judgement – flies a little bit in the face of the real Barnum (“there’s a sucker born every minute”) who probably was partly exploiting his acts for cash. The treatment of Jennie Lind as an increasingly scheming would-be-seductress is a sad slur on a woman who gave most of her earnings to charity. In fact you wish allthe names had been changed to distance us from reality.

But the film gets away with it because it is basically a heartfelt and genuine piece of work that, most of all, like a huge Broadway musical just wants to entertain the audience. And on that score it works – you’ll get invested in the characters and their story and you’ll find yourself humming the songs afterwards and trying (failing) to dance those steps. Go into it in the right mindset, and you’ll find a delight.

A Star Is Born (2018)

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga excel in A Star is Born, truly one from the heart

Director: Bradley Cooper

Cast: Lady Gaga (Ally Campana), Bradley Cooper (Jackson Maine), Sam Elliott (Bobby Maine), Dave Chappelle (George “Noodles” Stone), Andrew Dice Clay (Lorenzo Campana), Anthony Ramos (Ramon), Rafi Gavron (Rex Gavron), Greg Grunberg (Phil), Ron Rifkin (Carl)

The story of A Star is Born is practically a staple of Hollywood. Bradley Cooper’s film is the fourth version (after 1937, 1954 and 1976) and re-packages the action to the country and western scene. Cooper injects the film with a real seam of emotion and complex, challenging humanity – represented above all by Cooper and Gaga’s searing, heartfelt, beautiful performances.

Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) is a famous country singer, and a self-destructive, if charming, alcoholic. One day, by chance, he stumbles into a bar and overhears a performance by Ally (Lady Gaga), a soulful artist rejected on multiple occasions for a record deal because of her slightly unconventional style and looks. Jackson and Ally form a deep connection and he invites her to perform with him. Their bond grows and Jackson is proud as her career starts to flourish. But this rise is matched by his own increasingly damaging alcoholism and drug addiction which puts his health and their happiness at risk.

A Star is Born brilliantly refocuses the story as a beautiful relationship drama. In previous versions, the man slumps into destructive behaviour due to resentment at the female protégé’s increasing success. Here though, Jackson – despite flashes of jealousy – remains supportive and proud of his wife, and she devoted to him. What Cooper has structured here is a story about the damage of depression and alcohol – and how they can shatter and destroy a person regardless of events in their life.

It also means we get a fresh perspective on an otherwise predictable drama. Having Jackson remain proud and supportive – and increasingly guilt-ridden by the impact his behaviour has on Ally – means we can also remain invested in him. Similarly, it’s hard not to share his feeling that Ally loses something of her beautiful soul as her manager crafts her into a manufactured pop icon. It’s the intrusion of the rest of the world into this couple that puts strain on their relationship, not internal tensions.

It’s a film in many ways that starts with a happy ending. The early, romantic meetings are beautifully done, the first performance of Shallow (Ally’s song) on stage plays like the fist-pump ending of any number of Cinderella stories. Her protective attraction matched with his old school chivalry in their early relationship is deeply romantic and shows what could be between them. Cooper sprinkles the film with happy endings – you’ll be begging the film to stop at any number of them – and barely a scene goes by that won’t have you choking back tears or watching through your fingers in pained horror at how badly things can go wrong.

It helps that for both leads this was clearly a deeply personal project. Both produce sensational performances. Cooper has talked about his struggles with both alcoholism and depression – and he brings all this deep rooted pain to bear here. Jackson is, in many ways, a wonderful man – caring, supportive and loving – but struggles with demons he can’t control. Cooper’s fragility, his suffering, his gut wrenching guilt and sadness are played beautifully in a performance that truly comes from the heart, and that leaves you wanting to give him a hug.

Lady Gaga is his match in a performance of tender innocence, of gentle humanity and earnestness. Again you sense the story of an unconventional person, with crippling self doubt, more than speaks to her. Gaga’s emotional bravery and commitment here is extraordinary, and you feel again she is showing in this film something very personal and tender to her. The chemistry between the two actors is electric – it’s rare to see two such performances complement each other so perfectly.

These two actors play off each other beautifully, with scenes that are at times hard to watch in their scarring emotional truth. At the same time, the investment of the audience is absolute in this loving relationship. The film also has some excellent performances in the support, not least from Sam Elliott as Jackson’s frustrated, but fundamentally loving, brother.

A Star is Born shocked me. It’s not the film I was expecting, or the story I anticipated. Instead it’s an entertainment industry parable, a love story, a film about the destructive unpredictability of depression and how sometimes love can’t conquer all. With some graceful direction from Cooper and above all his emotional honesty – and the truth of his and Gaga’s performances – this becomes a film that tugs on the heart strings until heart strings break. Beautifully made and wonderful.

My Fair Lady (1964)

Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison cover how to speak proper in My Fair Lady

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle), Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins), Stanley Holloway (Alfred P Doolittle), Wilfrid Hyde-White (Colonel Hugh Pickering), Gladys Cooper (Mrs Higgins), Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Theodore Bikel (Zoltan Karpathy), Mona Washbourne (Mrs Pearce), Isobel Elsom (Mrs Eynsford-Hill), Henry Daniell (British Ambassador)

My Fair Lady is possibly one of the most popular musicals of all time. A singing-and-dancing adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play, a satire on self-improvement and sexual politics, the original Broadway production ran for over six years and 2,717 performances, while the original cast-recording album was a smash hit bestseller. It was a question of when rather than if a film version would be made. When it finally happened, the film was garlanded with Oscars aplenty, not least Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

The musical follows the story of Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a cockney flower girl in Victorian London, whose life is changed after a chance encounter with linguistics genius Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). Higgins has a bet with his colleague Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) – he can change Eliza’s accent and manners so much that the shrill cockney girl will pass for a society belle. The bet will not only change their lives, but also those of Eliza’s father, sage-like binman Alfred (Stanley Holloway), and lovestruck romantic young gentleman Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett).

From the start, producer Jack L Warner wanted to develop a new verison of the film, fresh and different from the stage production. George Cukor, the esteemed director from Hollywood’s Golden Years, was brought on board as a safe pair of hands – but it was clear Warner was calling the shots. How to put your own stamp on a massive hit musical? Well you start by getting a fresh cast in. Julie Andrews had made the role her own in the original production, so Hollywood was stunned when she was overlooked for the part. Instead Audrey Hepburn was hired – while Julie Andrews got the consolation price of being able to accept Disney’s offer of the role of Mary Poppins. Warner knew who he wanted for Higgins – and Cary Grant was swiftly courted for the role. But Grant refused, allegedly responding that he wouldn’t even see the film unless Rex Harrison was retained in his signature role.

So Harrison owes him a drink or two, because the film allowed him to leave a permanent record of a stage role he had played over 1,000 times on Broadway and in the West End. Harrison had taken a revolutionary approach to musicals, by basically not singing. Instead he sort of spoke the songs rhythmically – an approach that every other performer of the role has stuck to. The film is a brilliant capture of this unique and authoritative performance, and while Harrison is not exactly fresh he’s certainly charismatic, delivering every scene with confidence and well-rehearsed bombast.

Harrison’s steely lack of willingness to compromise also lead indirectly to a revolution in sound recording in the movies. Harrison refused to obey the custom at the time to lip-sync on set to a pre-recorded soundtrack. Harrison insisted that his performance was subtly different every time so he could never lip-sync accurately. Instead the technicians were forced to invent a sort of wireless microphone that could be disguised in the over-sized neck ties Harrison wears. This also means that at least one musical number has the bizarre situation of Harrison singing live, Hyde-White lip-syncing and Audrey Hepburn being dubbed.

Ah yes Hepburn. If there is one thing everyone remembers about Hepburn’s performance in this film, it is that she doesn’t sing a single note of the final film. Her actual singing was quickly considered by Warner to be not up to snuff, and so she is replaced by voice-double-to-the-stars Marnie Nixon. It’s always a mark against Hepburn, whose performance is often rather shrill, stagy and (whisper it) even a little bit irritating. In fact, she’s pretty much miscast as the cockney flower girl, never convincing as a bit of rough from the streets, and is so horrendously misstyled throughout that she also jarringly looks like a 1960s fashion icon floated into a period film.

Having hired the male star of the Broadway production – not to mention Stanley Holloway also being retained from the original cast after James Cagney refused to be drawn out from retirement – the film quickly settles down into being a straight Broadway musical captured as faithfully as possible on the big-screen. My Fair Lady is a film crushed under the pressure of its design, and watching it today it looks unbearably studio-bound and flat. In every scene you can never forget you are watching the action take place on enormous sets, with the camera pulled back to try and get as much of the expensive soundstage work in frame as possible.

As a dance musical, it’s pretty flat – Holloway’s numbers in particular are strikingly lifeless in their dancing, which makes you regret even more that Cagney couldn’t be lured to star in it – and much of the singing feels forced or over-performed. Even Harrison’s numbers feel pretty by-the-numbers from Harrison’s constant repetition of them. Even the more impressive scenes – such as the race track sequence – feel artificial and over-designed, the money chucked at the careful period detail and over-elaborate costumes and set (designs courtesy of Cecil Beaton, who allegedly drew the designs and then disappeared to leave them to be interpreted by others) seeming more and more dated as the years pass by.

But then this was a film that probably felt dated at the time it was made – it beat Dr Strangelove for best picture, and in five years’ time Midnight Cowboy was lifting the Oscar – never more so than in Cukor’s direction. One wonders at times what Cukor really did: Warner cast the film and led on the design and staging. Harrison and Holloway had played their roles literally thousands of times already. The camera work is as conservative and unimaginative as you can expect, with the film dryly set up to give you the perfect view from the stalls. Several touches – such as the staging (complete with blurry focus edges) of Eliza’s fantasies of the domineering Higgins being punished by firing squad – are clumsy and obvious. It’s a film made with no real independent personality whatsoever.

Not to mention the fact that it completely fails to draw any chemistry from the Higgins/Doolittle relationship whatsoever. It’s an odd one, as the musical takes on a romantic ending of the two characters together – an ending, by the way, that Shaw famously hated when a suggestion of it was added to the original Pygmalion production. Here, this comes from nowhere, and feels unbelievably forced and artificial as Harrison has demonstrated no interest at all (other than irritation) for Hepburn, and she in turn offers little back. When they come back together it’s hard to care.

But they cared back then as this was a huge box office smash. It’s very odd to imagine it now – because this isn’t a great film, it’s a decently done one that carries some charm but never finds an identity for itself as film away from its musical roots and never brings anything unique and imaginative to the table. It’s extraordinarily flat as a piece of film-making and seems increasingly more and more dated in its performances, its atmosphere and its staging. It’s got some charm, but I’m not sure if it’s got enough.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Rami Malek brings Freddie Mercury to life in crowd-pleaser Bohemian Rhapsody

Director: Bryan Singer (Dexter Fletcher)

Cast: Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury), Lucy Boynton (Mary Austin), Gwilym Lee (Brian May), Ben Hardy (Roger Taylor), Joe Marzello (John Deacon), Aidan Gillen (John Reid), Allen Leech (Paul Prenter), Tom Hollander (Jim Beach), Mike Myers (Ray Foster), Aaron McCusker (Jim Hutton), Ace Bhatti (Bomi Bulsara), Meneda Das (Jer Bulsara)

Biography can be a tricky territory on film. How can you hope to capture a whole life, with all its ups and downs, its shades of grey, in a single sitting of two hours? Well the truth is you can’t really – and Bohemian Rhapsody is an enjoyable but very safe and traditional attempt to tell something of Mercury’s life. It carefully organises his life into a clear five act structure (Beginnings, Early success, Triumph, Temptation and fall, Redemption) that wouldn’t have been unfamiliar to the writer of a medieval mystery play.

The film uses Queen’s legendary Live Aid performance as the book ends for a story that covers Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) as he joins Queen, works closely with the band to compose the hit songs that would make them legends, then falls tragically under the influence of band manager Paul Prenter (Allen Leech) and leaves the band to build a solo career and succumbs to those dreaded demons of drink, drugs and sex. The film culminates in a brilliant recreation of Live Aid (by the way, only making the vaguest of passing references to the cause behind Live Aid, with the main motivation for performing seeming to be that everyone else is) which, despite some wonky CGI at points, brilliantly captures the atmosphere of being at an electric live gig.

Bohemian Rhapsody is an affectionately made crowd-pleaser of a film which has convention running through its soul like sugar at the centre of stick of rock. With the heavy involvement of the surviving members of Queen and their manager, it’s a film that wants to very carefully avoid anything too controversial – which is fair enough when it’s people making a film about their friend – and does its best to shave off his rough edges, and apportion blame for faults anywhere other than Freddie.

As such, the film defines Freddie’s successes as those he achieved as part of “the family” of Queen – and his failures when he fell under the influence of others who were using him. The film draws Freddie as being desperate to find love and acceptance – from his struggles to be accepted by his traditional father (a very good performance by Ace Bhatti), to his deep love for his wife Mary Austin (while guiltily struggling with his homosexuality), to his sometimes prickly relationship with the rest of Queen, who are basically a band of brothers. Is it any wonder that someone as desperate for love as Freddie might fall under the influence of someone offering constant but not genuine affection?

Anyway, the film very carefully spreads the genius of Queen neatly around the band (we see them all chucking in songs and key ideas, even if Freddie is the driving force). Part of the reason the film works is that the band are right – these are songs for everyone. These are songs that make you want to be involved in their performance, that make you want to sing along and stamp your feet. It’s the magic alchemy of the band’s own genius that the film is so dependent on – even if the film does sometimes struggle to dramatise the act of creating art. Early on we see Freddie idly play the opening bars of Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano. “What’s that, it’s beautiful” asks his wife – “It has promise” Freddie shrugs. That’s about par for the course for how the songs come together in this film. What makes it work is the chemistry between the actors and the general lightness of the story telling.

That lightness is largely missing from the sections of the film that chart Freddie’s “dark days”. Keen to absolve Freddie as much as possible from fault, the film largely takes all his negative traits and actions and basically pours them into another man and identifies him as the reason for everything bad that happens in the film. I have no idea if the real Paul Prenter (a moustache twirling performance by Allen Leech) bore any resemblance to the chippy, bitter, scheming, selfish, greedy bad influence who appears in this film – but then Prenter has been dead for over 20 years so we’ll never know. The film blames everything – and I mean everything – on Prenter and paints Freddie as an innocent victim led astray.

The film also shies away as much as possible from showing us anything too gay. In fact, it’s hard not to get the awkward (if no doubt inadvertent) feeling that the film’s implying that the more Freddie got immersed in the gay underworld, the more he was consumed by his flaws and by bad things. In any case we get shots of Freddie at S&M parties, but shot with a dream like wistfulness that concentrates on Freddie walking towards the camera disconnected from his surroundings. The film juggles the timeline of Freddie’s life as much as possible to make for a clean narrative (in actual fact Prenter wasn’t dismissed until two years after Live Aid, Queen never split up and reformed and Freddie wasn’t diagnosed formally with AIDS until 1989), and it adds to a feeling that we are seeing a carefully formed drama that is telling a “better” version of Freddie’s life.

The biggest weapon in the film’s arsenal is Rami Malek’s performance in the lead role. His recreation of Freddie’s style and on-stage swagger is so faultless, you start to believe you are seeing the real thing. He also really adds a vulnerability, loneliness and sensitivity to Freddie’s private life. He can be prickly and arrogant, but it all stems from a deep insecurity that Malek brilliantly builds with a tender empathy. It’s a star-making performance, and he is very well supported by the rest of the cast, including Lucy Boynton as his loving wife, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy and Joe Mazzello very good as the other members of the band and Tom Hollander excellent as their eventual manager.

The main issue with the film is its strident conventionality. It obeys all the rules you would expect of a good biopic, and builds a picture of Freddie’s life that perfectly fits an ideal drama structure. Its basically safe, traditional and largely directed with a lack of imagination (although it’s troubled production, Bryan Singer’s dismissal due to “personal problems” and Dexter Fletcher’s late parachuting in to finish the film no doubt contributed to this) which offers very little that will surprise you and, in its quesiness on homosexuality, some that might offend you. But I think it provides enough pleasure from Queen’s wonderful discography that it almost rocks you.

Mary Poppins Returns (2018)

Emily Blunt is practically perfect in every way in Mary Poppins Returns

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Jack), Ben Whishaw (Michael Banks), Emily Mortimer (Jane Banks), Pixie Davies (Annabel Banks), Nathanael Saleh (John Banks), Joel Dawson (Georgie Banks), Julie Walters (Ellen), Colin Firth (William Weatherall Wilkins), Meryl Streep (Topsy), Dick van Dyke (Mr Dawes Jnr), David Warner (Admiral Boom), Jim Norton (Mr Binnacle), Jeremy Swift (Hamilton Gooding), Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (Templeton Frye), Noma Dumezweni (Miss Penny Farthing)

Some sequels go into production even before the first film hits the cinemas. Others give you a good long wait – and Mary Poppins has had you waiting 54 years. Of course, part of that was down to her creator, PL Travers. Travers so hated the Disney original (I mean, she really hated it) she outright banned all other adaptations of her work – but her estate were far more open to the prospect (and let’s be honest, probably also to the money) that Disney could finally go ahead with a sequel.

And thank goodness for that, since this delightful film is practically perfect in every way. It’s 25 years since the events of the first film, and Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) is now a widower with three children, whose home is about to be repossessed by the bank for non-payment of loans. His sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) is trying to help, but the pressure and sadness are showing on Michael and are forcing his children Annabel, John and Georgie (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and Joel Dawson) to grow up fast. The Banks family is in trouble – so it’s the perfect time for the arrival of Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) to save the day – with a little bit of help from gas-lighter Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda).

Mary Poppins Returns is a triumphant mix of nostalgia and originality, that walks a very difficult tightrope between being a loving pastiche and tribute to the original film while also managing to bring its own original charm and magic touch. That’s a difficult trick to pull off – but it basically takes a slight remix of the original film’s story and adds a heft of emotional impact to create something that feels modern and fresh while also being very close tonally to the original.

This is never clearer than in Emily Blunt’s sublime performance as Mary Poppins. If there is anyone who had a more difficult job in this film than Blunt I can’t think of them. She had to take on the most iconic character of an iconic actress – and does so brilliantly, but creates a character who feels an equal mix of both Andrews and Blunt. This is clearly the same character as before, but Blunt mixes in a wonderful heart-warming care and concern under the pristine English exterior that melts the heart. She has a glowing twinkle to her, an almost bottomless charm with an endearing delight for the wonder and silliness that is part of Poppins world. And boy can she sing and dance? She carries the film with effortless grace – to such endearing effect that, just like with Julie Andrews, you miss her as she becomes less prominent in the final act.

And of course she is matched by a superb company of actors. Lin-Manuel Miranda makes the transition to the big-screen like a duck to water, hugely loveable, wonderfully charming and superb (as you would expect) at the musical sequences. The three children give exemplary performances, with never a hint of sickly sentimentalism. Emily Mortimer is radiantly giddy as Jane, while Ben Whishaw will bring a lump to the throat as a Michael who is struggling under a huge amount of grief. That’s not the mention wonderful turns from the whole of the cast, especially from Holdbrook-Smith as a kindly lawyer.

All these actors are “marshalled” brilliantly by director Rob Marshall. With his experience of musicals – both on screen and stage – Marshall knows his stuff and brings all his experience to bear here to create a sequel that will be seen (I’m sure) as a worthy companion to the original. Marshall’s direction of the musical sequences is faultless. He knows exactly how and where to place the camera for maximum effect, and gets just the right tone and mood from these scenes. He’s also, let’s not forget, a brilliant choreographer and has put together some exquisite sequences, not least the lamplighter song Trip the Light Fantastic, a whirligig showstopper of a number that if you saw it in the West End would have the whole crowd on their feet.

The songs make for easy criticism (reviewers seem duty-bound to say they are not as good as the original) – but to these ears Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman’s songs and scores are both catchy and engaging. Give them time and I’m sure you’ll find them as replete with impact as the Sherman brothers’ tunes from 1964. Saying that, there might be one musical number too many – but that’s a very minor criticism.

Because this is a film that gets so much else right. The storyline is certain to leave a lump in the throat, with its delicate handling of grief and the sadness both of growing up and also children being forced to leave their childhoods behind in impossible circumstances. These are universal themes – and they certainly impacted on me, and on a cinema packed with families all of whom were engrossed. That’s part of the magic of what Marshall has achieved here – heck, even the final Big Ben set-piece starts pushing you towards the edge of your seat in tension. I also loved the bravery of the colour-blind casting. It’s a film that stands on its own feet so well, it almost takes you out of the film when Dick van Dyke appears at the end – it doesn’t need the cameo, this film is its own beast.

Mary Poppins Returns will leave a smile on your face and a glow in your heart. It’s totally lovely from start to finish. Emily Blunt is superb (with wonderful support from all) and Rob Marshall triumphs as director and choreographer in this, surely his finest movie ever. It’s got something for all ages, and a truly heart-warming story. It takes everything that works so well in the first film and builds on it. It’s a wonderful mixture of homage and originality, that you will enjoy time and time and again. Practically perfect!

Into the Woods (2014)

James Corden and Meryl Streep in the strangely flat Into the Woods

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Meryl Streep (The Witch), Emily Blunt (The Baker’s Wife), James Corden (The Baker), Anna Kendrick (Cinderella), Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince), Tracey Ullman (Jack’s Mother), Christine Baranski (Cinderella’s Mother), Johnny Depp (The Big Bad Wolf), Lilla Crawford (Little Red Riding Hood), Daniel Huttlestone (Jack), Mackenzie Mauzy (Rapunzel), Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel’s Prince), Tammy Blanchard (Florinda), Lucy Punch (Lucinda), Frances de la Tour (Giant’s Wife), Simon Russell Beale (Baker’s Father)

Musicals are big box office. Everyone has a side of themselves that enjoys the razzmatazz of song and dance numbers. In the world of the musical, Stephen Sondheim is often seen as the pinnacle of musical master craftsmen – and for years, studios had tried to bring Into the Woods, his musical reimagining of fairy tales, to the big screen. Was it worth it? Um, possibly not.

A baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are desperate to have a child. A witch (Meryl Streep) claims she has cursed them after the baker’s father (Simon Russell Beale) stole magic beans from her garden. She will lift the curse in return for four items she can use to lift a curse on her – a milk white cow, a red coat, a glass slipper and some golden hair. Well if you know anything about fairy tales it won’t take you long to figure out which tales we are going to be heading into with that list – and sure enough Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) all make appearances. But here the happy ending comes half way through the story – how will the characters deal with the impact of their choices when they have to face the consequences of their actions?

Okay I’m going to be honest, Into the Woods left me a little cold as just a musical. I didn’t really get into any of the numbers as they were playing, and the basic storyline is an odd combo: half satire, half social commentary on the dangers of getting what you want at all costs. I mean that’s clever stuff, and some big themes, but the movie certainly seems to wear them very heavily. And the movie also fails to make the musical sections engaging or inspiring – instead they are rather leadenly staged with very little real vibrancy or joy.

What’s already a rather disengaging musical isn’t helped by Rob Marshall’s leaden direction, which positions each scene with a flatness where the actors get lost in the wide screen and murky set design. Into the Woods is an astonishingly boring film to look at, murky and dimly lit, mistaking lighting (or lack of it) for mood. Every single scene is dingy and poorly framed, with events occurring in front of the viewer but never really getting engaging or interesting. Nothing strikes you interest.

It becomes a film that really isn’t that interesting to watch. This is despite some very strong efforts from nearly all the cast. Meryl Streep inevitably captured most of the praise as the Witch, and she is good, but there is something a little too artificial about her performance for my taste, something not quite heartfelt. But Emily Blunt is very good (and an excellent singer as well – who knew!) as the Baker’s wife, full of humanity and warmth. Chris Pine brings some excellent comic timing to the impossibly vain and preening Prince. There are plenty of other good moments as well, as most of the cast throw themselves into it.

But these moments keep getting lost in sequences that just aren’t interesting. For every amusing sing-off between the two princes on a waterfall, or moment of genuine warmth and charm between the baker and his wife, we get sequences of unbearable smugness (principally Johnny Depp’s appalling look-at-me cameo as the Big Bad Wolf). British character actors abound all over the place, but most have virtually nothing to do. In addition, the violence and horror elements of the original musical – as the cast deal with the terrible consequences of their actions and turn on each other – are toned down considerably.

In fact, as leading characters start dying left, right and centre, it’s not really shocking enough (as the darkness of their fates is skirted around), as Marshall’s camera meekly turns away from anything that might cause a fraction of upset. Wasn’t the whole point of fairy tales – and I suppose the original musical – to deal with both the darkness and the light? Why make such a dark musical and then try and force it into being a 12A rating? Why make a movie that tackles dark themes and then shy away from them as often as possible?

It’s part of the slightly incoherent mood of Into the Woods – it never really clicks. It doesn’t really offer much to enjoy: the musical numbers (after the opening title number) are pretty unengaging, and they are filmed with a dull unimaginativeness. Despite the money spent on it, the film looks really cheap. While there are a couple of good performances, others – like Anna Kendrick – are trying a little too hard. It’s a story that is supposed to be about the dark heart of fairy tales, and how reality after a happy ending often isn’t as jolly as we think it is – instead it’s a story that never really feels like it’s about anything.

All That Jazz (1979)

Roy Scheider plays the director Bob Fosse in a barely-veiled-at-all autobiographical film All That Jazz

Director: Bob Fosse

Cast: Roy Scheider (Joe Gideon), Jessica Lange (Angelique), Leland Palmer (Audrey Paris), Ann Reinking (Katie Jagger), Cliff Gorman (Davis Newman), Ben Vereen (O’Connor Flood), Erzsebet Foldi (Michelle Gideon), David Marguiles (Larry Goldie), Michael Tolan (Dr Ballinger), Max Wright (Joshua Penn), William LeMassena (Jonesy Hecht), Deborah Geffner (Victoria Porter), John Lithgow (Lucas Sergeant)

It’s revealing when a director makes an autobiographical film. There are insights to be found about the sort of person they are – and the sort of person they want to present themselves as to the world. And All That Jazz is possibly the most striking autobiographical film ever made. You have to have a towering amount of ego to make a film showing yourself as a deliriously talented polymath, generally liked by everyone. And then you have to have a giddy self-awareness to give your semi-fictional doppelganger all your titanic faults, selfishness, cruelty and flaws. Let’s not even get into the psychology of turning your own death into a musical number, eight years before it happened.

Just like Bob Fosse, Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) is a hugely influential choreographer and director who has changed the face of Broadway musicals before going on to become the Oscar-winning director of a string of critically acclaimed films. He is also a workaholic, addicted to a string of prescription drugs, a never-ending smoker, with a strong of failed marriages and affairs behind him. Just like Bob Fosse, in 1975 Gideon is staging his ground-breaking original production of a musical (Fosse was directing Chicago which clearly inspired the unnamed musical here), starring his ex-wife (and mother of his daughter) Audrey Paris (Leland Palmer, a frequent Fosse collaborator), living with his girlfriend Kate Jagger (played by Ann Reinking, who was Fosse’s real life girlfriend at the time). At nights and weekends he is editing The Stand-Up (a version of Fosse’s film about stand-up Lenny Bruce titled Lenny starring Dustin Hoffman). When he has a near fatal heart attack part way through this, Gideon starts to sink. Fosse on the other hand used the experience to write this movie.

All That Jazz is an electric piece of film-making, full of Fosse’s dynamism. It’s not only crammed with fabulous song and dance numbers (some of the best Fosse work you’ll see) but it’s beautifully edited and paced. Fosse holds it all together so brilliantly you never feel the thing teeter on the tightrope like Gideon does (the first image of the film is appropriately Gideon walking a tightrope). It perfectly captures the high intensity, killer pressure of maintaining this constant state of activity, and suggests how much Fosse (clearly) believed his own life was a performance, every moment constructed and staged for maximum impact.

And that’s what you wonder about the film. Does Fosse hate himself, love himself or some combination of both? It’s something the film just teases, with Gideon indulged in a series of fantasy-tinged cryptic conversations with Jessica Lange (another Fosse conquest allegedly) as some sort of angel dressed in white. Here Gideon of course flirts and charms as only he can, while answering with ambiguous amounts of truthfulness a series of questions about love, his background, his wishes and dreams. But even when he says these things, there is the half smile that suggests it’s only part of the story. Or maybe Gideon himself doesn’t even know where life ends and the story begins.

Fosse’s film is just about perfectly structured. Repeatedly we see Gideon going through the same daily ritual when he wakes up: Vivaldi, shower, cocktail of prescription drugs, eye drops, slap hands, “It’s a show time!” (with an ever increasing struggle to keep the energy up). As the tempo of this repeated introduction changes through the film, you get a perfect idea of the state of Gideon’s mind and mood – and his relentless attempt to turn his own life into a perfect performance.

In among all this, perhaps no film has ever showed a better understanding of the pressures of creating a Broadway musical. The opening sequence follows a series of exhausting auditions from literally hundreds of dancers desperate for a role in Gideon’s show, slowly being whittled down to the chosen few. The rehearsals are a punishing series of deconstructions as the dancers strive to match Gideon’s perfectionism. Rehearsal rooms are crammed, sweaty and uncomfortable. The money men hover over every scene, with an eye on protecting their investment. And then, we see the results suddenly of Gideon’s work with a Chicago-ish dance routine so sexually charged it is positively indecent. It’s genius on at least three levels.

The film revolves around Gideon, and the amount of time squeezed out of his personal life by his never-ending, passionate work commitments. Leland Palmer is excellent as his loving but deeply frustrated wife, supportive but all too aware of Gideon’s selfishness. The bond between them feels strong, real and above conventional marriage. Ann Reinking is equally marvellous as his lover, protégé, partner and you name it. Between these three characters there is a hugely warm performance from Erzsebet Foldi as Gideon’s shrewd but loving daughter. Fosse isn’t afraid to sprinkle real moments of family warmth in, as if trying to show Gideon all the things he is missing out on – one particularly outstanding moment is a song-and-dance routine Reinking and Foldi perform for Gideon after the premiere of his film The Stand-Up, as entertaining as it is charming.

But the film’s secondary motor, after Fosse’s directing brilliance (seriously, there are few Hollywood directors so undervalued, the man is a genius) is Roy Scheider as Gideon. I can’t really imagine a more bizarre sounding bit of casting: Jaws Chief Brody as a song-and-dance man, the world’s greatest (even slightly camp) choreographer. But Scheider is simply sublime in this role. It’s a towering, landmark performance of total commitment. He’s achingly human, supremely sad but also overflowing with warmth, humanity and humour while also being repeatedly selfish, difficult and demanding. It’s a performance of total absorption.

By time of the finale number (a truly bizarre version of Bye Bye Love, renamed Bye Bye Life, in which Gideon lives his final moments in a fantasy world, singing and dancing his way towards death in front of an audience of faces from past and present) the whole thing is so wonderfully overblown it doesn’t really matter. The film’s passage into the surreal and fantasy as Gideon gets increasingly ill (while showing less and less regard for his own health) will be a bit much for some, but I was honestly so into it that I didn’t care.

Because the film is about this acute piece of self-analysis from the director, a Fellini-inspired sort of musical 8½, in which the understanding (or lack thereof) we get of Gideon, and which he gains about himself, is most important. His conversations with Lange’s angel of death are intriguing and as informative about the man he really is as the man he wants to be.

Fosse’s film is simply supremely well directed (Kubrick called it one of the best films he ever saw). Fosse’s editor (playing himself in the film as the editor of The Stand-Up) said if Fosse had actually died during the making of the film, he would have made sure his death was filmed and edited into the movie. I can believe it. The only musical you’ll ever see which doubles as a confession and a condemnation, which turns death and surgical procedures into wham bam musical numbers, and which never becomes maudlin or sentimental about the self-inflicted disaster the director is putting on himself – it’s brilliant.

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

The most beloved of all musicals gives you a burst of pure enjoyment no matter when it plays

Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

Cast: Gene Kelly (Don Lockwood), Debbie Reynolds (Kathy Selden), Donald O’Connor (Cosmo Brown), Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont), Millard Mitchell (RF Simpson), Cyd Charisse (Woman in the green dress), Douglas Fawley (Roscoe Dexter), Rita Moreno (Zelda Zanders)

Is there a more loved musical than Singin’ in the Rain? Is there a more famous musical from Hollywood’s golden age? That second point is particularly interesting, as this was possibly the last of the big Hollywood song-and-dance films – most of the rest that followed were film versions of Broadway hits. Singin’ in the Rain also has that “late discovery” quality: inexplicably not nominated for Best Picture (or hardly any other Oscars), it was for many years considered a second tier musical behind works like An American in Paris. Now it stands tall over the lot of them.

Singin’ is a film assembled from a collection of songs MGM held the rights to. The songs were given to Kelly, Donen and the screenwriters with the instruction to “come up with a movie”. What they came up with was this delightful film-about-films. Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) are the biggest stars of the silent screen in Hollywood, whose careers are in trouble overnight when sound is introduced. He can’t really act and she has a voice like nails on a blackboard. But Lockwood can sing and dance – so why not make their latest film a musical? Especially since the talented Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), who Lockwood has fallen in love with, can sing and act and can dub Lina’s voice. What could go wrong?

There are few more purely enjoyable films than Singin’ in the Rain. Nearly every scene has a moment designed to make you burst out in a smile, be it a cracking line of dialogue, a piece of prodigious dancing skill or the simple warmth and joy of the leading actors. Every second something delightful seems to happen. The entire film is an explosion of gleeful joy in the sheer exuberance of singing and dancing. Kelly’s choreography brilliantly uses everyday props and pieces of furniture to give the numbers an exciting everyday charm. It gives the songs an immediate “gotta dance” energy. How could you not like it?

Threading these songs around a structure of Hollywood taking on sound for the first time was a brilliant idea. The recreation of the acting styles and technology of Hollywood is brilliant. Lockwood is a hopelessly stagy actor, hideously artificial in his gestures, while poor old Lina Lamont is horrendously wooden with an awful voice, and a complete lack of any talent. Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont is in many ways the butt – but she’s so demanding, bullying and selfish we don’t mind that most of the jokes are on her.

The shift towards sound in Hollywood is actually interesting as well as hilarious. Where do we place the mikes? How should the actors get used to speaking into a mike? How do we cancel out the background sound? What do we do with loud props? One of the highlights is the screening of this film-within-a-film to an audience for the first time. All the terribleness Lockwood and Lamont gets revealed. In a particularly genius moment, the sound of the picture gets out sync with the picture, with the voices seeming to come out of the young actors’ mouths to hilarious effect.

Alongside this we get some of the finest song-and-dance routines in the history of the movies. Donald O’Connor is electric as Cosmo and his dance routine for “Make ‘em Laugh” is an astounding early pace-setter in the film: how does he do what he does here? O’Connor goes bouncing off walls, swirling in circles on the floor, springing from place to place without a single pause for breath. Most of this number (like many of the others) is done in one take with electric pace. And that’s the film just warming up.

Debbie Reynolds famously described doing Singin’ as being (along with childbirth) one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her life. You can see that in ‘Good Morning’, another electric three-way number with herself, Kelly and O’Connor – she is pounding the floor to keep up with these two masters (and does a brilliant job). She was pushed to the extremes by Kelly who privately considered her a not quite strong enough dancer. Kelly dropped her from Broadway Ballet Medley, a complex ballet-heavy (as per all Kelly films from On the Town onwards – a sequence that I must confess I find a little dull). She’s still excellent – charming, sprightly, light, glorious fun – but it did mean Kelly re-worked the main number to showcase just himself.

Ah yes. ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. This sequence of the film is probably wedged in everyone’s mind. Even if they’ve never seen the film, people are familiar with Gene Kelly, soaked to the skin, dancing through puddles and swinging around lampposts. Kelly is of course marvellous in this sequence (hard to believe he was apparently suffering from the flu at the time) and the number has complete charm to it – that carefree vibrancy of realising you are falling in love. Especially as Lockwood’s ego is finally being put to one side in order to celebrate feelings he’s having for another person. But the whole scene is just sheer cinematic magic. And for something so famous, you never get tired of it.

But then Kelly has pure star-quality here. Lockwood is a charming, handsome and smooth film star – but the film is happy to puncture his pomposity, or demonstrate in its opening sequence the self-aggrandising version of his early career (“Always dignity!”) with the reality of faintly embarrassing and dignity-free stage and stuntman work. Kelly is so charming you don’t mind that the film gives him an easy ride, considering Lockwood is actually quite selfish.

Singin’ in the Rain is pretty close to perfect. Even though I find some of the ballet stuff a little boring myself, it’s still filmed and shot with skill. It’s a pet discussion between film experts to ask how much of the film was directed by Kelly and how much of it was done by Donen. I guess it doesn’t really matter except to cinephiles, as the film is just beautifully directed: light, frothy, fun and with real technical expertise – the slow crane shot at the end of the famous number is justly famous. The pace is spot on, and the film is hilarious. Its understanding of filmmaking really pays off in the sequences that chronicle early film making.

So why did this film not get recognised at the time? Well to be honest, there were probably too many movies like this out at the time. It was a lot easier to miss in the crush of mega-MGM movies. It followed on the coat-tails of An American in Paris which had worn a huge number of Oscars (and was pushed back into cinemas in place of Singin’ in the Rain). Singin’ was still a big hit – but it perhaps needed film-fans to embrace it because it so perfectly married a love of Hollywood with the technicolour delight of 1950s musicals. Either way, Singin’ in the Rain is a delightful masterpiece which is guaranteed to pop a smile on your face. No matter the weather.