March 27, 1952: "Singin' in the Rain" Premieres

Left to right: Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly

March 27, 1952: Singin' in the Rain premieres, co-directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. Kelly also starred, and, as -- along with Fred Astaire -- Hollywood's premiere male dancer, choreographed it as well. It became one of the most beloved film musicals.

Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor, another top film dancer) started out as a duel vaudeville act. By 1927, silent movies are more popular than ever, Cosmo is a piano player for them, and Don is a big acting star, for Monumental Pictures, run by R.F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell). He is often paired with Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), and their film studio suggests that they're in love. Lina is, but Don isn't: He falls for a minor actress named Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds).

The Jazz Singer, the 1st feature-length motion picture with a synchronized recorded music score, and the 1st feature-length motion picture with lip-synchronous speech and singing, premieres, and the film industry is shaken up. Simpson had given the green light to The Dueling Cavalier, a swashbuckler starring Don and Lina. Now, rather than let his studio be left in the dust, he decides to make it his 1st "talkie."

The results are disastrous: No one, including Don's usual director, Roscoe Dexter (Douglas Fowley), is familiar with the equipment, the audio goes out of sync, and, worst of all, Lina has a high-pitched voice and a New York accent. The Dueling Cavalier's preview screening is a failure.

Don, Kathy and Cosmo come up with ideas to save the film: Turn it into a musical, The Dancing Cavalier; add a modern framing device, which becomes the "Broadway Melody" segment (with Cyd Charisse, the top female dancer in movies at the time); and dubbing Kathy's voice over Lina's. Simpson approves it all, on the condition that nobody tells Lina.

Things are going great in Don's life, and so he walks out into the rain, singing the title song, dancing with his umbrella, a lamppost, and brownstone steps. Adolph Green and Betty Comden wrote the songs for the film, except for the title song, which is a slight anachronism: It was written in 1929, with lyrics by Arthur Freed (who also produced the film, and could thus use his own song) and music by Nacio Herb Brown. Cliff Edwards sang it in the film The Hollywood Revue of 1929 -- in real life, one of the earliest all-talking-all-singing pictures -- but from 1952 onward, it's been impossible to imagine anyone but Kelly singing the song.

Lina finds out, and threatens to sue Simpson unless he makes sure no one ever hears of Kathy, and that she keeps dubbing Lina for the rest of her career. R. F. reluctantly agrees, because of a clause in Lina's contract which holds the studio responsible for positive media coverage.

The premiere of The Dancing Cavalier is a success. When the audience clamors for Lina to sing live, Don, Cosmo, and R. F. tell her to lip sync (as would be said now) into a microphone while Kathy, concealed behind the curtain, sings into a second one. While Lina is "singing," Don, Cosmo and R. F. open the curtain, revealing the ruse. The defeated Lina flees in humiliation. A distressed Kathy tries to run away as well, but Don proudly announces to the audience that she is "the real star" of the film. Later, Kathy and Don kiss in front of a billboard for their new film, Singin' in the Rain.

Ironically, Debbie Reynolds' singing was dubbed for the film, by Betty Noyes. In another irony, Hagen was the only actor nominated for an Academy Award for the film, for Best Supporting Actress. The film's only other nomination went to Lennie Hayton, for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. Neither won.

And yet, it's one of the most beloved movies, not just musicals, ever. Part of the appeal is that it is Hollywood skewering itself, satirizing itself, showing that, unusually, it knows how to not take itself too seriously. The film has stood the test of time: It has a 100 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 99 rating on Metacritic.

Millard Mitchell died in 1953, only a year and a half after the film's premiere. He was only 50, but had lung cancer, and already looked considerably older in the film. Nacio Herb Brown died in 1964, Lennie Hayton in 1971, Arthur Freed in 1973, Jean Hagen in 1977, Betty Noyes in 1987, Gene Kelly in 1996, Douglas Fowley in 1998, Adolph Green in 2002, Donald O'Connor in 2003, Betty Comden in 2006, Cyd Charisse in 2008, Debbie Reynolds in 2016, and Stanley Donen in 2019. As of March 27, 2022, there is one credited actor from the film still alive: Rita Moreno, who played Zelda Zanders, the "Zip Girl."

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March 27, 1952 was a Thursday. French actress Maria Schneider was born.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA Playoffs were underway, but no games were played that day.

Two games were played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 1-0 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 4-0 at the Montreal Forum. The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks failed to qualify.