Singing in the Rain

The film Singing in the Rain, produced in 1952, belongs to the genre of musicals and features the twenties years of the twentieth century. The action takes place in Hollywood, the heart of film making, and portrays the life of film stars. The main characters of the film, Don, Lina, Kathy and Cosmo, are all involved into the cinema industry, but while Kathy and Cosmo are initially on the second place, Don and Lina are famous actors, whose popularity appeared to be under threat in the period of transfer from silent films to talking ones.

The film depicts very stereotypical characters for the Hollywood of 1920s. These are actors and actresses, admired and intently watched by thousands of people. They all have created certain images and life stories to conquer a wider audience. This peculiarity of presenting their life is mocked in the very beginning of the film as the stars of that time walk on the red carpet. Overall, the show business of that time is shown as an industry, aiming to meet the interests of the viewers as much as possible, creating a bright and attractive picture of the idols of millions of people.

The effect of brightness and colourfulness of the film is achieved by the variety of costumes in the film. On the one hand, it is obvious that a film showing the everyday life of actors, starring in different motion picture, will inevitably have a lot of different costumes. However, the abundance of costumes in Singing in the Rain distinguishes this film from any other similar one. Due to the spectacular outfits of the actors, the viewers get absolutely charmed by the magical world of the cinema and feel the luxury of such way of life.

The costumes of the film are stylized to the clothes of the twenties, however, along with the style of those years, they have the colour and brightness of the fifties, when the film was actually shot. The designer uses a range of different fabrics and colours not only to make the film more real and to achieve the utmost believability, but also to show the difference between the status of the characters. Although the outfits of all the characters change, depending on the film, which is shown within Singing in the Rain, it still can be noticed that the designers chose more chic and sophisticated clothes for Lina and Don, while Kathy’s dresses were simpler, though not less beautiful.

Personally, I was sympathising the story of love of Don and Kathy and found the humour of the film very apt and engaging. Moreover, due to the beauty of the picture on the screen, largely because of the vividness of costumes and a lot of music and songs, the film easily gets the viewer involved into the plot, while the play of the actors makes us emotionally react to the development of events in the film.