Word: singin
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...roots and how to tap them. As he announced at the conclusion of his belated, heroically defiant debut at the Grand Ole Opry in 1973: "Let me tell ya somethin' about Jerry Lee Lewis, ladies and gentlemen. I am a rock-'n'-rollin', country-and-Western, rhythm-'n'-blues-singin' mothafucker...
...SINGIN? AND DANCIN? GENE...
...with his shadow self ("Cover Girl") or with Jerry the cartoon mouse ("Anchors Aweigh"). Fred dances slo-mo in the foreground while the background dancers move in regular time ("Easter Parade") or up a wall and across the ceilings ("Royal Wedding"). And though the "Got-ta Dance" ballet in "Singin? in the Rain" is terrif, it?s not the number that lodged itself in film history like a diamond in a locket...
Comden, who wrote the fabulous script with her partner Green, says of the original project, "All we knew was there?d be some scene where someone?d be singin?, and it would be rainin?." They concocted a period piece, set way back at the coming of talking pictures, 24 years earlier. (That would be like doing a retro-musical today based on the songs and movies of 1978. Shall we have a disco version of "Smokey and the Bandit"?) Kelly, Reynolds, Donald O?Connor and Jean Hagen make for a wonderfully comic quartet. And the unsung star was Roger Edens...
...second wife, Jeanne Coyne, whom he?d known since Pittsburgh (and who had previously been married to Donen), died young of leukemia; he lost his knack and clout in Hollywood; and the genre he loved disappeared. So I?d like to think that achieving the nonchalant masterpiece of "Singin? in the Rain" - a greatness that, for once in his career, never revealed whatever agony went into it - gave Kelly immediate and sustaining joy. At one of the many tributes he received late in his life, he said of his life on the screen: "That?s what you do up there...