*[after Cosmo gives a good idea]
R.F. Simpson: Cosmo, remind me to give you a raise.
[turns around]
Cosmo Brown: Oh, R.F.
R.F. Simpson: Yes?
Cosmo Brown: Give me a raise. *
I’m not sure I want to couch this as a competition but SITR is one of my favorite films and O’Connor is a joy to watch throughout. As the comic sidekick he often gets the best lines but he always delivers brilliantly.
(Also: Jean Hagen deserves a lot of love too - her comedic delivery remains electric even today. “What do they think I am? Dumb or something? Why, I make more money than - than - than Calvin Coolidge! Put together!”)
Didn’t she have a sprained ankle when filming the “Good Morning” sequence? I can’t imagine tap dancing with a painful ankle and smiling through it like that. What a trouper.
I agree entirely. The latter at least provides some minor character development in moving the love story along (plus the song comes back at the end) but the “Gotta Dance” piece really drags you out of the film. Mind you, it’s almost worth it to watch Cyd Charisse. Oh, those legs…
Even as a kid I found O’Connor to be mesmerizing, whether he was interacting with a cast like SITR or conversing with Francis the mule. He was always emoting, which is not always a good thing for an actor, but his roles required it, and he managed it without constantly upstaging fellow actors. His “Make 'em Laugh” routine was absolutely brilliant: the athletic ability to run up a wall and do a flip was preceded by a whole lot of pain in the failures to carry it off.
I agree with everything said in this thread, even the contradictions.
The most remarkable thing about this remarkable film is the timing. It was released in 1952. The song “Singing in the Rain” is from 1929. That’s 23 years. A *mere *23 years for any millennials in the house. That’s like making a film about 1993 today. The year that the creaky, laughable, idiotic special effects of Jurassic Park ruled the screen.
We talk a lot of hot air about the huge, swift changes we’re living through but that’s bull. Change happened a century ago at a much huger and swifter pace. Computers are the only modern comparison.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a great live version of “Make 'em Laugh” on Saturday Night Live, which I can’t find a good link to which would work for everyone but you might be able to find it for yourself.
Just offhand, wouldn’t the studio already have a music department? I thought silent movies were routinely bundled with sheet music, to be played live in the theater while the movie ran.
O’Connor fans, you really have to see him in Call Me Madam. He steals the movie out from under la Merm and George Sanders. O’Connor’s dances with Vera-Ellen are some of the loveliest sequences ever shot and he performs a hilarious drunken solo set in a biergarten that is almost the equal to “Make 'Em Laugh.”
That music was probably fairly unsophisticated (since it would have to be played by whatever piano player was available at the Roxy in Podunk), and not written to be well-synchronized with the action (for the same reason). Cosmo, on the other hand, could write for the best orchestra R. F. was willing to pay for, and compose so that the climax of the score comes right when Don punches out the Kaiser to win the war.
Actually, there were wide ranges of music composed for films. That ranged from the famed theater organs to full orchestral scores. Movies were the major form of entertainment in all big cities, with giant theaters up to 6000 seats. The image of a tinny piano as the accompaniment to silent films may have been true in Podunk. Or at least the smallest theater in Podunk. But that’s a small part of reality.