February 2, 1999

Announcements:  The first exam is Tuesday, Feb. 9.  There is a review session Feb. 5 from 1 - 2:30 and on Feb. 8 from 7-    8:30.  They are both in 113 Carnegie.  Dr. Jordan handed out the review sheets.  They contain 95% of what we need to know for the exam.

Lecture Notes:

I.  Silent Vs. Talking Pictures

• Talking pictures distinguished the real from the phony stars
• The rise of sound depended on a different, more subtle style of acting than in silent movies

II.  Real/Phony:  Gene Kelly

• In real life, he was a perfectionist, rehearsing dances all of the time
• In movies, he was portrayed as spontaneous, easy going, always bursting into song and dance
• Gene Kelly, the actor, effortlessly slips into the role of Gene Kelly, the star

• The movie compared the actor's studio biography with their real life background
• Gene Kelly plays Don Lockwood, who is a naturally talented singer, dancer, actor
• Lockwood is compared to Lina Lamont (Debbie Reynolds), who has no musical or acting ability
• The movie humanizes the complex way of making movies

• Kelly plays Jerry Mulligan, an American artist living in Paris
• Clip:  He wakes up and erases a charcoal self portrait of himself and goes off singing and dancing with the children in the neighborhood
• He looks serious in the painting, which is how he is in real life

• actor
• star
• person
• Actors can be associated with certain parts
• Some actors are typecast, whereas others evolve

III.  Stars Who Evolve:  Jimmy Stewart

• He was an oddity among leading men of the early '30s -- awkward, gangly
• His roles reflected his real personality in the '30s, as an easygoing, small-town hero kind of guy

• Stewart is a small town idealist who is elected as U. S. Senator
• People in Washington basically play him for a fool
• He stands up for the little guy and gets a bill passed to build a boy scouts camp in his hometown

• After Stewart went through World War II, he evolved to play more mature, masculine roles
• He plays a well traveled photographer who is confined indoors due to a broken leg
• He looks into other people's lives through the window and becomes a peeping tom's hero
• This is a more dark, disturbed role

MOVIE:  SINGIN IN THE RAIN

    Gene Kelly............................................Don Lockwood
    Donald O'Connor....................................Cosmo Brown
    Debbie Reynolds........................................Lina Lamont
 

    At the movie premiere for The Royal Rascal, a talking picture, the crowd is awaiting the arrival of the two stars, Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont.  Don and Lina are not very happily dating at this time.  When they get there, Don tells the crowd is his motto:  "dignity, always dignity."  He tells the crowd the story of his rise to fame.  He grew up dancing and performing.  He met Cosmo Brown in school and they became a performing pair.  They went to California and found Monumental Pictures, where Don began his acting career and met Lina.

    After the movie, Lina throws a fit because she never gets to talk to the media.  Her voice is awful and squeaky!  On the way to the post party, Don and Cosmo get a flat tire.  When they get out of the car, Don is swamped by fans.  He jumps into a woman's car to get away and she freaks out until she realizes who it is.  Her name is Kathy Seldon.  Don starts to put the moves on her, but she starts telling him that she's not impressed by his work, and that she's a stage actress.

    At the post party, they show a talking picture.  The people there had never seen one before and they didn't think it would amount to anything.  When they bring out the cake, a woman jumps out of it.  It happens to be Kathy.  Don starts making fun of her, so she goes to pie him and misses, hitting Lina in the face.

    Three weeks later, Don can't get Kathy off of his mind.  On the set of their movie, The Dueling Cavalier, Lina tells Don she had arranged to have Kathy fired.  Then, R. F. Simpson, president of the studio, says he is shutting down production of the movie.  The Jazz Singer, a talking picture, had become a hit and audiences were demanding more movies like it.  They need to make The Dueling Cavalier a talking picture.  Don is put in charge of the music.

    Mr. Simpson approaches Kathy about being cast in the movie.  When she sees Don she tries to object.  Don and Kathy go for a walk and he takes her onto an empty stage.  He turns on the lights, background, etc. to create a setting of a garden at moonlight.  He bursts into song and serenades her.

    Lina and Don are taking speaking lessons for the movie.  Lina is horrible, but Don is very good.  Lina doesn't catch on to the talking picture idea.  She can never remember to talk into the microphone.  When the movie has it's premiere, it is an absolute disaster.  The sound is awful and the audience hates it.

    Don thinks his career is ruined.  Kathy and Cosmo reassure him and encourage him to turn The Dueling Cavalier into a musical.  They realize that Lina can't dance, sing, or act, though.  So Cosmo comes up with the idea of Kathy singing for Lina.  By this point, Kathy and Don are definitely an item.  The three take their idea to Mr.  Simpson and he loves it.  They come up with a new title, The Dancing Cavalier.  They add a modern dance scene to the movie.  Lina is not supposed to know that Kathy is doing the voice-over.

    Don decides he wants to let the public know about his love for Kathy.  Lina sees them kissing and freaks out.  Then she finds out that Kathy is going to get credit for her singing, which Lina is not to happy about.  So she goes on her own and tells the press that she is singing in the movie.  Lina tells Mr. Simpson that she'll sue him if they tell the papers the truth.  But Lina wants Kathy to keep singing for her for the next five years of her contract.

    The movie is an absolute hit.  Lina stupidly decides to make the speech after the movie and the audience demands her to sing.  She runs off stage.  Kathy has to go behind the curtain and sing "Singin in the Rain" while Lina lip synchs it for the audience.  In the middle of the song, Mr. Simpson, Don, and Cosmo raise the curtain and Kathy runs off the stage.  Before she can leave the theater, Don tells the audience that she is the real star.  He sings to her and she comes back.

    In the final scene, Kathy and Don are kissing in front of a billboard for their movie, Singin in the Rain.