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- For the "Make 'em Laugh" number, Gene Kelly asked Donald O'Connor to revive a trick he had done as a young dancer: running up a wall and completing a somersault.
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"Make 'Em Laugh" is performed by Donald O'Connor in the classic Singin' In The Rain. Although Gene Kelly was the star of this film, O'Connor was an incredibly gifted performer and arguably as good a dancer as Kelly.
May 4, 2024 · In the film, “Make ’Em Laugh” was showcased as a comedic interlude, a moment to let audiences catch their breath from the plot-heavy romance that dominated most of the movie. Don Lockwood, played by Gene Kelly, sings the song in a bid to cheer up his friend Cosmo Brown, played by Donald O’Connor.
Songwriter (s) Nacio Herb Brown. Arthur Freed. " Make 'Em Laugh " is a song first featured in the 1952 MGM musical film Singin' in the Rain, performed by Donald O'Connor as the character Cosmo Brown. Written by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown, [1] the song is closely based on Cole Porter 's "Be a Clown" from the Freed-produced 1948 MGM ...
- It Wasn't Adapted from A Broadway Musical.
- Debbie Reynolds Had No Dance Experience Before She Made The Movie.
- Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor Had Never Worked Together before.
- Yes, Kelly Had A Fever When He Filmed The "Singin' in The Rain" number.
- The Last Shot of The "Good Morning" Number Took 40 takes.
- Cyd Charisse Owed Her Role in The Film to Debbie Reynolds's Lack of experience.
- There May Have Been Some Censorship in The Ballet number.
- Donald O'Connor Really Should Have Died Filming "Make 'Em laugh."
- The Film Was A Bit of A Letdown After An American in Paris.
Many movie musicals of the 1930s, '40s and '50s were based on stage shows, but this wasn’t one of them. Rather, it was a new script, written just for the movie, featuring old songs written for previous movies. Some 30 years later, after the film had become a beloved classic, it was reverse-engineered into a stage musical, premiering in London’s Wes...
She pointed this out when she was asked to be in Singin’ in the Rain, but Kelly said he could teach her, just as he’d done with Frank Sinatra for Anchors Aweigh. Reynolds had been a gymnast, so she wasn’t completely unfamiliar with physical movement requiring grace and stamina. Ever the trouper, she buckled down and rehearsed day and night until sh...
O’Connor, born into a vaudeville family in 1925, had been onstage since infancy and in movies since he was 12. He had 36 film credits, mostly musicals and Francis the Talking Mule pictures, under his belt when he got the Singin’ in the Rain gig. Kelly was 13 years older and came to Hollywood a bit later than O’Connor, yet still racked up 18 films b...
Contrary to legend, it wasn’t shot all in one take—or even all in one day. It lasted a couple of days, and on at least one of them, Kelly was sick with a feverof anywhere from 101 to 103 degrees, depending on who’s telling the story.
It’s the part where the three of them somersault over one couch and then tip another one over backwards before collapsing on it and laughing. Kelly was a demanding choreographer and director, and you’ll notice that most of the dancing in the film is presented without a lot of editing. The camera moves around, but it doesn’t cut to other angles very...
Charisse is only onscreen for a few minutes, in the aforementioned “Broadway Melody” dream ballet sequence. The role would logically have gone to Reynolds, but she simply didn’t have the dancing chops to pull it off. Leslie Caron, who’d danced with Kelly in An American in Paris, wasn’t available. So the job went to Cyd Charisse, an acclaimed dancer...
Watch as Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse are dancing at the 1:22:03 mark in the film, and you’ll see a jump cut. The camera doesn’t move, but something’s clearly been snipped. The unconfirmed but probably true explanation is that censors deemed a portion of the dance too suggestive. (They’d warned Kelly beforehand not to choreograph Charisse wrapping h...
And not just because you could legitimately break your neck doing those run-up-the-wall flips (although that, too). The physical exertion required for the scene would have been demanding for anyone ... and O’Connor, by his own admission, was smoking four packs of cigarettes a day. And after the entire sequence had been shot? He had to do it all ove...
An American in Paris—also starring Gene Kelly; also built around a particular songwriter’s work; also featuring a large-scale dream ballet sequence—was released in November of 1951. It was a hit, eventually winning six Oscars, including Best Picture. Three weeks after the Oscar ceremony, Singin’ in the Rain came out. It did well enough with audienc...
Sep 29, 2003 · O’Connor was born into a vaudeville family of former circus performers, and young Donald became a salaried member of the family’s act when he was just 13 months old. “The first thing I did ...
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Sep 2, 2014 · Read Part I here. Gene Kelly knew what he was doing when he hand-picked Donald O’Connor as his right-hand man in Singin’ In the Rain. His own ballet training was perfectly complemented by O ...
Oct 28, 2020 · Musician Cosmo Brown (Gene Kelly) in this film is the best friends of lead actor Don Lockwood (Donald O’Connor). After Don’s encounter with Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) who told him that he is “just a shadow” as a silent film star, Cosmo attempts to cheer him up and performed his solo the “Make ‘em Laugh” sequence.
