Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont (Gene Kelly and Jean Sagan) are the Hollywood power couple of their day. Audiences flock in their droves to see the latest Lockwood and Lamont pictures, back in the era of silent film making. However, with the introduction of new-fangled “Talkies” just around the corner, Lisa’s ever-growing ego and Don’s patience wearing thin, could their future be in danger of spinning off the reels?

Singin’ in the Rain will be my last solo review of 2014. At the start of the year, and up until just a few days ago, I’d regarded it as my most heinous movie blind spot (I even called it that on Bubbawheat’s FilmWhys podcast) and as such it was at the top of my Most Anticipated from the 1001 List as a film I felt I really should see, and soon. I even saved it until the end of the year to increase the anticipation to almost unbearable levels. As it stands, even with all that pressure heaped upon it, and after a viewing that, for various reasons, had to be split in two, I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

That’s not to say it’s perfect, it definitely has a few flaws, so I’ll get those out of the way first. I’ll make an effort to dance around spoilers (I’d assumed I was the last film fan to see this, but I recently discovered at least a couple more who still have it in their futures), especially seeing as I knew practically nothing about this movie going in. Avoiding spoilers may be tricky, however, as my main issue with the film was the ending. I don’t mean how it ended story-wise – that was entirely as expected, was very satisfying and enjoyable. No, I wasn’t a fan of the dreary, soppy-eyed closing number that spoiled the ending, which would have been better suited to, in my opinion, fading straight from an embrace to the billboard, skipping the song entirely.

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