While reeling from the Kennedy killing Betty witnesses the on-camera murder of Harvey Lee Oswald and now, she is onthe verge.
Frantic, she turns to Don hoping some one can make sense of what she just saw or at least share in her despair. No use, Don seems unfazed. He and can only offer her some vague stoicism. Betty’s out the door! She drives to see her boyfriend, the Snug Like a Daddy’s hug Harry Francis. He can’t make sense of it either. Betty says doesn’t know what to do. Maybe see a movie? She tells Francis her favorite movie is ‘Singing in the Rain’
Oh, Betty! What’s there not to love about ‘Singing the Rain’? While Don’s at the art house taking in those mopey black and whites, there’s Betty watching Gene Kelly splash around on MGM lot. I love it!
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. Look at him. He was a different kind of leading man/dancer than Fred Astaire. Kelly was more adventurous and athethetlic; Brawnier, even. As David film Oracle Thomson put it, ‘As a dancer he is not equal of Astaire. Kelly is balletic, Romantic, and sometimes mannered as a dancer who thinks and feels, where Astaire is a man who dances before he thinks.”
But like all great men, there’s a darkness to Kelly. For me, and for Thomson there is a creeping chill Kelly’s performances (perhaps that’s why he was less successful as a straight leading man). There’s a nascent aggression Kelly that gets blown up on the screen. You can also hear it in his singing voice which was always just a bit strained.
Thomspson wrote of it: “Too often, Kelly’s teeth glared out at us, as the filling for a smile.’
The title song, and the best number in the movie, is set at night; Kelly is alone, for the most part, doing what you would expect. He is impervious to the elements because of his cheerful mood. Beyond the intricacy of the dance, perhaps one of the reasons why that scene is so indelible is because it’s what so many Americans, like Betty, wanted from the movies: a quick respite from the hard rain falling outside, alone, in the dark.
