THE SETS

The set used for the unforgettable "Singin' in the Rain" number was a street on the MGM back-lot which was completely covered by a black tarpaulin in order to give the impression of night.  The studio did not want to pay its crew double time by actually shooting at night; as Gene and co-director Stanley Donen preferred not to under-expose the scene, thereby shooting day for night (they also needed more space than the average interior studio provided), the only solution was to devise an exterior daytime set that excluded sunlight.  So, using almost as much tarpaulin as ingenuity, the set on the back lot was finally prepared.

Next came the problem of fixing special rain pipes along the length and breadth of the street, and after that there was the further problem of lighting the set.  As Technicolor film stock still required a great deal of light, the giant arc lamps made in impossible for the rain to be seen when lit full on, so Harold Rosson, the cameraman, had to light it from behind.  However, once all these technical problems were solved, the number itself went smoothly and was completed in one and a half days.

The Monumental Pictures gate was a redressing of an old back lot set at MGM.

Don Lockwood's house and furnishings are pieces from the 1927 picture Flesh and the Devil, starring John Gilbert.

COSTUMES AND PROPS

Costumer Walter Plunkett verified the accuracy of the "hidden microphone" scene and noted that the early microphones would indeed have picked up sounds like Lina Lamont's tinkling necklace.  He also reported that he had to be careful in costuming early talkies because of the sensitive mikes.  Bugle beads, he recalled, "clanked like chain mail," and had to be covered with fine mesh to restrict their movement and muffle the noise.

On the first day of shooting The Dueling Cavalier, Don Lockwood steps out of a portable dressing room that once belonged to Norma Shearer.  He meets Lina Lamont, who is wearing Shearer's costume from Marie Antoinette (1938) as well as her wig, which weighs a ton.

Kathy drives a jalopy that once tooled through the small mid-American town of Carvel, with a young character named Andy Hardy at the wheel.

OUTTAKES AND EDITS

Two numbers were removed from the final print.  In one, Debbie sang "You Are My Lucky Star" to a billboard image of Don Lockwood.  This cut song originally took place after Don serenaded Kathy in the sound stage.  Kathy then runs across the studio lot, where she spies a billboard of Monumental Pictures' top two stars, Lockwood and Lamont, and sings to the giant image of her new love.  The song was eventually reduced to one verse at the very end of the film.  The second outtake was a reprise of "All I Do Is Dream of You", which had Gene dancing around his bedroom on the night he first meets Kathy Selden.  Of all the numbers Gene forfeited to the cutting room floor, this one pained him the most, for he regarded it as one of the best he had ever done.  But it slowed down the narrative, and for the good of the show had to be abandoned.

The footage used in the opening effects shot (and in the shot of the later premiere of The Dancing Cavalier) is actually from the final sequence of David O. Selznick's A Star is Born (1937).  This Technicolor footage is of an actual Hollywood premiere, that of Garden of Allah (1936).  Note the automobiles and you'll see it's definitely not 1927.  The theatre interior was replicated for the film on a soundstage at MGM in Culver City, fifteen miles away from the real location.

Certain scenes from the Lockwood and Lamont premiere of The Royal Rascal are actually clips from an earlier Kelly picture, The Three Musketeers (1948).  During The Royal Rascal, Kelly is attacked by a guard with a spear, which lodges in a door.  The door opens and briefly reveals Lana Turner, the devious leading lady in Musketeers.  A quick cut later and it's Jean Hagen in the same doorway.  The athletic fight scene are from the '48 swashbuckler; the final scene with Hagen was simply staged on the same back lot set as had been used in Musketeers.

Comden and Green had another ending in mind for Singin' in the Rain.  As millions of the picture's fans know, the movie ends with Don and Kathy in a simple embrace in front of the billboard for their film, Singin' in the Rain.

According to film historian Ron Haver, another Hollywood premiere was originally in store for the finale - presumably the premiere of Monumental Pictures' Singin' in the Rain, duplicating the premieres already seen in the film.  Don Lockwood would roll up with his new wife, Kathy Selden.  The next car would carry the head of Monumental's music department, Cosmo Brown, accompanied by his new wife, Lina Lamont!  If the original ending had been filmed, one of the great unanswered questions of cinema would be answered: "What happened to Lina Lamont?"  As it stands, the mortified star actually disappears from the stage of Grauman's Chinese Theatre between cuts.  After Cosmo assumes the "dubbing" duties from Kathy, Lina turns and moves to the right of the frame.  Then there is a cut to show Don rushing onstage from frame left, panning across the stage - but there's no Lina.  She apparently sprinted off stage in embarrassment.

THE CAST

Don Lockwood ... Gene's character was a composite of several matinee idols, but only where his public image in the picture was concerned.  For the rest he relied on his own personality entirely.  Certain historical incidents, however, were drawn upon for the Lockwood character.  Don's dislike of his florid dialogue and his replacement of it with the comic repetition of "I love you, I love you, I love you" are said to be based on an early John Gilbert talkie disaster, His Glorious Night (1929).  It is said that Gilbert's reportedly high-pitched voice (as heard upon playback) was death of his career, but that was probably not as difficult to take as the broad pantomime acting style and purple prose of the awkward early sound films.

Lina Lamont ... Jean Hagen's Lina is reportedly a mixture of Clara Bow, Norma Talmadge (both spoke with thick Brooklyn accents that belied their screen images), and foreign stars such as the heavily accented Pola Negri.

Kathy Selden ... Debbie's character of Kathy Selden was conceived as an ingénue June Allyson, 'full of saccharine'.  But according to Gene, Debbie's own naïveté took care of everything.  "She didn't know what the hell was going on half the time, which was just the right quality we wanted, and she was marvelous.  Just marvelous."

Dora Bailey ... MGM bosses were afraid of sending up Louella Parsons in the opening scene, for the character of Dora Bailey, played by Madge Blake, was obviously meant to be Louella who, at that stage, could do a lot of damage if something or someone offended her.  "I personally was never bothered by either Hedda or Louella," Gene said, "or any other gossip columnists around the place.  But one was never sure with those ladies, and we knew Singin' in the Rain, that we were all taking a chance.  Fortunately Louella adored it, and only said flattering things about us."

Roscoe Dexter ... The director in the Lina Lamont microphone scene was modeled on famed director Busby Berkeley, who liked to demonstrate everything in a most expansive manner.

R.F. Simpson ... The studio boss was inspired by MGM producer Arthur Freed, a rather clumsy man whom Judy Garland used to refer to as 'the tank'; and the scene in which he trips over the cables in the film studio and brings poor Jean Hagen crashing down onto the floor, was just the sort of thing Freed might have done.