Shirley C won the Christmas CD giveaway--she chose Celine Dion!
Terri won the $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook.
Geri won the Lord Teach Me to Pray book.
Justine won the Baby Shower Giveaway.
All these gifts will be sent out this weekend so be watching for them. Actually, the CD might already be there because Amazon took care of that one. Now to what I will be writing about tonight. I don't know about you, but I get tired of watching the news. Of course, the elections are everywhere, and all we ever seem to hear is another speech from Presidcent Obama.
I decided to put something on to get my mind off of this world. I chose Singin' in the Rain (Two-Disc Special Edition)
. I can't remember how old I was when I first saw it. I know I was elementary age. Up to this point, the only musicals I had seen were "The Sound of Music" and "The Wizard of Oz." I had never seen a true Hollywood musical.We went down to the main branch of our library--downtown Tacoma. We had a VHS player, and it was always fun to check out movies from the library. But it was never fun to get the same ones over and over again from out library branch.
I remember picking this one up, and I really had only barely heard of Gene Kelly, but I didn't know who he was. Debbie Reynolds sounded familiar, but I couldn't place her. From the moment I began watching this film, it quickly became one of my favorite films. And so began my great infatuation with Hollywood musicals!
This film is so much fun. And it is so clean! The dancing is outstanding, and the music reminds me of a simpler time in our nation. This was the film that started me learning about various movie stars and learning Hollywood trivia that I still remember to this day. Debbie Reynolds could not dance when they hired her for this film. She was only 17, and she just had some basic concepts of dancing. Gene Kelly hated her in the beginning. He was an ultra perfectionist that generally upset the studio by insisting on doing most of his stunts. Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont, the dumb blonde) was truly a beautiful woman and a great actress who actually dubbed her own voice.
Okay, I'm sure some of you are not familiar with the film. It takes place in 1927, just as "talking pictures" were coming to Hollywood. Two of the top Hollywood actors--Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen)--are forced to make the switch to talking pictures with much difficulty. The object of Don's affections is Kathy Seldan (Debbie Reynolds), and she tries to save the film much to Lina's chagrin. Typical love triangle. Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor) is Don's best friend and adds a lot of humor to the movie. But it's not about the story. It's the music and the dancing. Kelly and O'Connor provide some of the best on-screen dancing ever seen in movies. Cyd Charisse does a segment with Gene Kelly that is absolutely breathtaking.
Why did I put this on Well-Spoken Wednesday? Well, the script of the film is simple but effective. Quite seriously, nothing seems out of place, and everything seems to fit. It's so nice to see guys that are not afriad to dance and sing! I can imagine what the students I teach would think of this film. Wouldn't they be surprised to learn that Gene Kelly was as straight as an arrow and all man!!
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