Let’s Sing in the Rain: Gene Kelly was 39 for this iconic scene

A Song in the Rain is a Hollywood musical masterpiece and among the classics. But did you know that filming of his famous rainy scene began A song in the rain Was it too hard for Gene Kelly?

On the day of filming the scene of the dance in the rain, Kelly was exhausted. The shoot is very demanding and he has a fever of 39.5. An anecdote corroborated by his wife, Patricia Ward Kelly Radio Times In 2016 (M Collider):

You have to remember that he is the director, choreographer and star of the film, so it is difficult for someone with these responsibilities to rest… People can get sick, but we can move around them, or shoot other scenes. But Gene was a movie.

This sequence was also made more difficult because it was shot in a real neighborhood. Homeowners turned on the water jets in their garden and there was not enough pressure left to “watch it rain”. So the camera crew returned the next morning, early enough to allow all the pressure to be applied.

Patricia Ward Kelly continues:

Everything was covered with a black tarpaulin, in the daylight he would come out of the tarpaulin and lay in the sun to escape the heat, then he would go back under the tarpaulin and start again… they shot him. number in a day and a half.

An ordeal for the actress, who spent hours washing while running a fever that could have forced her into bed. Under the guidance of his co-director Stanley Donen, Kelly will give his best to the scene that will go down in the annals of cinema.

“If I didn’t smile enough, he yelled at me”: For this actor, filming was painful for a different reason

Contrary to what one might believe, the song A song in the rain Created by Arthur Freddie and Nasio Herb Brown, not for film, but for a Broadway revue in 1929, it was first performed by Doris Eaton Travis.

He was then heard in many films, including The Most Lovely Man and Little Nellie Kelly with Judy Garland. The song is credited as an inspiration for the writers of Singin’ in the Rain.

In any case, it’s this version—and the Gene Kelly dance number that accompanies it—that earned it the 3rd Best Motion Picture Song of 2006 from the American Film Institute.