In 1927, two silent film stars Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont attend the premiere of their latest movie, The Royal Rascal. In addition, Don gives a backstory about his life as a performer—especially with his friend, Cosmo.

Although Don and Lina are together, Don is barely accepting of her. Yet Lina loves him a lot.

After the premiere, Don escapes a paparazzi and accidentally gets into a car driven by actress Kathy Selden. Their meeting doesn’t go too well.

Later Don goes to an afterparty, where he finds out about the idea of a talking picture—meaning a movie where one can hear the actors speak. Then some ladies jump out of a cake and sing the song, “All I Do is Dream of You.” And Kathy is among them. But then a fight breaks out.  

A few weeks later, Don finds out that Kathy was fired thanks to Lina. Yet she is working as an extra in another movie. Don also learns that he has strong feelings for her.

Sometime later, this talkie, The Jazz Singer becomes a big hit. Because of that, the film that Don and Lina are starring in, The Dueling Cavalier, will also become a talkie.

However, Lina’s high voice is unappealing to many. Even worse, the new sound recording has issues at times.

But that night Kathy comes up with a plan. Not only should The Dueling Cavalier be a musical, but Kathy could also dub over Lina’s mouth movements. Don strongly supports that idea.

So far, Kathy’s voice replacing Lina’s satisfies audiences way more. But what will that mean for Lina?

I will admit that the first half of this movie was less engaging for me. One reason was because there was too much setup in Don’s backstory at the beginning. I think it could have been reduced to about half that time.

I also found it odd that the first several minutes went without any songs. I was questioning if this was really a musical, even though I’ve seen it before.

On the bright side, the second half became more exciting. There were a lot of fun musical numbers, including the iconic “Singin’ in the Rain.” I also admired how the movie opened with Don, Kathy, and Cosmo, singing part of that song while holding umbrellas and wearing raincoats. This was during the opening credits.

The dancing moments were also fun. In addition, I learned about historical differences from today. A big one was how a celebrity would try to get an agent by knocking on their doors. That was probably because there were no computers or Internet. Telephones existed, though.

I also liked learning about the transition from silent films to talkies. Although I already knew this, silent films would have the character’s words appear on the screen after their unheard lines were spoken. And people were against talkies for a while. A big reason was the technical limitations at the time. Because of that, the dialogue sounds were often awkward.

Anyway, I thought Singin’ in the Rain was decent. The strengths were just a little greater than the weaknesses.

I give this movie 3.5 out of 5 stars.